Should we have a fat tax?

should know. That's right. Yeah, that's the formula, the secret formula. Jeans on you, plaid shirt on me, nothing from the waist down on you. That's socks. Of course, it makes the whole thing so much more unsettling. I think. Still there's nothing. There's not much funnier than socks and shoes on with no pants. Yeah, it's just a homerson. It's always funny. He's nailed it, especially with his pointy little brown shoes. The big road Ton Pubic Mountain. Then he

has he's awesome. Umuck, it's been a long time, hasn't it. We we've been out of the office for two weeks. Just so people know we're getting back into things, and it's refreshing to do our to do something that we're good at. Ye, yeah, it is some saying. It gives me a sense of control. Um, I feel like we're good at this, Chuck. We know what we're doing, except for maybe the Union's one man. No. I mean it

was good. All the information was there, but like I I've it sounded like I've had a transorbital lobotomy, like just moments before we started, did you. We'll see, Um, this one is going to be a good one. My friend, remember the tipping episode. It's gonna make that look like poop. Um, we're talking today, Chuck. As I know you know about the possibility of a fat tax. That's right, and it's well, well we'll get to exactly what it is in a second, but um, let's talk about why you would even consider

taxing fat. It seems like, Chuck, there is an obesity epidemic in the United States, and not just the United States, but in the western world. We're not the only fatties, although we are typically the fattiest of the fatties. Uh yeah, oh yeah, well we're the best in everything by percentage. I think there are more obest people in the States than um elsewhere. Yes, but it is still a problem.

It's very prevalent everywhere. When you mean, I went to Japan, she was, she was like, everyone in Japan is so thin. Everyone is very thin, They're very small pieces. We went and I was like, you sure when the last time you were here? Um, So, yeah, it's it's everywhere. But they would probably say, like, we're just fat now because we're eating American foods. That is what they said, because you know what, they're probably right, dude, they're McDonald's makes

our McDonald's look again like poop. Like they have the this thing called the Mega muffin, and it's a an egg McMuffin with sausage and like extra egg and it's huge and it's probably the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life. I'll eat a sausage McMuffin with egg right now. And then, well, you can get an egg McMuffin with sausage here in the States if you know what to ask for. But it costs you like six bucks, but it's worth it, that's true. But anyway, yes, um,

the double egg interests me though. Yeah, No, it is true, Like it's six bucks easy. Yeah. Um, okay, So in the United States, let's throw out some statistics because this is where we live. And again, the United States is the greatest country in the world when it comes to obese people producing the obese um an. Obesity costs the US an estimated hundred and fifty billion dollars a year

UH in healthcare costs. That's a significant amount of meatballs. Yeah, of all medical costs of Medicare, costs are oh during the last year of life or due to obesity. This AT's significant. Yeah. I thought that was a weird statistic though, wasn't it. Yeah, I thought it was a lot um. That guy, that polster who you're quoting, he was definitely biased. It seemed like which I know, but I'm saying, like even still, he was like, here's this poll that we

just conducted, and here's how I feel about it, Mattie. Um, so we've got a lot of money being put into treating UH diseases that rise from UM obesity. A preventable disease. Well, yeah, obesity is considered a chronic disease, which is something that can be treated and prevented through behavior modification like shock therapy, which costs far less than treating heart disease. That's point one. Um,

let's see, the costs are expected to rise. And um, however you feel about Obamacare, take that off the table, put it on the table, take it off the table either way. Um, if we don't change the amount of money we're putting into care for um, obesity related diseases, those costs are gonna go up just because the sheer number of obese people are expected to rise. There's something

like sevent of Americans are either overweight or obese. Yeah, it is a lot, and it's I think more than a third of Americans are obese, and obese is a body mass index of thirty thirty ms per square meter, right, And then they're kind of refining that so it's not just weight anymore. It's the amount of fat you have on your body. And apparently there's a move toward refining that even further, which is how much fat do you have on your upper body? Which is the really unhealthy

stuff out of post? Right, I know I can't gain a pound below my waist. I think I'm like my dad. I carried all between my my chin and my waistline is there? Right? Oh? Yeah, I got skinny little legs. I don't get like the big butt that some guys get. You know, I've noticed since I've been running, my butt has gone up and out a little bit, and I guess that's what's supposed to be, but I don't like it. Man,

I'm self conscious about my bottom now. Um okay, so the uh the percentage of obast people in the US, chuck UM is supposed to go from about a third right at now to forty. That's just not overweight, that's obesie. That's creeping up to half the country. That's a lot. It's nice to have something to shoot for. So there's a lot of UM as a nation. There's a lot of reasons that people would start talking king about instituting

a fat tax. And when we're talking about the fat text, we're talking about this concept that was first UM introduced by a Yale psychologist named Kelly D. Brown. Oh yeah, the twinkie tax. I hate. Did they throw twinkie on any everything? I always do anytime something has to do with junk food, they throw twink cancer like the twinkie defense. The word twinkie was never uttered during UM the trial. Yeah,

during the trial, it was all junk food. That was a Harvey Milk thing, right, Yeah, it was uh yeah, the Dan White trial it was no and he never mentioned twinkie, but that was the press. They just put Twinkie on anything they can't Uh yeah, he's he first coined it. And this was back in the New York Times, so it's not the newest idea to be floated. Um. And there there's some different ways that people have suggested that we go about this. He has a couple of proposals.

One is tax saying seven on unhealthy foods and then use that venue to subsidize healthy foods to make it cheaper, to make that cheaper less expensive. And the idea behind that is what that people just buy unhealthy food because it's cheaper because it traditionally is is that I wonder if we would find out if that's the case. I don't think that's the case. I don't know. I mean, I think people buy those foods because they want to

buy that junk and eat it. I guess it depends on what you're talking about though, Like if it's a TV dinner, you're looking for dinner and that's super cheap, right, So if you if they're healthier alternatives that are cheaper than that, then maybe they would go with a healthier alternative. But when you want an oreo, you want an oreo. But I bet you could get one of them. The little Healthy Choice meals for about the same as a TV dinner. It was about the same price. I wonder.

I wonder though, also if proportion has to do with it too. I think proportion control is a huge portion. Portion proportion. Well, when you're comparing a healthy Choice to a hungry man, it's proportion. But uh, and the other thing is too though. I mean the Healthy Choice meals and those those diet meals White Watchers meals. They are lower in um, I guess, like fats and calories and stuff like that, it's still be hard to argue that they're healthy. Any kind of like package processed food like

that is inherently it's not like super healthy. I guess you're right, but it's probably better than the hungry man. Well, it's like the whole thing with um high freak toast corn syrup like sugar. Refined sugar is a healthy comparison to it, you know, like um, that whole throwback thing that PEPSI did, right, Like that was supposed to be better for you, but they used just to refined sugar

instead of high fruit toast corn syrup. So I wonder if what you're saying then is that's along the same lines. I guess, well, yeah, and that presents one of the problems that we'll get to is how do you if you're gonna do something like this, where do you draw the line and how do you attack this? Is it

just sweets and fatty foods? Or you know, a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream is made with really healthy natural ingredients, but it's full of fat and calor eas whereas a healthy choice quote unquote is processed and loaded with preservatives, but it's lower in calorie, so it's hinky. You present a sticky conunder and how they're going to figure this out if it if it ever goes through um.

So that was the first proposal by Brown l Um basically seven percent tax used that the revenue to fund or subsidize healthier stuff, right, yeah, and they can actually I don't know how they did this, but Oxford University actually put a number of value on how many lives a year that could save um, and they claim that a seventeen point five percent value added tax um could save up to thirty lives a year. And I guess that's probably just in England. I'm imagining, right, I believe.

So there's like England's all over this as well. It's a U S and England. Well, Europe is kind of moving towards this. But yeah, the studies that we came across seem to be mostly British in origin. They love their studies every day they do. So that's one one proposal. Um, what's the second one? Well, the second one was less aggressive. It was basically just um tax a lesser amount onto

unhealthy food and then funnel that into public education. And brown else said that would probably be easier to get pushed through legislatively, but it would have less of an effect. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna do this, and I mean I don't even know if it's a good idea or not. I'd rather see cheaper healthy food than some stupid campaign, you know. Yeah, the whole awareness campaign. I have doubts

about the effectiveness of those things. Well, they have an obesity awareness campaign going on, and it's like they're using these poor fat kids as models, and it's like, what school do you go to? You have to be private tutored now because you're literally the poster child for obesity, you know. Um. So, you were saying that the Brits came up with the the the idea of doing a seventeen point five value added team point five percent value

added tacks. Right, value added taxes Basically like every time UM raw material comes into the manufacturing plant, there's a tax on that. UM. When the manufacturer finishes the final product, sends it to a exporter, there's a tax on that. Exporter gives it to a distributor, there's a tax on that. And ultimately all these taxes build up and are passed on to the consumer, right um. And then the savings

aren't passed on that the taxes to the extra payment. Um. So the these these Brits who studied that found that if you if you did that seventeen point five percent tax and you just did it on foods with saturated fat, that it could actually be counterproductive. They modeled it and they found that it would drive people to other foods and uh yeah like uh and and would have even more severe health consequences, right, um. And then what's more, here's a big problem too. Um. It would increase food

costs by about three two. So here's here's here's where we reach a really So if you're a liberal, right, and you're like, no, we need to we need to look out for people. These people don't understand the the the consequences of their eating habits, and their diet habits are passing me along to their children. We're all gonna die at age fifty. Um, So we need this kind

of tax. And somebody goes, uh, it's it's regressive, so it's unfairly taxing the poor, and every liberal just goes forget it, just forget it all, never get behind it. And that's part of the problem because you know, the poor tend to spend a larger percentage of their income on food, so if you start taxing food, it's going to unfairly hit the poor harder than anybody else. So they found the three point two for that, um for that one that's just saturated that and they did too

other models too. Yeah, the one um where they actually assign a score rating to your food. Um. And don't ask me about the stands for but the ssc G three D score. I looked, I couldn't find what it stands for super secret. Let's just call it that the super secret score. UM. So that basically they're gonna rate foods based on UM eight nutrients and a higher score is bad if you're if you're a plus eight, then you're going to get taxed more. And that would save lives.

I guess is that a year? Yeah? And then UM increase four percent, so even higher increase in food costs, right, but it saves lives rather than having more severe negative consequences UM. And it's it hits that sweet spot that you're looking for the science, right, So, like you could run anything conceivably through this algorithm. Doesn't it's blind to whether it's lean cuisine or ho hose. It's gonna spit out a score, and depending on the score, you get

taxed or not. That makes a little more sense. It does still though four percent increase in UM food UH costs, that's significant, it is UH. And then the third one was where basically it was they spread the tax among a bunch of different foods, almost half of all foods. I don't know, I don't understand. Yeah, I didn't get this one, okay, so um, but what we did. What they found was that it saves lives, but it increases

taxes by about four point six percent. So if you're an anglophile and you are into studies and you like choosing multiply um, you would probably go with number two. I think it makes the most sense, and it should everyone else. I was just describing ourselves. Um. Actually, in Britain they already do this on some things like ice cream and potato chips they mentioned in here, UM already have a value out of tacks. And in some states, and no, George is not one of them, they tax

um small taxes on soft drinks and things like that. See. I don't know if that's true, because um, I found this one. Uh, this one article about Redmond, California, where they're talking about adding a one cent per ounce soda tax and it says that they would be the first city in the country to actually push it through. Yeah, well maybe it does. Say California and Maine in Maryland

had fat taxes UM approved and then repealed. So yeah, first sitting in the nation to Levey attack specifically targeting soda and sugar laden beverage is interesting. So, but if this goes through, it's coming up pretty soon, I guess in November. But if it goes through, there's that one problem again where it's a regressive tax because it's a fixed amount. It's one cent per ounce, and because of that, the cheaper the value of an ounce of soda, the

more percentage you're gonna pay in taxes. Right, So let's say you pay a dollar for your generic store brand two Leader, that's sixty six or sixty seven ounces, you're gonna pay at a cent parounce, you're gonna pay an extra sixty seven cents, which is more costs. Yeah, it's almost double what you were paying before. And the people who are buying that dollar store brand two Leader are

probably people who can afford the dollar, right exactly. Now, if you do a twelve pack or something like that, um, and it's a hundred and forty four ounces, but a twelve packs already like six bucks, that's only an extra dollar forty four. That's only like or something like that added tax rather than sixties. So that's why they say regressive taxes are usually unfairly burdening to the poor. Yeah, that makes sense. I see Uh, well, I see it

all the time. Let's just say that you do. I used to work in in the convenience store, and so I had a a good eye on who was buying what and what kind of snacks people ate and stuff like that. I was amazed to find when I worked in, um, a gas station, that people cho white clay. Excuse me, they chew white clay. I don't know what that means.

You've not seen white clay. Look around next time you're in a gas shitch, and especially out in the sticks, there'll be a little cell of fame bag with like the little paper hanger, you know, like you buy like gummy worms or whatever in like that. But um, it's a food. It is not a food item. It's clay, and people chew it. Apparently it's um it's like a folk tradition among pregnant women to chew clay. But people have like this kind of craving for it as well,

and they sell this in convenient story. I never knew that. Yeah, that one always, that's a good one. I'm gonna be in the lookout now. Um. So we've talked about all the reasons why you should do this, right, Yes, it seems like this would have all been pushed through if there weren't some sort of opposition to the concept of fat taxes like Tony Blair Oh yeah, for instance, in two thousand four he called that a sign of a nanny state, and basically that kind of sums it um.

Critics will argue that, you know, this is like the government once again legislating something in you're a personal decision you want to make, which is, you know what if I want to eat twinkies and get fat and dive a heart attack at forty it's my right because I love those twinkies. It makes a really good case like

who who is the government to tell you you shouldn't write? Um. There is a really good argument on the other side that often comes from the same side, though, which is, m if we as a society have to pay for your health care, then yeah, you we do have a stake in telling you, you know, you can't eat that twinkie, And yeah, we agree. We can't tell you not to eat that twinkie, but we can make you think twice

about it by raising the price of it. Well, and they're in brings up the third model, which is not to tax food but too um make people pay more for something like insurance if they're obese. The the text the person and not the item. Yeah, which is probably the more diabolical model of the of the others. Uh yeah, but it's also like I get that, but it's also at least it singles out the the problem. Like although some people might say the problem is the existence of

the twinkie, but they don't. But but the critics will say no. But you know what, if you're super healthy and you like to indulge the twinkie every now and then, there is nothing wrong with the existence of twinkies. Check that was hypothetical, right, you know what I'm saying. But like you can't like if you love you this tax on junk food and I'm a marathon runner that once a week, I love my my Reese's cup. Why should I have to pay more money on that because a

larger person eats some five times a day. See. I disagree with that though, because think about it, man, Like, like who's really paying for that that extra tax? Todd the larger person who eats them any times a day, or you who eats them once a week. It's like, buck up and pay the extra forty cents and shut up. We're trying to deal with something over here. Go run your marathon. That that's what I have to say to

that person. Um, as far as it goes within the obese person, who when you are faced with that idea of having to pay more for that Reese's, there's no sweet spot. As bad as economists want to be able to say, this is the point where everyone will stop paying for Reese's and stop eating them. It's the same with gas. No one has any idea. You can take the average of all this, but it's really different for everybody. So that's one of the big challenges is how much

do you raise? UM. So, if you take a way the the idea that that's going to change behavior, it might not. It might just mean that people are going to have to shell out more money, which sucks. Um. Well, what happened with smoking? Did people? Well, that is less when they started taxing the cred out of that did a really good example of how you can successfully tax unhealthy stuff um and change people's behavior. So that it did work. But they think about what a pack of

cigarettes cost today compared to ten years ago. It's like I think in in say New York, it's probably about twelve times more than before. Um, I know, like almost overnight after the tobacco settlement was settled, tobacco prices doubled just from the added tax. But uh, tobacco use has gone down, like went down like from like two seven due to the price, or they believe it's due to the price, probably also due to public education, but really

they were educating the public before than anyway. So yes, they think that it has to do with the the fact that the tobacco Settlement led to just ridiculously higher taxes and still continues to. So you can say that there's a model that Okay, if you just keep adding more and more and more money in the form of attacks to this item, eventually everybody's going to fall off, right, you will reach that point where no one will pay that any longer. What we were talking about, where where

you're actually taxing the consumer. That's different. That's saying I'm whether you eat terribly or not until you get down to a certain what body mass index or whatever. Um, you have to pay more for health insurance. I almost feel like it should be the other way around, like car insurance, like you get breaks if you're a good driver, like maybe if set up in centiplans, if you lose weight, then you get lower costs, right, be nice to lower costs for a change, it would be, But it's ultimately

the same thing. It's just a different way of looking at it. The people who aren't losing weight or paying they're paying more than other people. But I see what you're saying. It's starting out at level and then um, people who are better at something get or who do well pay less. Yeah, it's it seems fair. There's some problems, so like how do you how do you keep track

of that, keep track of the individual? Yeah? And yeah, I mean how often can do you have to Like, if you lose a significant amount of weight, do you go in and say, hey, I need a letter from you saying like I can get a reduction in my

insurance now because I've hit this goal or whatever. You know, run it through your doctor and you know, have a have a standardized form where they take certain measurements and if you want to, if you want to apply and get the cheaper rates, then it's up to you to get those sheets filled out and turn them in every six months. I think you may have just all the big problem that makes sense to me. Well, um, in

Japan they're doing something like that. It's called the Matabo program uh where every year everybody goes in for an annual check up anyway, and they do it through their employer. They added some sort of like body mass index measurement

now too. You know, there's like for the person there's no financial steak in losing weight or getting a target weight, um, but there's a lot of societal and peer pressure from their employer who's getting pressured from their city or county or town which is getting hit financially for for X number of people that are not losing weight. Um. So they're using like this societal pressure to pressure people because the Japanese no shame. And we'll see that was that

would work for me because I'm overweight. And if I guarantee you if every time they rang up something, if a a little speaker at the regishore went fat tax, fat tax, like stop buying those things or I would you know, find out a way to get them on the black market. Well, I think a lot of people wouldn't for sure. Yeah, that would shame me that that's what they should do. I'm amending my previous statement, they should have a computer voice that yells out fat decks

every time you buy something fat. Why not just combine both of those. Let's combine boat, because then I think you have a powerhouse. Mother. And this is coming from the guy it's like thirty pounds overweight. Sometimes we have the best ideas. I can tell you, though, seeing um like on a um like a restaurant's menu board, seeing the calories next to it, that definitely has an effect

on my behavior for sure. Ah apparently anyway, it's not like but seeing it, like, yeah, that's really nine calories. I don't feel like that right now. Yeah, I guess, so it doesn't for me. I guess I'm never fooling myself into thinking that that fried chicken doesn't have that many calories, but maybe seeing it, Yeah, I get you. Yeah, I guess if I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah, fried chicken has that many lari But you think about it if you see it. Yeah, Okay, So what do

what do Americans sink? If you believe this pole One in three believed that obese people should pay more taxes than healthy weight people, and this is conducted by the Phalanx Investment Partners LLC. Uh and uh, boy, he's got a lot of he asked a lot of questions in here, he's got a lot of stats. Um, he does find an interesting and I two that, uh, the obese could

garner support by Americans where overweight. So what that means is thirty of overweight people or even saying yes they should be tax or they should pay more for health care. It makes he used the terrible, terrible analogy, Um, should we allow short sighted or nearsighted people to become lion tamers? And he's he's basically impairing that. But that kind of um brings up a larger question like is this habit? Is it just poor habits and poor eating behavior eating patterns?

And if so, then yeah, this guy can make a pretty good case that, yeah, we need to break people's bad eating habits, especially if they're passing them along to their kids. Well. Interestingly, younger people responded generally uh more in favor of taxing food more than older adults, and people of higher income responded more positively to a fat tax quote unquote yeah then obviously people with a lower income, So yeah, wholesome weight terrible that I didn't mean that

like that. So this is all kind of theoretical right here. I mean, what, Richmond, California might have a one sense soda tax, but they'd be the only city with that. Other places have tried at New York tried the same thing, um, but apparently the soda come Benese shouted it down as a um naked money grab, cleverly disguised as a health policy. That's sad. It sucks from lobbyists get their meat hooks

and stuff, um and things like money grab. But if you go to Hungary or Denmark, hungry is it's awesome that they have a fat tax because of the country's name. But um, if you go to Hungary, your Denmark, um, there are fat taxes instituted there. Hungry has one that's like a flat thirty point thirty seven euro tax um on anything that's unhealthy. And I'm not quite sure what the parameters are, but basically dunk food what we consider here.

And then Denmark just instituted something to where um they tax saturated fats in um foods to the tune of like sixteen kroner a kilogram, which comes out to be like a dollar twenty nine a pound and then divide it up and they take into account not just what ends up in the end result of the fat, but how much fat is also put in and maybe lost along the way. Interesting, So they're really going after it. Yeah,

I like. I like the companies that incentivized, like our own Discovery Channel will pay for half of your stomach stapling gym membership. Uh, which is great, Like make a little cheaper to join the gym. Can't make you go to the gym, but you feel like a sucker when you're paying to go to the gym and don't go to the gym. I forgot that they'll do that. I need to take them up on that. Oh yeah, dude, it's once you just missed the deadline. But it's a

quarter your gym membership for you any me? Really? Yeah, wow, that's great. I totally forgot about that. And it's not the most money in the world, but a few shekels makes you feel good. Yeah. I will definitely take them up and thank you for reminding me each other. Well, next time my reminder pops up, I'll remind you. How about that, I'll go start it today. Um let's see. But yes, please do remind me, just because it will make me feel good that you remember. Um, I guess

that's about it. Bat taxes, they're all over the place in Europe. They're spreading their their way west. Yeah. Maybe let's see. If you want to learn more about the proposals for the fat tax, you can type in fat tax and the search part at how stuff works dot com. That will bring up an article written by Jeopardy winner Jacob Silverman. Yeah, Jacob, I watched all three of those shows. He won twice. He won three times before. Right, Well, he's coming back. They had to suspend for like they do,

like the tournament or something. Huh, so he'll be back at some point to continue his run. That is awesome. Yeah, and I never even knew the guy, but um, he was really nice to me when I first got hired, Like, uh we he emailed me a bunch and kind of like helped me out early on. And then I saw him on tvails Like so that's what Jacob Silverman woks like, Oh you never saw him high. I never even saw him. Oh yeah, he was a neat guy. Um yeah, we'll congret.

Listen to Jacob. Also, if you want to learn about b D d Um. You can type in into the search bar and that will bring up an article by M. E. E UM. And I said searchbar in there somewhere, which means it's time for listener mail. So Chuck, sorry, I know that normally we should be doing listener mail here, but let's let's tell everybody something, okay, So um iTunes it's cool enough to say, hey, guys, what entertainment podcast is your favorite entertainment you said? They put in quotes, um,

and uh they there's us. There's competition. Stiff dude, US, Ted Talks, Discovery News, Um, Freakonomics, Radio Lab, Radio Lab Dude. We're up against Radio Lab right now? Um? Is that all of them? I don't want to leave anybody out. Very great podcast I can't remember, but yeah, we're up against some heavy hitters, so we are so um. They created a poll on the iTunes Facebook page. So you can go to iTunes on Facebook and if you look on their wall and go down, UM, let's see I

don't know a few posts. You're gonna see that that you know, what entertainment podcasts do you like the most? Right? You can go vote for us if you want. Indeed, that would be very nice. We think that would be sweet if you did. If not, it's cool. We you're listening anyway, We know you like us, and we won't extort anything from you. Um, but if you're having trouble finding it, here's the U R l H T T P S colon slash slash www dot facebook dot com. You should probably go get a pain. Wait is that

in the oral okay slash questions? That's plural slash one zero one five one zero one five zero seven one two four five eight zero three slash. That's right, And you can go vote for us if you want to vote for us. You can also go vote for Ted Talk. You can vote for whoever you want. But we just think it was a nice thing that they did, and we'd about to be featured and oh yeah we left that part out. Whoever wins gets featured on the iTunes

home page on June. Yeah. Anyway, good check it out and if you're if you're unfamiliar with iTunes, check that out too. Um, Josh, I'm gonna call this uh pediatrician. Uh follow up with Marinol. Remember in our Medical Marijuana podcast, we talked about the synthetic pill Marin all that you can get a prescription for guys. I'm a huge fan, and I even followed and said hi to Josh once in Macy's Atlenox Malling. Oh yeah, yes, yes, you know this guy. I remember that guy. Yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy the doctor.

I didn't realize Jimmy was a pediatrician. He is. By the way, I had a fan encounter at uh the grocery store without my tooth in the other day, to embarrassing No, I like, I don't think you noticed, but I think I came across as odd because I was acting real funny because I didn't have my tooth then I didn't want to smile real big, so I was

kinda like, nice to meet you. Anyway. I'm a huge fan from Jimmy, and I was particularly interested in Chuck's hesitancy and saying he had taken a Mariano pilled before, since it's a legitimate prescription drug. H While one doesn't normally associate medical marijuana with the under eighteen year old crowd, the use of marianal is not uncommon. Actually in our pediatric oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy, and we use it as

a second or third line of anti nasea drug. However, in children who are unresponsive to those medications, marian All is safe and awful, highly effective alternative. That being said, you'd be surprised at the number of parents who are hesitant or who even blatantly refused to allow their child to take mayor and all because of the stigma associated with it being quote from marijuana. Uh. This normally leads into a conversation describing the fact that many of our

medicines are created based off of street drugs. Like you guys mentioned the derivation of the very commonly used morphine from heroin. I'd say fifty to sixty in the time we can convince the parent to allow us to help their child. However, again, it's certainly not uncommon for them to refuse. It's incredibly frustrating, let me tell you, especially when a child is clearly suffering because of their parents hardheadedness.

But we ultimately have to respect their opinions and their wishes. UH. Doctors who house he doesn't respect anybody's opinions or wishes. He just hammers through the best treatment he can think of. I just thought you guys may find that aspect of the social stigma associated with mayor and all. Uh interesting, thanks for doing the topic. It's when that comes up frequently in my circles, and that is Dr Jimmy. Thanks Dr Jimmy. I totally we remember you. That was that.

That was nice. That made my day that one time. UM. Umi was very impressed. Yeah, and uh, let's see, UM, if you have an opinion on the fat attacks, I'm sure there are plenty. I'm pretty sure we would get them even without asking, but let's go ahead and ask. Make sure everybody feels comfortable telling us what they think. UM, be nice, but we want to hear about it. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.

UM We're on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash stuff you should Know, and you can email us at stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you