AN INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT BURNS, DEPUTY DRUG CZAR

On Tuesday, July 15, the Bush Administration's second-in-command of
national drug policy visited Humboldt County as part of a California
tour to scope out the state of the illegal cannabis industry. Scott
Burns, deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) met with county officials, participated in a sweep of grow
houses in Eureka and points south, then came to Arcata.

The Arcata Eye was invited to interview Burns, and, with a phalanx of
City and Humboldt State Unversity officials in attendance, took 25
minutes of his time in the Arcata Police Department's conference room.
Offering interjections during the interview are Arcata Police Chief
Randy Mendosa and Tommy LaNier, director, National Marijuana and
Public Lands Initiative.

The audio of this interview was broadcast Friday, July 25 on KHSU
90.5 FM and is available for downloading under "Archived Programs" at
www.khsu.org.

Eye: What brings you to Humboldt County?

Burns: As I was telling the good folks here, it's not exactly ground
zero, but it's as close as you can get to looking at the marijuana
issue in the United States. We're coming, 1. To see firsthand, and 2.
I wanted to thank the women and men that are on the front lines of
this. We hit four grow houses today, and every one of them had
firearms and ammunition and/or a pit bull. It's dangerous work.

Eye: When you say you "hit" them, you did, for want of a better term, a
raid?

Burns: Law enforcement officers raided... how many total, Tom?
LaNier: They did 14 different locations, 14 different grows, I think,
today. Mendosa: The Drug Task Force.

Eye: Oh, DTF? Where were these located?

LaNier: Yeah, we three didn't independently come out there and...
Burns: Shut up, yes we did. I led the way on every one of them. (Wave
of laughter in the room.)

Eye: And where were these located? Were any in Arcata?

Burns: They were all in Eureka, weren't they?

Mendosa: Some of them were in unincorporated areas south of Eureka.

Burns: A couple in the county.

Eye: Were these what we think of in Arcata as houses a; that is,
residential homes that have been converted to this industrial use?

Burns: Yes.

Eye: I guess back in Washington they're aware of this phenomenon?

Burns: Yes, it's not only happening here; it's happening nationwide.
It's probably more commonplace and more accepted here. It's met with
open mouths and gasps in upscale neighborhoods in Florida and Ohio
and Georgia. Here, it just seemed like people kinda yawned and said, "So
what?"

Eye: Why did you come here if this is a kind of national phenomena?
Because it's the most prominent areas, or concentrated areas?

Burns: Most prominent and going on for the longest time. I think if
anybody were to look at it and say that you know it's been, this is
kind of the genesis of it. It's a lot more commonplace here and a lot
more accepted.

Eye: In Humboldt County, are you going to areas other than Arcata?
You mentioned Eureka a; are you scoping out the whole county?

Burns: We've tried to meet with everybody we can meet with in a
couple of days and then I'll be going back. I've been to the public
lands and the national forests on a number of occasions. We're also
here with a CNBC crew. It's gonna do a one-hour national documentary
about this issue and they'll be flying with...

Whorley: CAMP, next couple of days.

Eye: So you're meeting with, certainly law enforcement officials, I
see city government people here. Who else?

Burns: District attorneys, chiefs of police, sheriffs, City Council
folks, supervisors, just about everybody we can meet with.

Eye: What are they telling you?

Burns: That this is a serious problem. In some instances where is the
federal government? In other instances a; look, you're not from here,
we don't need the federal government, why are you here? So it's kind
of a mixed message. This meeting has not been mixed, it's that these
grow houses are a serious problem and is there a will on behalf of
the federal government to have federal, state and local come together
and address it? My response was "Yes."

Eye: I wanted to get to that. We have a whole tangle of contradictory
laws right now a; federal, state and local. What do you see as the
solution to that, to get any kind of unanimity or single message in the law?

Burns: I kind of oversimplify it, because in my prior life I was a
district attorney in a state, but now I represent the federal
government. It is illegal under federal law to possess, to smoke, to
sell, to grow, to distribute marijuana. And there are a number of
tools the federal government has. One of them is to arrest people,
the other is to seize property, to send notice to these so-called
dispensaries to tell them that they are in violation of federal law.
Those are the tools that we can bring. I have to say in the same
breath, its a big country and there's a big strain on federal
resources. There has to be some desire on behalf of the state and
local officials and in some instances, the citizens, for that to happen.

Eye: Well, some would argue that infrastructure that's built up
around here, with regard to the grow houses, the dispensaries,
certainly the hydroponic shops, the head shops... All of that is so
deeply entrenched in our culture, and has been for decades. It's just
not going to go away. It represents the supply side of a huge demand.
What would you say to that? Do you have a realistic expectation of
ending the demand and therefore ending the supply?

Burns: Well, I'd say a couple of things. First of all, drug use is
down in the United States dramatically since 2001 by every barometer
and indicator that we use. Primarily the national household survey.
Twenty-fourpercent reduction in marijuana use by young people 12 to
18 years old. Methamphetamine use is down, heroin use is down,
cocaine use is down. So we know that when we push back, the problem
gets smaller. A lot of people are cynical a; "Oh it'll never go away,
there's never anything you can do." I don't believe that. We've seen
that since 2001. The second thing is that some would say that its so
entrenched there's nothing you can do. Others would say, like we were
talking earlier I used the analogy of President Felipe Calderon of
Mexico. Everybody said it's so entrenched, and the corruption, and
the drugs, and the cartels, and the Zetas [armed criminal gangs that
operate as mercenaries for drug cartels] and gatekeepers, and you're
never gonna fix it. They're trying to fix it. They're trying to take
their country back. And, and in a sense, you may have to take your
city back, you may have to take your county back.

Eye: Is it realistic to keep marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, in with
cocaine and heroin? Burns: Yes it is, and I'll tell you why. First of
all, of the 20 million drug users in the United States, 75 percent
singularly or co-use marijuana. So either we're gonna talk about it
or we're gonna ignore about 75 percent of the problem. The second
reason is, it is much higher in potency. One or two percent when I
was growing up in the '60s and '70s, now averages 10 percent
nationwide. As high as 30 percent we talked about earlier coming in
from Canada. The next reason is that the initiation age when I was
growing up, 18, 19, 20 is now 13, 12 and 11. You can't talk to a
counselor in this country, Republican or a Democrat or an independent
or a Marxist, and they will tell you, political beliefs aside,
everyone that is addicted to drugs in this United States, started
with either alcohol and/or marijuana, and they started when they were
13, 12 or 11. That doesn't mean everyone that used those substances
goes on to be a heroin addict, but you don't have to have an IQ over
120 to figure out that if you can keep young people off marijuana,
you can keep them from being addicted for life. The last thing I'll
say is, we were talking about Nora Volkov, the head of NIDA, National
Institute of Drug Abuse, who before said there is no correlation
between smoking pot and rewiring and damaging the developing brain of
young people, who now will tell you unequivocally that there is.
Because of the higher potency, it is the same as cocaine and
methamphetamine and heroin. They see it from the MRIs, the PET scans.
They also are seeing psychosis and other mental problems from young
people smoking this higher potency, which frankly should be called
marijuana 2.0, drug. So yeah, it should remain a schedule 1. The FDA
has said, and you can argue whether you agree or not, but we've
relied on them since the 1900s when snake oil salesmen were selling
stuff out of bottles from the back of wagons that this will cure this
or cure that. And somebody said, "You know, we oughta get some smart
people to tell if this is a medicine or not." Now we have scientists
and doctors that say yes, this is approved as a medicine, and eating
dirt is not. Uh, they have said that smoking marijuana is not an
acceptable, legitimate medicine.

Eye: Do we know that? Is there enough research to indicate that it
has no medical efficacy? I can bring you chemotherapy patients who
would tell you that it is the only thing that suppresses their nausea
and gives them an appetite. So is there nothing to what they're
saying and feeling?

Burns: I'm saying that maybe that, the... Anybody can say something
makes me feel better anecdotally. And I hear that a lot. "Marijuana
is the only thing that makes me feel good." I say you should try
crack, because from what I hear, crack cocaine will make you feel
really good as well. This is not about making people feel better,
it's about as a country and the effects it will have on all of us,
all 305 million of us. Because someone tells me that "smoking crack
cocaine releases my nausea and allows me to have healthier appetite,"
does that mean that we legalize it nationwide, and that its available
to kids in a greater number? We have to make those kind of policy
decisions. And we ought not make them on people who say, "Me
personally, it makes me feel better."

Eye: I could argue that the only reason you're hearing a lot of
anecdotal testimony is that because there hasn't been enough formal
study to verify it or debunk it. Do you feel there's been enough
formal study to definitively rule out cannabis as a medical agent?

Burns: I would say yes, and a couple of reasons. One, they've never
been able to quantify and put it in appropriate doses in order to
deliver it. Number two, the crude delivery of smoking the weed alone,
physician after physician, and scientist after scientist have said,
"You have to be kidding me." There have to be more efficient ways to
do it. We have drugs now that will do what people say marijuana does
for them in a much more efficient manner.

Eye: You may be aware of the FBI's recent Operation Southern Sweep
that came through here; I don't know if you were or not. But it
seemed to target one particular criminal enterprise, alleged criminal
enterprise. But they didn't really touch any medical things... they
went to some industrial grow sites, and there were some grow houses.
But that's being interpreted as a signal from the federal government,
that they are passively hands-off Prop 215 patients. Is that
accurate, an accurate assumption?

Burns: I can't talk, and wouldn't. It would be inappropriate for me
to speak on behalf of the FBI, but I can tell you on behalf of John
Walters and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy,
our position is marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Eye: Our Planning Commission and our City Council are attempting to
develop some land use regulations now to bring some order to this
kind of roiling, Wild West marijuana situation that we do have in
town. Are they wasting their time? I mean, what advice would you give
these people? They're spending a whole lot off time and effort trying
to bring some orderly regulation to this. What's you're advice to them?

Burns: My advice is encouragement and support. As I said earlier,
while the federal government can certainly help and assist when
asked, this is ultimately going to be solved by the people who live
here. Nobody from Washington is going to come here and tell you how
to fix it. And when the problem becomes acute enough I think the
people in the community are going to stand up and say, "Enough is
enough." And I can also tell you that there have been 200 to 250
cities and counties in California who have done just that. Passed
ordinances saying, "We don't want the dispensaries." Why? Because the
grow houses are what feed the dispensaries. Marijuana doesn't just
magically show up in the dispensaries, they don't push a button and
have it delivered by the marijuana dispensary delivery truck person.
It come from these grow houses, and it involves millions and hundred
of millions of dollars.

Eye: That's true, and rather startlingly, two of the dispensary
representatives admitted purchasing what they call "overages" from
Prop 215 patients. Which is illegal, and our Planning Commission has
said, we're not going to approve it. Yet they asked for some kind of
legalization of that. Any thoughts?

Burns: Yeah, the whole thing is a con. If you wanna call it what it
is, it's a joke. It is ridiculous for anyone to sit back and think
that there is some rhyme or reason to how this works. The whole idea
is to get dope out the door, to sell it and to make a whole bunch of
money. And whatever the story, or the tagline is along the way a;
well, it involves sick people, or we have a dispensary a; look, even
the author of Prop 215 has said, "This isn't a bad dream, this thing
has become a nightmare." This in no way resembles what the idea was
when the law passed, to get marijuana to sick people. It's become
wholesale distribution by traffickers and criminals.

Eye: This week, the state Attorney General's office is going to come
out with some new guidelines for medical marijuana distribution.
[Note: The guidelines were not issued last week, for reasons unclear
as we went to press. a; Ed.] I think what they want to do, I was told
informally by the deputy attorney general, is make the dispensaries
what he called a "closed loop" that is a collective of Prop 215
people who have Prop 215 recommendations. That would theoretically
end the retail side. Any thoughts on that? Did your office have any
input to the state Attorney General's Office on these guidelines?

Burns: No, under federal law it's illegal. It would be inappropriate
for us to make suggestions on how to engage in some activity that is
illegal under federal law.

Eye: Well, the State of California Attorney General's Office, then,
apparently is fostering disobedience to the law, by their guidelines,
are they not? I mean, they're a bunch of lawyers.

Burns: Again, it's illegal under federal law. I don't know how to
make it any clearer. And that's part of the discussion we were having
here as to why it's so confusing. You know, again the federal
government likes to defer and let states and local communities solve
their own problems and help when we're supposed to, and we will. But
I can't tell you that we're now complicit in helping and drafting law
that violates federal law.

Eye: Well, some would argue that the federal government is continuing
classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug is responsible for
most of the problems associated with it. It's not the drug itself,
but in fact the prohibition as it were keeps the price high and
compels people to game the system to figure out ways to make a profit
out of it. Whereas if it were either decriminalized or legalized like
alcohol we could regulate it in some rational way. Like we have the
state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, for example, which
does this. Do you have any thought on that?

Burns: It's illegal now, and there are in America more young people
in treatment for addiction to marijuana, than for all other drugs
combined. It's illegal now.

Eye: It's illegal now, but, I mean....

Burns: Let me just finish...

Eye: Yes, please.

Burns: There are 125 million Americans that to some degree use or
abuse alcohol. There are 50 million that smoke, not withstanding the
warnings on the cigarettes, and we took the Marlboro Man off
television, and city after city have now passed laws banning...
please don't smoke, don't, you know, this is terrible for our health.
Fifty million still smoke. Right now we're about 16 million smoking
marijuana, 16 million. So if you put it in perspective 125 and 50,
and now 16. I would argue to you that if we legalize it, and we make
it more available, 16 is going to quickly become at least 50. You've
seen the problem you've had here with grow houses. Multiply that
across this country. No, I think it would be a disastrous thing.

Eye: Well, I could tell you without question that there are
innumerable, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of
people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis, are fully functioning
contributing citizens. Other than the fact that they do something
that the government tells them is illegal. They're contributing,
they're motivated, they obey the law, they vote, they pay taxes, they
have children and they smoke marijuana. What about that? Doesn't the
federal government's prohibition of this drug simply put a lot of
profit in it for criminals, breed criminal enterprises and also breed
disrespect for the authority of government?

Burns: Well, our job at the White House try to get the numbers right.
On the 305 million, as I said, it's under 20 million are current
users of marijuana. Whether or not they are functioning or not, there
are others that say, they sit on the couch and eat Cheetos, and I've
talked to hundreds of moms and dads that have said I wish you could
do something, because my son has done nothing in 25 years but sit
around and smoke dope. So for every person you have that you say is a
taxpaying successful person, I could give you, I think five, of a mom
and a dad or a loved one say, "My god, this addiction to this drug is
a horrible thing."

Eye: Federal enforcement of cannabis laws is widely viewed, at least
in Arcata, as arbitrary, capricious and ineffective. I don't think
there's any argument [to counter the assertion] that it's
ineffective. We had Operation Pipe Dream in 2001, where they came in
and raided a glassblowing place on South G Street, then they went
away. Meanwhile, we have dispensaries up and operating, we have grow
houses and we don't see much of the federal government. Are you
satisfied with the federal government's enforcement approach?

Burns: Well, part of it is, first and foremost, it's a state and
local issue. If you're satisfied with it within your community and
nobody's calling and asking for any help, I can tell you, in other
parts of the country they're just smiling in a sense, saying, "You're
getting just what you wanted, you said you were compassionate people.
You said everyone should be able to grow dope and smoke dope and now
you're having homicides and robberies, now you're having people
walking the streets with guns, now you're upset because they're
growing near schools, now you're upset because you have a reputation
that is ridiculed across the nation." You didn't ask for federal
help, in fact you said federal government please stay away, now we
have people saying, "Where have you been?" Now that it's gotten so
acute, now that it's such a ridiculous state of affairs here with the
growers and the gun-toters essentially telling everyone how we're
gonna do things. Now you say where's the federal government, well I
guess what I'm saying is, I'm here today, and we're here listening,
and we talked to the U.S. attorney yesterday, we'll meet with the DEA
Sac tomorrow, I've talked with people in Washington and if there is
legitimate desire to now partner as we do in other parts of the
country, we'll do our part.

Eye: Would that possibly include some sort of drug enforcement action
by the Drug Enforcement Agency in Arcata?

Burns: That would include everything the federal government has. To
include sending official notices to the dispensaries that you are in
violation of federal law to the owners. That they're subject to
losing their property, which I predict will happen soon. That
includes if there is a desire by law enforcement to add DEA to send
assets and resources here, that includes asking the state of
California if you really believe this Proposition 215, enforce it.
Because my understanding is you're not supposed to make a profit. Yet
they're making hundreds of millions right here in Arcata and Humboldt
County. So, let's look each other in the eye then and be honest: this
is a con, this is a joke and if we're serious about shutting it down
it shouldn't be that difficult.

Eye: At risk of having a circular argument or discussion a; if I am,
stop me a; people could argue that those folks walking around with
guns and all the illegal money and the grow houses is because of the
federal government's laws; that if they had a system for regulating
it like alcohol, which they do a; which is a dangerous drug, a very
dangerous drug, responsible for all kinds of mayhem and things a; and
yet it's regulated and we don't have stills, we don't have the kinds
of things we had during prohibition of alcohol. I'll just come at
that again: Wouldn't it be better to have some kind of organized
regulation of this substance?

Burns: And I would say again. It is a drug that serves no legitimate
purpose. Some could say we know the trails and the tears and the
death of alcohol so the argument is what? Well, we got one terrible
thing, let's just thumb our other thumb with a hammer. Why not? You
know, this one's terrible, why not have another terrible one. And
again 125 million abuse alcohol, 50 million smoke, and we're still
under 20 million that smoke marijuana why as a policymaker, why as a
parent would you want to unleash that on this country? Because you
know it would double immediately.

Eye: The federal government actually does have a very small program
through the University of Mississippi to supply marijuana. I think
it's 300 cigarettes a month to a small number of individuals. Why
does it do that? How can we reconcile that with its classification as
a Schedule 1 drug, and the kind of things you've been talking about?

Burns: That goes back to the people that said, "You know what, we
really oughta study that more." So we do, and we set up a program,
and we give a small number of people marijuana, and I know most of
them by name because they show up in every hearing that I go to and
say, "I've been smoking marijuana for years and the federal
government gives me this marijuana." Well, that was an attempt to do
what the critics said. Why don't we study it more?

Eye: We do hear that international drug cartels are involved with the
cultivation on federal lands and forest lands. Do we have any
information that they might be involved in grow houses as well?

Burns: I don't think there's any question that they're involved, not
only indirectly but in many cases, directly. If one in this area is
sympathetic to using or growing marijuana I would encourage them to
take a trip to your national parks and see how literally Mexican drug
cartels, primarily from Michoacan have invaded your public lands here
in California. And the reason they've done it is because it's easy to
do, and there's already the market. And they don't send it back to
Mexico. They send it to the dispensaries.

Eye: One of the arguments that the decriminalization people, the
dispensaries make to our Planning Commission and City Council is the
fact that it's entrenched in Arcata and has been for decades, and
that now with this massive infrastructure that's built up, they're
paying a lot of taxes. We have a lot of retail establishments, the
hydroponic shops, we have four or five in Arcata. They're paying a
lot of taxes. The dispensaries are paying huge amounts of taxes,
ending that would just undermine us financially. The economic impact
would be huge if we withdrew that. Any thoughts?

Burns: Put a price on some mother and father's 16-year-old that's now
addicted to heroin because traffickers from Mexico come up to grow
dope in your community and brought heroin along with them cause it's
a cash crop. I think they would tell you put a price tag on my
daughter being addicted to heroin, or to high-potency marijuana. You
weigh it out. If the money is worth more to you, if it's better to
have these people engaged in illegal activity, keep doing their job
and slop it around. Yet we have young people in this community that I
saw driving in, sitting on the sidewalks and on the curbs stoned out
of their mind. If that's OK for you, if the money means that much for
you, protect their interest, protect those grow houses.

Eye: Philosophically... you're a Constitutional law teacher, I believe?

Burns: A little bit.

Eye: ...and the whole premise of America's freedom and self
determination. How can we reconcile that with the government telling
us what we can ingest and what we can't? Burns: Well, I think, first
of all we settled it Appomattox, the fact that we're gonna have this
thing for the Supremacy Clause, and when push comes to shove we'll
decide on certain issues who will prevail, the federal government or
the state. And on many issues it's the states, and for the most part,
I think most Americans would agree that it should be that way. But on
some issues that affect all of us for the good of the order we have
to come to some consensus. And not everybody's happy, are they? And
every time we don't get to do what we want, I know there are states
where they really really like to marry young girls, 12, 11, or 10 and
they would argue to you, "How dare the federal government preclude us
from engaging in certain activities?" Well, in some instances we just
say your, quote, "constitutional rights" and your freedom to do
certain things gets trumped by the rest of us who say, "You know
that's just not a good idea."

Eye: Let me just step back on this, I think I touched on this briefly
but in a different form I'd like to throw at you. We, as we know
marijuana, we have Reefer Madness, we have the whole jazz thing in
the '30s going up through Cheech and Chong and George Carlin and it's
so interwoven into our culture.

Burns: Oh that's OK. I was sorry George Carlin died, by the way.

Eye: We all were.

Burns: He was funny, I don't care what? he was funny.

Eye: If you're suggesting marijuana can really be expunged from our
culture and our real world here on the streets, I think there are
some people who would say, "What are you smoking?"

Burns: You know what? It's just a matter of taking a position and
pushing back a little bit at a time. I think in America, we do that.
There are so many cynics that say, "You know, you put one trafficker
in jail ten more will take his place." Not true, that's one
trafficker that won't be there. Or you know, "Why are we even doing
this, you're never gonna stop this, people are?" Not true. If we can
reduce drug abuse in young people by 25 percent since 2001 that's
850,000 kids that are not smoking dope today that were in 2001. If
you wanna know the real challenge, it's the Baby Boomer era. If you
saw Little Miss Sunshine, the little girl in the car is not smoking
dope, Alan Arkin is the one that's got the problem. Baby Boomers are
the ones who continue to use drugs, and continue to increase to use
drugs and they are the ones who are in positions of authority in some
parts of this country. And they're the ones who are saying "Aw you
know, what's wrong with...?" And my daughter thinks we're nuts. She
thinks these baby boomer people are, what are you smoking. I like to
work out, I don't want to smoke something. Why do they tell me that
this should be OK? My generation gets on the Internet we see the
brain scans, why are people your age, dad, the baby boomers always
talking about when they were stoned at Woodstock, ha ha, or high on
this, hoot hoot, or LSD or... They think we're the ones that didn't
get it. They wanna kinda have a healthy long life. They're talking
about stuff like vitamins and working out and going to Humboldt State
and getting a good education and how competitive it is. It's the baby
boomers that continue to be the problem.

Eye: Well, I was going to ask you to sum up with any advice from the
federal government for both our City, as it tries to develop some
land use policy for this and/or to the people of Arcata.

Burns: It would be this: Defer 100 percent good judgment of the
people who have been elected and appointed. To know that I've passed
my card out, and when called upon we will come and assist in any way
that we are asked. But in no way or fashion would I or anyone else
come in here and say that you should do this or do that. We should be
looked upon as a resource and when they call I answer my phone, and
I'll call them back.

Eye: Mr. Burns, Thank you very much.

Burns: Thank you very much. I enjoyed that. Thank you.