TRANSCRIPT: DR. MITCH EARLEYWINE AND BRUCE MIRKEN

(Audio Track) Intro

Dean: Well we have a busy show planned for you this evening. We do have
both our guests online Steve tells me, and, Steve, let's go ahead and bring
in Dr. E.

Mitch: Happy to be here.

Dean: Hello, sir. How are you this evening?

Mitch: Having a great day.

Dean: Yes, sir. If you would tell the folks a little bit more about
yourself, the work you do.

Mitch: Sure thing, I'm an associate professor of psychology at the
University of Southern California and I wrote the book Understanding
Marijuana and basically I delve into the marijuana research and try to
separate the myths from the facts.

Dean: Well, very good, sir. I read an op-ed submission that you and a
friend, Bruce Mirken, had put together, "The Potent Pot Myth", and it's the
reason I wanted to bring you guys on the show to talk about the meanderings
of our Drug Czar, John Walters. Let's see, Steve can you go ahead and bring
in Bruce. Hello, Mr. Mirken?

Bruce: Yes, I am here.

Dean: Well welcome to Cultural Baggage. Glad to have you both with us.

Bruce: Glad to be here.

Dean: And as I promised you, gentlemen, you're going to have the chance to
"debate" our Drug Czar, John Walters and some of the things he said up in
Canada of late and we'll go ahead and play that track now, If you would,
Steve. Track 11.

(Audio Track) John Walters: Our two countries can have differences about
how they approach social problems. We do. We respect that. The issue for us
and the reason I became engaged is that the marijuana trade, the high
potency marijuana is extremely dangerous. Marijuana today is the single
largest cause of addiction among illegal drugs, not the soft drug. It's 60%
of what causes addiction. 23% of those who are addicted are teenagers in
the United States. [There] are more of them seeking treatment for marijuana
than all other drugs combined. And the high potency marijuana, coming out
of Canada, is a particularly dangerous, dangerous substance. And by
independent Canadian estimates, 90% of that drug is being sent to the
United States. So, this isn't about, "Well, we have a different attitude
about drugs." It's about, from the point-of-view of what we're trying to do
with policy in the United States of, the most dangerous threat, the single
largest cause of addiction, and a more potent version of it now being
produced and sent in, in multi-billion dollar flows, into the United States
from Canada.

Dean: Ok, gentlemen, that was the sound byte, the mother of all sound bytes
and let's go with you first, Mitch. What's your response to Mr. Walters?

Mitch: I'm not sure where to begin, to tell you the truth, Dean. The bottom
line is the cannabis is maybe twice as strong as the worst weed you could
find in the 1970's, but, truth be told, it's not that much stronger than it
used to be. This notion that somehow it's more addictive seems to reflect
the idea that Walters sees addiction as a rather slippery term that I'm
sure Bruce Mirken can also jump in on. And basically all of these data, he
presents them with such precision like, "X% this and X% that." They're all
based on estimates that when you really take a close look at what he's
drawing from, they really fall down when you really understand the research.

Dean: Alright. Bruce, and your take on Mr. Walters.

Bruce: Oh, indeed! You know, so much nonsense, so little time! (laughter)
Let me start with a couple of basics: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
not a group of wild-eyed drug legalizers, issued a report about...pointing
out that the amount of the U.S. marijuana supply that comes from Canada is
tiny. It's dwarfed by the amount that's grown...(unintelligible)...and the
amount that's grown in Mexico. So this is a miniscule part of the U.S. drug
picture anyway. Statistics Canada, their national government agency that
keeps health statistics, just issued a report on marijuana use in Canada.
Now I presume that Canadians are more likely to be using Canadian marijuana
than Americans. So, if this is such a dreadfully addictive, horrible stuff,
this might be reflected in their statistics, wouldn't you think? Well, they
found that 43.1% of the population of Canada has tried marijuana. Only 6%
use it at least once a month. Only 2.8% use marijuana more than once a
week. So if this stuff is so horribly addictive, there sure aren't many
people getting hooked!

Dean: Exactly right. I've heard it said that even in Amsterdam that they've
reached kind of a threshold, that people don't want to buy marijuana beyond
a certain potency, just for the flavor or something.

Mitch: The other contributor, Dean, is that stronger pot doesn't mean that
you get higher. Mark Kleiman was one of the first to write about this, but
it's getting considerable press actually in laboratory work. People who
smoke stronger pot tend to take smaller hits, they tend to hold them in not
as long, and they get to, basically get to the same desired effect with a
markedly smaller amount. So it's not that they're paying extra to get
higher, it's that they're paying extra so that they don't have to go buy
pot again in this horrible prohibition market.

Bruce: And by smoking less, they're probably less potential injury to their
lungs. So in a very real sense, stronger marijuana is probably healthier.

Dean: Very well said. Now Steve let's go ahead and run that Track 12.
Here's a little bit more about what Mr. Walters had to say.

(Audio Track) John Walters: What I have spoken out on in my position is the
fact that Canadian production of high potency marijuana is a business that
is large, that is the vast majority of which, by all available estimates is
shipped to the United States and it is the single greatest drug threat.
It's twice as important a factor in addiction than cocaine. It's vastly
more important as a problem than the methamphetamine or heroin.

Mitch: I'm flabbergasted by that, Dean. I don't even know where to begin.
The idea that marijuana is the single greatest drug threat, and more so
than methamphetamine? I mean, clearly this guy hasn't looked at the data.
We're talking about a drug that has no toxic dose. If you smoked two pounds
by yourself, you might die, but, in truth, if you have two pounds and you
smoked it by yourself, you probably deserved to die. (laughter) The idea
that crack/cocaine or cocaine is less important of a threat than this is
really going to backfire on him and we're going to end up having kids say,
"Oh, the Drug Czar said that marijuana is worse than heroin, so I'm going
to do heroin."

Bruce: You know that's a very important point. You know, you the problem
with a lot of the stuff that comes from John Walters and that the office of
National Drug Control Policy is that it assumes that young people are
morons and that the way to keep them off drugs is to lie to them and sooner
or later they figure out that you're lying, you know. And anybody who has
ever known people who have used various substances learns very quickly that
something like crack/cocaine or methamphetamine can very easily ruin
peoples' lives and to say marijuana is worse and more dangerous...it's
crazy. I mean, there's no polite way to put it. It's nuts. You know, to
take a step back into the earlier sound byte, you know, he loves to throw
out this claim that 60% of people in treatment for substance abuse are in
treatment for marijuana. Well, if you look at the statistics, the
government's own statistics, you see that's because they were arrested.
They were offered treatment instead of jail and, wouldn't you know, they
took treatment. That has nothing to do with addiction, and it has nothing
to do with a diagnosis of substance abuse. It is absolutely an artifact of
marijuana's illegality and to misuse those statistics in that way is such
blatant dishonesty that one doesn't know where to begin.

Dean: I saw a correlation of data, I think it was put together by the U.S.
Justice Department, and, I can't remember specifically, it was 82.5% or
87.5% of those who are undergoing treatment are there because they were
caught by bosses, parents, school officials, or someone else that, as you
say, led them to take treatment over incarceration.

Mitch: And, Dean, let me throw in that during my clinical work, I am a
clinical psychologist, these are the people who are actually taking up beds
that could be used for people that really do have problems with hard drugs
like heroin and cocaine. It's really a shame that somebody is out there
addicted to crack and might go to a hospital and say, "I need treatment."
And they say, "Sorry, we have to turn you away because we got somebody in
here who got busted for a joint and he is forced into treatment instead."
That's just such a disservice; I don't even know where to start.

Bruce: Yeah, I mean, it is the sort of policy that does, in fact, literally
kill people. And I think we need to say that.

Dean: I have...John Walters is actually coming to Houston here Thursday.
He's going to speak at a local high school, with Tom DeLay, about drugs and
gang problems and address some of these same answers you're giving to his
statements.

Mitch: Invite him on your show. See if he'll debate. He's refused to debate us.

Dean: Well, I have tried about a half-dozen times thus far, and, again,
it's slim pickings.

Mitch: I was NPR and he was supposed to come on right after me and he
actually went down to the studio five minutes early to make sure I didn't
get to talk as long as I was scheduled. (laughter)

Dean: It's amazing that they dare not debate this openly in public...

Mitch: Well, when you start looking at the data, you can see why. If he is
going to be the Drug Czar and suddenly cannabis is recognized for the
harmless substance that it is, suddenly we realize we only really have six
to ten million people who use hard drugs and then the budget of billions
and billions of dollars suddenly doesn't seem very justified when you're
really only talking about ten million or fewer Americans using hard drugs.
He'll be out of a job if we, you know, unmask this.

Bruce: You know the other thing I would say is that they're having to...I
think part of the reason that you see this more and more hysterical and
over the-top-rhetoric is that they're having to dance faster and faster to
try and justify policies that don't work. You know, we're told constantly
that the reason that marijuana has to be kept illegal is to protect our
kids, to keep young people from smoking pot. Well, in my organization, the
Marijuana Policy Project agrees that kids should not use marijuana. The
question is, is what we're doing working? Now the Centers for Disease
Control came out last...about two months ago with their annual youth risk
behavior survey. They surveyed teenagers all over the country on things
that could put them at risk, including drug use, sexual behavior, violence,
etc. And, according to the CDC, more American high school students right
now are current user of marijuana than current users of cigarettes. So,
it's not working. The emperor has no clothes.

Dean: None whatsoever.

Mitch: The irony, too, when we start comparing teen use in our country to
teen use in countries where cannabis is essentially de-criminalized, we
find that it's a bigger deal to our teens than it is to theirs. They end up
with, in de-criminalized countries, fewer people experimenting as young
adults or, in, you know, the twelve to eighteen-year old age range, and
markedly fewer going on to use hard drugs like heroin and cocaine because
those markets are separated. If you can go to a coffee shop and get
cannabis and only cannabis, that may be what you do, but it's extremely
unlikely that then someone is going to try to push cocaine or heroin on
you. With an underground market, of course they're going to make an attempt
to turn you to a drug where there's more potential to gain profits because
it's smaller and more potent and things along those lines. And, so, what a
surprise when you compare, say San Francisco to Amsterdam, you find that
people who use in San Francisco are also more likely to use hard drugs than
the folks who use in Amsterdam.

Dean: Well, gentlemen, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a one minute
break here and when we come back we're going to hear a little bit more from
Mr. Walters. (Audio Track) "Can you believe this quote?" - "Name that drug"
- - Vapor-med plug

Dean: Ok, now we're, certainly the three of us are well aware there are
many means of consuming marijuana without having to smoke it in a joint.
Would you like to talk about that briefly, Dr. Earleywine?

Mitch: Well, the vaporizer, as we've alluded to is a way to essentially
raise the temperature of the cannabis without it actually catching on fire
so that the cannabinoids come out in this mist that's easily inhaled and
then there are no carcinogens and essentially no tars or anything like that
that would create any respiratory problems. I do want to point out, though,
that I have data that suggest that folks who an ounce or less per month
really don't report a lot of respiratory symptoms in the first place. So
you don't see a lot of coughing and hacking and waking up with phlegm,
tightness in the chest and things like that for people who smoke cannabis
and don't smoke cigarettes, particularly if they're not smoking more than
an ounce per month. So, I think the idea that we're taking all these steps
to sidestep respiratory harm kind of implies that cannabis creates more
respiratory harm than it actually does.

Dean: Well, alright. Thank you Dr. Earleywine. Let's go ahead and hear a
little bit more from John Walters.

(Audio Track) John Walters: We're trying to do some advertising for
prevention in the United States but the...you know people are victims of
their own experience. Baby Boomer era adults now think of this in terms of
marijuana that was 1% THC content in the 1980's, the psycho-active
ingredient, they were using in their late teens. The reality of marijuana
use today is the average in the United States is 7% to 9%. BC bud goes to
the high teens to twenty. We've had imports that go as high as 27% THC
content. It's many times as potent and kids are starting not at seventeen
but at thirteen, twelve, eleven, and ten.

Dean: Alright, gentlemen, what do you think of that?

Mitch: Bruce, do you want to start in?

Bruce: Of, where do you start? Mitch, do you want to start on that or should I?

Mitch: Well, the thing that always blows my mind is this idea that cannabis
in the 70's was 1% THC. (laughter) When we have laboratory cannabis that's
1% THC, it's the placebo weed. Nobody wants to smoke it. It gives you a
headache. It does not get you high. Obviously if that were the drug that
was around then, nobody would have used it. What happened? Well, police
would get some cannabis, they'd throw it in a hot evidence locker, send it
down to Mississippi to have it analyzed, you know, sometime later that
month. Well by then, the THC had all degraded. So of course it was 1% THC.
I think that's the first and foremost point to make. And then Bruce, if you
want to jump into the next of them, by all means...

Bruce: Well, you know, two things I would add: One is, first of all, I went
to college in the 70's. Trust me, there was marijuana around that was more
than 1% THC. I know. I smoked some of it. There was always good stuff and
cheap stuff. That has never changed. The reason that there has been
something of an increase in average potency is that the higher potency
stuff has become a little bit more common, a little bit easier to get. But,
you know, there's good reason to think that what increase in potency there
has been, is, to some degree, a side effect of prohibition. If you look
back in the history of the prohibition of alcohol, back in the 1920's, the
bootleggers started making beer. They quickly learned that is much easier
to conceal hard liquor because you could make it in a much smaller quantity
and give people the same kick and you could get more money for it.
Prohibition increases potency.

Dean: Now I wanted to address the one point he made about kids thirteen,
twelve, eleven, ten using this. Children have always, you know, done what
was possible, I suppose. And it is the black market that makes this more
possible, that gives that access to...I've heard it said that children have
easier access getting marijuana than they do alcohol or tobacco, and it
seems to me that we're just shooting ourselves in the foot with this policy
of prohibition.

Mitch: Big Michigan surveys support that, Dean. So that when you ask
seniors in high school how easy is it get beer or how easy is it get
marijuana they usually say marijuana is easier. And, in part, it is because
nobody in the black market, in the underground market says, "Can I see your
ID please?" before you purchase. You can imagine a legal market where a
state-run store or an independent store might be allowed to sell to folks
21 and older and then, of course, if they're in danger of their license and
their livelihood they're going to card people.

Dean: Well this is true. Now, gentlemen I want to ask you up front: If you
had the chance to speak to John Walters, I'm figuring I've got ten seconds
before they shut me off, how would you phrase a good question to him?

Bruce: Oh, Mitch? You want to take a whack at that?

Mitch: The first thing I'd like to ask is, what does he have against
medical cannabis? Because I feel like this entire administration has
basically taken crippled people and tried to throw them into jail. I mean,
I know it sounds melodramatic, but all I really want to know is what does
he have against medical cannabis? The institute of medicine, his own crew,
says medical cannabis has (unintelligible) potential. They said, "Oh, we
don't want to smoke drug." Well, we have the vaporizer now. What do you
want? What else do you want? You want a randomized clinical trial? Well,
then fund one and let somebody have the cannabis in order to do one
legally. That would be where I would want to start because I feel that's
where 70 to 80% of Americans are behind the idea of proving medical
cannabis and he knows, he knows that he just can't say it's ok.

Dean: Well, one of our guests last week, Dr. Rick Dobbin was one of the
parties to that suit against the ONDCP, the FDA, I don't know a whole
litany of U.S. government abbreviations, to allow those studies to happen,
to allow that marijuana to be available to these scientists to do that work.

Bruce: Well, you know that's absolutely right and I guess the other thing
that I would like to ask Mr. Walters is, I would love to just ask him why
he so relentlessly misrepresents the actual data. You know, do you need to
do that to make your case? And if so, do you think that maybe it's time to
rethink? Where is the evidence Mr. Walters that your policies are doing
what they're supposed to do. You know, frankly I've got to say, I'm not
sure, there's some people that you can't argue with and he's probably one
of them, it's sort of like discussing ethics with a piranha. (laughter)

Dean: Well, this is true. I kind of dread going into the same room with Tom
DeLay and John Walters, but I'm going to do it and I appreciate those
questions for him.

Bruce: You're a braver man than I. (laughter)

Dean: All right, Steve go ahead and run that next Walters track for us.

(Audio Track) John Walters: Nobody wants to see, you know, relationship on
drugs make Canada look like Mexico here. And it creates problems for free
trade...(unintelligible)...across our borders and we want to stop and we're
trying to aggressively treat and reduce use and break up the organizations
that market it in our streets. But, if the new, most dangerous form of
marijuana being produced is uncontrolled at the production stage, it's very
hard to control the border without cutting into things like trade and free
movement of people. So, the real issue here is, we have to be able to go
after at the place where the production is being done at a more aggressive
fashion if we're going to optimize it. Otherwise, then we have to continue
to increase enforcement at the border and it makes our job in our own
streets in the United States more difficult.

Dean: Bruce, this might be a better one for you. What do you think? Is this
some type of blackmail against the people of Canada? Bruce: Well, it
certainly sounds like it and the Canadians, I think, tended to interpret it
that way. But the bottom line is that there is not the slightest shred of
evidence that all of our government's marijuana eradication efforts have
ever made the slightest dent in the marijuana supply. You know, if you look
at the government's own statistics from the various surveys they put out
every year, you can see that from the early 90's to the last couple of
years, the number of marijuana arrests have skyrocketed. Through all that
time, in fact going back as far as 1975 when they first started taking
these statistics, high school seniors have reported in a survey called
"Monitoring the Future", 83% to 90% have called marijuana "easy to get."
And that number has virtually not changed for 30 years.

Dean: We are running out of time, but I'm looking at a copy Dr. Mitch
Earleywine's book here Understanding Marijuana: A new look at the
scientific evidence and I recommend to everyone out there that they get a
copy. That they educate themselves and they stand forth against this jihad
on marijuana users. It's an insane policy and Bruce, if you would, tell the
folks a bit about your organization, where they might learn more on this
subject.

Bruce: Sure, and I do want to say I also highly recommend Mitch's book
which I refer to all the time. The Marijuana Policy Project is a national
organization based in Washington D.C. You can find out more about us on the
web at http://www.mpp.org and you can sign up and get free e-mail updates
and alerts about bills and legislation and developments and please do. We
need all the support we can get. As you can hear, we've got a lot of work
to do.

Dean: Indeed we have. Dr. Earleywine, if you would...just some closing
comments you'd like to make.

Mitch: The bottom line is, it's not about getting everyone to smoke pot;
it's about making sure that nobody goes to jail for owning a plant.

Dean: Very true, very true. Gentlemen, I want to thank you both for joining
us on Cultural Baggage, and as you both know we'll do this again. You guys
are super and I thank you so much.

Mitch: Thanks a lot Dean.

Bruce: Thanks very much.

Dean: Alright, bye-bye. Steve, let's go ahead and run the Poppygate.

(Audio Track) Poppygate. Dean: It's not possible to wage a moralistic war
against consensual vices unless privacy is eliminated along with the
Constitution. The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in
the world in large part due to the war on some drugs. America can either be
a free country or a drug free country but not both. That's from Robert
Sharpe. He's a policy analyst for the Common Sense for Drug Policy,
csdp.org. Please be sure to join us next week when our guest will be Emily
Reilly, a working city councilwoman for the city of Santa Cruz. She'll be
coming to Houston as part of project Housterdam and speaking to our council
as well. Working together, we can bring this drug war to an end. In
closing, as always, I must remind you that because of drug prohibition, you
really don't know what's in that bag, so you need to be careful; you need
to consider your purchases. You need to think about doing drugs in the
first place. Be careful my friends.

(Audio Track) Closing track