I have the entire interview from the Dr. Drew show recorded, including John Walters, Paul Armentano, and my call-in segment. Unfortunately I can’t put it here on the Stash, that would be copyright violation.
But I am going to address most of the interview points that the Drug Czar tried to float today… Join me below… in The Rest of the Entry (said in Paul Harvey voice)…
DR. DREW: I guess there’s some more studies out on marijuana and its potency.
DRUG CZAR: Uh, yeah, we’ve had the basic national lab at the University of Mississippi…
You know, the place where the government grows medical marijuana and mails it out in 300-joint tins to four federal patients every month?
DRUG CZAR: …that has been studying potency for a number of years, and again potency’s up, it’s been up quite regularly and now dramatically over the last ten years as a result of a combination of the varieties that are being bred and the way they are being cultivated to maximize the THC content, in the product, so it’s up… yeah, I think this is another case – you know this – a lot of baby boomers my age are thinking about the marijuana they and their friends were exposed to in the early eighties where the recorded THC is down in the 2, 3% maybe… we’re talking about approaching on average more than 9%, and then, of course, as you know varieties that have THC content in the 15, 16, even into the 20s are now available to young people. Unfortunately the consequences are more acute as well.
Ding! All of you playing “Drug Czar Bingo”, go ahead and black out the “Not Your Father’s Pot” square.
DR. DREW: Right, I think that’s the big issue, because of the potency of the drug, just as we increase, say… we create a… people seem to understand that when we create a drug like OxyContin with higher [?], more powerful — “Oh, OK, that’s more addictive” — but somehow the marijuana story flies under the radar, that we’re producing a drug that is increasingly powerful and thereby increasingly addictive…
Wait a minute, doctor. That does not necessarily follow. Science has created all manner of more powerful medicines that are not more addictive, and many of them are less addictive than their predecessors.
And we also know that marijuana is not addictive in the “jonesin’, gotta have a hit” sense. Earlier in his show, Drew admitted one of his pet peeves are people who say a drug is only “psychologically addicting”; Drew says he treats these people with addictions and psychological is as much “addiction” as physiological in his view. (And as the son of an alcoholic father who sweated through delirium tremens while quitting cold turkey from booze all alone in a trailer, it offends me when people compare use “addiction” to describe someone who may be “dependent” on a substance or behavior. “Addiction” is physical slavery, “dependence” is enslaving yourself.)
But even under that definition, marijuana is far less addictive than legal drugs and other illegal drugs. The National Institutes of Medicine reviewed plenty of research and found that “few marijuana users become dependent on it”, less than those who use alcohol or tobacco.
DR. DREW: …and it’s also increasingly dangerous in terms of the side effects. We’re seeing lots more problem with depression – I know you and I did a conference about that – we’re even seeing schizophreniform reactions. The one thing that I’m sort of fascinated by, you know, is that for many people there seems to be a very powerful opiate-like effect of marijuana these days in these very high potencies. Is anyone reporting anything about that?
WTF? Opium-weed?!? Look, whatever scary high-potency marijuana you think people are smoking out here, it’s marijuana that people have always been able to smoke. There have always high-potency strains of marijuana – it’s called sinsemilla, hashish, and hash oil. People would smoke a puff or two of those and get a fantastic high… Why didn’t they get depressed or go schizo?
But if you lived in a area where that was tough to get or too expensive, you got what you could get and you smoked a whole hell of a lot of it to get a decent high (and a headache).
Eventually the prohibition marketplace began to start getting the stronger strains to the buyer, as buyers who were tired of spending too much cash on poor quality marijuana demanded more potency. If you’re really concerned about potency, you regulate marijuana so a buyer can know exactly how much THC he’s getting in his baggie. In the Netherlands, where this is sort of the case, buyers prefer the “mild” and “moderate” strains, much like drinkers here prefer beer and wine over whiskey.
DRUG CZAR: Well, one of the ways that we’re seeing this change is the number of people who have reported marijuana as the reason why they come into an emergency room for acute care – in the past people would think, “Oh, you get overdoses for heroin, you get overdoses for cocaine,” but people had a view that marijuana, because it doesn’t have the same toxicity character that would have you come in for acute care, but the number of cases has gone up dramatically over the last ten years as the potency – they track almost directly with the potency. And the number of cases for people coming in reporting that they had an unexpected reaction or they’re having… sometimes they come in because they are seeing acute dependency and they want a referral to treatment. But a lot of them are having unexpected reactions or – not the same overdose toxicity as heroin – but that has been a surprising development which people almost think, “Well, that can’t happen, there must be some kind of problem.” but they’re reporting health consequences from this…
The statistics he is mentioning come from the Drug Abuse Warning Network, or DAWN. According to their own website, “[D]rugs reported to DAWN come from the [emergency room] medical record or [medical examiner's / coroner's] case file. There are many possible sources for this information: laboratory (toxicology) testing, the clinical assessment and diagnoses, as well as reports by patients, their friends, or their families.” According to their FAQ, “Although overdoses are included in the cases reported to DAWN, many other types of drug-related events are also reported. For example, some drug-related ED visits or deaths may be the result of accidents or injuries. Others may be the result of adverse reactions, drug interactions, or accidental ingestion.”
This means when you go to the E.R. because you sprained your ankle playing softball, and their blood tests show you have marijuana metabolites – that’s an emergency admission for marijuana.
If you’re in a car accident and the admitting physician asks your mom whether you use marijuana and she says, yes – that’s an emergency admission for marijuana.
And, to be fair, if you come in freaking out because some black market dealer laced your marijuana with formaldehyde and you’re really messed – that, too, is an emergency room admission for marijuana, and one that wouldn’t have been if the product was regulated and inspected for quality control.
DRUG CZAR: So the number of young people who come in for treatment, even as young people with the earlier stages of initiation. We have, as you know, the national data collection shows more teens coming in for treatment as teens for marijuana dependency than all other illegal drugs combined in the last five years and more in the last five years than for alcohol, which has always unfortunately been a big problem, young underaged drinking and alcoholism.
He’s absolutely right, because now we have a system of drug courts that sentence young offenders to drug treatment even if they aren’t dependent on marijuana. In fact, according to the government’s own figures, one-third of the people sentenced to treatment for marijuana haven’t even smoked pot in over a month. Ah, the drug so powerfully addictive people can easily go without it for a month!
DRUG CZAR: So the increased strength of this substance is also affecting the path of dependency and health consequences, as well as (you mentioned we talked about earlier) some of the mental health consequences. We’ve been even doing work with the Dutch, who are usually thought of as the opposite side of us on marijuana or cannabis, where they are talking about higher potency causing acute health problems that they are seeing in the Netherlands. So they too now have been taking steps to reduce the number of coffee houses, to treat the especially higher potency cannabis almost as a different drug in their system. So, again, I think multiple places are seeing the same thing, we have, it’s a kind of a cultural blind spot about marijuana that is unfortunately putting more kids at risk.
Well, first of all, if John Walters wants to learn a lesson from the Dutch and institute a policy of tolerance for small personal cannabis sales and use in coffee shops, I’m all for that. But he’s way off base with the characterization of the Dutch reduction in coffee houses. Coffee house numbers are down nationally from around a thousand in the nineties to around 700 today, but primarily because of the pressures of “drug tourism” from countries that do not tolerate personal soft drug use. Of course, if other countries tolerated marijuana use, there’d be no “drug tourism”. It’s not about potency; coffee houses still sell high-potency strains like White Widow that test in the 25% THC range.
DR. DREW: It’s interesting that when I treat people for multiple substances – cocaine, alcohol, and pot – the one they really miss is the pot. It creates sort of a… the euphoria from the drug creates sort of a love-type reaction – they love the drug – it’s a nurturing sort of warm feeling they can’t get any other way. And so when they are left without the drug there may be some outside withdrawal, their affect may be stabilizing, but they still miss and romanticize that feeling.
Could it be, Dr. Drew, they miss it because it had wonderfully positive effects for them and an absence of serious negative effects? No alcoholic misses puking on his shoes and the shakes when he can’t get a drink. No coke addict misses nosebleeds, a racing heart, and emptying their bank account for one more eightball. I mean, if you told me that for the rest of my life I couldn’t eat Mexican food, I’d still miss and romanticize about a nice plate of pollo en mole.
DR. DREW: It’s really interesting to me that the Dutch are sort of focusing their attention on this. How are they – well, let’s maybe take it back home here – I’m interested in sort of how they would differentiate between using one kind of pot and the other – what are we doing in this country to try and address this?
DRUG CZAR: One, we’re trying to get more of the word out about marijuana is a dangerous substance of abuse. I think when we had the conference that we did, you and I talked about the, um…
Does it bother anyone else that interviewer and interviewee are so chummy, doing conferences together talking about the evils of marijuana? Just wondering…
DRUG CZAR: One of the problems is just having people overcome the false view that marijuana is not a serious drug of abuse, that this is different. We’ve been trying to help young people see this. We get further when we have consensus. I mean, we have consensus on things like methamphetamine, like crack cocaine, like heroin. We have more to do here, but nobody goes up and says, “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s only psychologically addicting, it’s not physically addicting, or it’s not a dangerous drug of abuse.” We do have that with marijuana, yet we have more people – not just teens, but nationwide – more people coming in for treatment for marijuana dependency as a primary dependency than any other drug in adults and kids combined. And yet, if you say that, people just think there’s something false in the data.
Yes, it must be monumentally difficult to convince nearly 100 million Americans who’ve tried marijuana themselves and for the most part suffered no ill effects that the bullshit you’re peddling is accurate. It must be especially hard to convince the 14 million who’ve smoked in the past month – smoking that same deadly potent marijuana you’re claiming is out there today – that it’ll drive them crazy and into the E.R. when it hasn’t had that effect on them or anyone they know.
The reason you have consensus on meth, crack, and heroin, is because those drugs are dangerous and addictive, and most everyone has seen the story of the meth-mouthed scrap-metal thief, the crackhead woman turning tricks for a rock, and the junkie wasting away in an alley. Nobody has seen that in a stoner. Nobody is too afraid of the worst case scenario (getting plastered to a sofa and eating cookie dough while watching Spongebob) because they know that after even the highest high, the vast majority of stoners return to living productive sober lives.
DRUG CZAR: So we’re trying to talk about marijuana, we’re gonna talk about the reality of young people and marijuana, we’re trying to talk about the research showing the mental health consequences as you helped us with earlier.
That’s funny, because I’ve been reading some of that research, such as Leslie Iverson’s 2005 meta-analysis that looked at most of the research in this mental health arena and concluded “A review of the literature suggests that the majority of cannabis users, who use the drug occasionally rather than on a daily basis, will not suffer any lasting physical or mental harm.” Yes, if you smoke a whole lot of marijuana, and you’re predisposed to psychosis or schizophrenia, cannabis may exacerbate that. But that’s no reason to prohibit cannabis, any more than we should ban Snickers bars because some people have peanut allergies.
DRUG CZAR: We’re also trying to help more directly cut off some of the availability of marijuana because there also has been a reluctance, I think, sometimes to take seriously the criminal marketing of marijuana, which people think it’s Cheech & Chong, not dangerous guys, but the killers and assassins in Mexico, those mafias, make the bulk of their money – the Mexicans know this, we know this – on marijuana. Yeah, they make money from cocaine and heroin, but the basic paid overhead is paid by marijuana, and that’s just one of the sources.
Oh, no, Mr. Walters, I do take very seriously the criminal marketing of marijuana. That’s why we work so hard at NORML to take the “criminal” part out of the marketing of marijuana. And how dare you bring up the border drug war in Mexico when it is your policies that have created that war and gotten brave police, judges, and civilians killed in the crossfire because you’ve criminalized Americans who like to smoke a doobie now and then. If they’re paying their bills through marijuana, why not undercut their income by legalizing the sale of weed within the US?
DRUG CZAR: Again, we’re trying to both influence supply and demand, try to influence people to work on prevention and intervention and treatment for marijuana and not ignore it. We’re also trying to, and we have stepped up some of the efforts to control the sources of supply, because when they are plentiful and powerful, we get more sick people, as well as when we look the other way and tell kids it’s an expected rite of passage, every generation does this, don’t worry…
DR. DREW: Oh, that is such an anachronism, that drives… you’ve mentioned two of my most… the two things that drive me more crazy than anything else. One was that drug use and alcohol use by teens should be anticipated as a rite of passage – that is a HORRIBLE idea, a horrible message to young people. It’s always dangerous and unhealthy. You look at every unwanted outcome, whether it’s pregnancy or STDs or accidents, you ALWAYS find drugs or alcohol, kids need to get that message. And the other thing you mentioned, which is the idea of a… whoa, we’re out of time! This is John Walters, the director of the White House Office of national Drug Policy… but the other thing is the idea of psychological dependence or addiction: things are either addictive or they are not and if they’re addictive, it’s a biological process.
Just because people with unwanted outcomes smoked pot doesn’t mean that smoking pot is going to lead to unwanted outcomes. Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc, doctor, you should know better. And in a world where we tell them “Just say no” and “marijuana is going to make you schizo”, we’re more likely to get the unwanted outcomes than if we give them accurate facts about marijuana.
After the commercial break, Dr. Drew comes back with Paul Armentano. For some reason, Drew didn’t bring up any of the points being touted by John Walters and led him into a tangential discussion about a cannabis-blocking drug being used as a weight loss agent. After that segment I was able to call in to Drew’s show and address some of the points (“why are we supposed to be afraid of this increased potency marijuana when the federal government allows the prescription of a 100% THC pill called Marinol”, “higher potency was around back in the 1960s and 1970s”, and “they say it’s the smoking that’s bad, and if it’s more potent, you smoke less of it”), and even then he tried to take me on some tangent about a book I’ve never read.
Maybe we’ll have Paul on Dr. Drew’s show again some time.
Allen, what can I say to a person who defends our outrageous level of taxation. I’m disappointed that people on a major weed site are so quick to tax and regulate that plant. I don’t think marijuana is any more dangerous then an overeating, non-exercising, obese person. So, should the government tax and regulate fat people because of an unhealthy life style? Yes, I am proud to say I have a “fuck” the government attitude. We all should. They are the problem not the freedom loving citizen. Taxation is counter productive. The condescending comments regarding Libertarians demonstrates ignorance, the constitution is basically a libertarian document. I can see where someone sucking off the government,with some of these government make-work jobs would find what I say repulsive. We live in a police state, and its clear to me that we have been moving toward Socialism. We need microscopic taxation not what we have. There is also other ways to educate our kids besides having them brainwashed by compulsory government schools.
Well. Haven’t we all just been spoon fed more political crap than recent? I mean Dr.Drew’s ego is right up there with the Goodyear blimp. Yes, the great Drew who went from an advise giver to a full blown politician that panders to the likes of that BS artist,the know nothing of all, John Walters! Can Johnny boy ever talk about marijuana without using the word “kids”? And what about describing past adult use. The drug we were, “EXPOSED” to. Exposed??? For those of you that don’t listen to Drew’s Love Line show, be advised, Drew can hardly wait to use the term, ADDICT to describe the pot smoker. It doesn’t matter that that twerpy little twit of a side kick, Stryker at any given time wiil brag about dumping all the booze he wants down his throat. And to make matters worse when the great Drew can’t be on the show this other medical moron takes his place and he even claimed he’s so against med pot that he wouldn’t wear a shirt made out of hemp. It’s clear that the anti’s bag of tricks are all but gone. They have nothing else but to crank up the scare machine while using the words, children, kids, youg adults. Isn’t in funny that for decades they been using this theme. Yet after these kids get older and reach youg adulthood and decide to try something other than booze, mainly pot, the political recourse to have them entered into a criminal environment. And then as if nothing happened continue to use kids,children and the like as excuse to keep shoving these mean spirited laws down our throats?
Sure do appreciate your efforts Russ. Thanks…
And Carson… I would – any day – rather have my $10-15K of tax dollars going to educate our kids than twice that amount going to housing convicts in our penal institutions (which make up our Crime U, with far, far too many graduates).
Criticising to show off your superior intellect?
Taxes are fine. Wasting our tax dollars sucks.
Encourage cooperation rather than conflict and competition.
And Shirlean… step on up… fighting the drug war provides many opportunities to be a “poster-child” so go for it. Write letters-to-the-editor, newshawk for MAP, join LEAP… educate, educate, educate…
Shirlean, You are my kind of person,we have so much in common, I’m with your comments completely.
I would love to be the poster child for a pro-marijuana forum. I am a 51 yr old senior of Political Science and a frequent user of marijuana since age 12. I have an exceptional GPA, write better than most, can actually think through situations and can emphatically state that I have NEVER had withdrawal when I couldn’t get a joint! Most of the rhetoric is just that. Could it be they don’t want to eliminate their jobs?
There again,”Radical” you may want to fund public schools with your tax dollars(what a radical idea) but I don’t. I guess $10,000 per student per year is not enough for you, how about $15,000 per student per year? Is that acceptable for your tax threshold, “Radical”?
If it’s a criminal act to take the nation to war on false pretenses, then how would you explain Walters approach to the drugwar? War is war and lies are lies. After Walters goes, who is next? Or will the ONDCP$$$ dry up and blow away.
Yeah, it was in that part of the Constitution about government existing to ensure the general welfare of the people. Part of that document talks about regulating commerce between the states, too. I won’t engage in yet another debunk of the big-L-Libertarian rant about “taxation is stealing! leave me alone, I am an island and I owe the rest of society past and present nothing” line of reasoning you’re flashing here – Google “radical russ liberatianism” and you’ll find puh-lenty…
I live in the real world where every people in every country in every society that has ever existed in the world at any reasonable size within limited space have made the trade of taxation for general welfare, not Ayn Rand’s science fiction novels. In that world, consumer commodities are taxed and regulated. That’s never going to stop anyone from growing their own or giving/selling it to friends and family – hell, I have a friend who home brews craft beer and sells it to his friends, even though there is taxed and regulated alcohol.
But if there’s going to be a public legal market in marijuana, it will need to be quality controlled and safe. I don’t want a bunch of pesticides in my legal weed. And maybe I want to know its THC/CBD ratio and potency? A genetic breakdown might be nice. All of that costs money and marijuana taxes will cover it.
I will grant all sorts of leeway to criticism of how our tax money is spent and how much of it is collected. You and I might find room for agreement in those discussions, especially in the notion of rebuilding bridges we’ve blown up in other countries. I personally think I wouldn’t mind $5 out of a quarter-ounce going to build schools rather than buying my dealer a cheeseburger.
But please, calling me a Tory? That’s just plain rude. The Founders protested “taxation without representation”, not taxation alone. They knew that functioning democracies had to tax something to survive, they just wanted some say so in how the money was spent.
Well not so radical Russ, its people like you who can rationalize taxes for all the general welfare of the people. Yea, all that great road building, and fixing bridges in other countries to keep us safe. Yea, radical, stealing is stealing, income redistribution, steal from one person to give to another. Also, I don’t need a breakdown of tomato taxation, because you miss the point. You don’t really understand freedom. During the Revolutionary War you would have been on the Tory team, not standing up to fight for something approaching freedom.
Yup, just go to http://www.westwoodone.com/drew and go to the Show Audio (not the Highlights – that’s just the Drug Czar) and listen to the first hour. You want the show from June 18.
I’d like to see Armentano’s call and Dr. Drew’s response. Does it exist on the internet?
“Tax and Regulate” does not mean the snooping gub’mint revenoo’er is going to be poking around your flower garden and assessing a tax on the pot plant you’re tending. It means we tax and regulate the *commercial* sales and production of marijuana.
Like the tomatoes you mention. If you’re a family farmer and you produce tomatoes and sell them at the market, there is a sales tax paid to the state. But if you’re a private citizen growing tomatoes in your yard, they’re free (well, except maybe the sales tax you paid on the seeds and fertilizer if you bought them at a store.)
Unfortunately, I feel there are too many weed-friendly people with far too much of a “fuck the government” attitude. I grok* that, especially if you were incarcerated and raided over a flower garden. I’ve even heard from a few who *like* prohibition because it provides a tax-free easy income for the dealers and a vast potent captive market of users (and if a few hundred thousand people have to be arrested and sick people can’t get dope so you can make a nice profit, well, you have to live with your conscience, not me.)
But all things legal are taxed, people, and that’s not a bad thing. Taxes build roads, bridges, and schools. Taxes buy health care, meals, and education. Taxes protect us from criminals and warfare. And taxes do a lot of shitty things, too, like kill innocents, rape the planet, and arrest potheads. Such is life.
Taxation and regulation for marijuana need not be any different than alcohol. Government has to be involved, because we’re talking about the commercial transactions of a mind-altering substance, and we’ve found that is the most harm-reducing way of dealing with people’s natural predilection for altering their consciousness.
(*For the youngsters: “grok” means to understand as if immersed, a sort of transcendental empathy, popularized in a sci-fi book from the 60s by Robert Heinlein called “Stranger in a Strange Land”. It’s my middle-aged version of “I’m feelin’ ya” in today’s lingo.
)
I love what you do for us, Paul. But, I for one prefer to hear a greater freedom message from you. Because, I strongly disagree with your idea of having a government regulate and/or tax marijuana. Why have them involved? What’s wrong with freedom in this way. Grow as you would vegetables. Everyone to freely choose. Should we invite the government to steal from our garden? Tax our Tomatoes. I think not. I would certainly understand many of your reasons for choosing your current position. But, I want for us the “whole enchilada” of real freedom here in U.S. The land of free. What a big joke.
I just love how they say we are TRYING to influence supply and demand. one point i will make… with every “drug ring”… operation… whatever you want to call it… gets shut down. another springs up over night right back in its place, and to add to it. the very ppl policeing this issue (if its even an issue on pot) is the ppl creating this problem. when you make something ilegal. you make it very profitable. the u.s. government spends billions on the war on drugs… i cant remember the profit the dealers make… but basicly for every billion for policeing it is something close to 3 times the profit for the dealers. dont quote me. but its alot more.
Yikes. Dr. Drew kinda kicked our ass on this one. oops!
You can hear the interview online at http://www.westwoodone.com/drew
These two really need to do more research before spouting off. Dr. Drew comes off as an ass-kissing fool. This Walter’s guy supposedly knows so much, but can’t get his facts straight?!? They need more intelligent, unbiased people involved in discussions.
I’m so tired of people using the term “Young Adults” when discussing marijuana. You’re either 18 and a legal adult or you’re not. Let’s not mix in a few underage teens to make your point, are we talking about adults or not!?! If we’re talking about kids using drugs and alcohol that’s one thing. But if we are talking about adults making their own decisions as Americans to smoke pot as opposed to drinking whiskey to relax after a long day at work, well that’s another issue entirely!
What I don’t get is how drugs like Oxycontin, morphine, dilaudid, and cocaine, which are certainly drugs subject to street sale and hardcore abuse, can be legally prescribed by physicians in every one of the 50 states, yet federal law prohibits prescribing medical marijuana, which unlike the drugs mentioned above, has NEVER been the source of fatal overdose.
Dr. Drew as in the love line host? Yeah he has always been into the reefer-madness blaming people’s sexual problems on marijuana. LOL. Where can I find Armentano’s “rebuttle”.