In this episode, I am joined by Jordan Davidson. I captured this conversation in our nation’s capital: Washington D.C. Jordan works for Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). SAM is a political organization that is opposed to cannabis legalization and commercialization. SAM advocates for for civil penalties for possession of low-amounts of cannabis, with mandated treatment, prevention, education, and awareness.
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Links mentioned referenced during episode
- First episode of Chillinois Podcast featuring Jordan Davidson
- Second episode of Chillinois Podcast featuring Jordan Davidson
- Third episode of Chillinois Podcast featuring Jordan Davidson and Justin Strekal
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Transcript for E4
this is the Cole memo I am your host Cole Preston every episode is released
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support is appreciated please enjoy this episode of the coal memo today is October 23rd 2023
and the conversation featured in today’s episode was recorded on October 6th 2023
in Washington DC folks I just had two notes that I
took as I stepped away from this conversation I honestly didn’t do a full
review of the conversation I you know just kind of threw it together and what you’re about
to watch is the the full cut of that but two notes that I wanted to address that
I think I address in this episode uh at least the first point but the second
point I don’t know that I address at all so the first point that I address is I make it very clear in this episode that
I think it could be argued that I have a cannabis addiction right woohoo crazy now is that
addiction like causing an issue in my life no it’s causing as much of an issue
as my addiction to Coke is causing and to be clear it’s an addiction to Coca-Cola I have to have a Coca-Cola
with every [ _ ] meal and the only problem that causes is sometimes an inconvenience where it’s like [ _ ] I’m
about to have a meal but I really need to have a Coke the meal’s ready but I
don’t have a Coke so I go and like run up to the store and grab a Coke that’s the most inconvenience it causes in my
life and I would say that it’s my addiction to cannabis is is quite
similar to you know most people’s relationship with coffee don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee you know
everybody’s got to get in Starbucks in line for Starbucks in the morning so I’m pretty sure I’m very clear about the
fact that I don’t consider my cannabis addiction to be serious but I can already see myself getting hate for the
fact that I acknowledge the fact that I think addicted with cannabis and some people are just like it can’t be
addictive cannabis can’t be addictive I think anything can be addictive cheeseburgers can be addictive and you
can abuse those many people do here in America um you can abuse anything right
and so it’s it’s uh it is what it is I’m never going to argue that it or any
other drug should be illegal I think that’s what’s important to consider about me as
you go into this conversation I if you didn’t know this already I believe all drugs should be decriminalized and legal
to purchase I believe safe Supply is the solution to issues like fentol so on and
so forth and if you happen to partake in any of those substances which are indeed dangerous and do indeed have a high
abuse for potential well then you need to deal with the consequences just like if I decide to go
parachuting I have to deal I have to deal with the consequences personally I like to ride motorcycles and very aware
of those consequences and I’ve seen those consequences play out on some of my friends nevertheless I don’t believe
that you should be legally mandated to wear a helmet I don’t believe that motorcycles should be illegal regardless
of how dangerous they are this isn’t about safety this is about Freedom folks and so I wanted to
just address where my feelings on drug Le legalization come from I’m not saying all drugs are safe I’m in fact I
acknowledge the contrary that that in many ways drugs can be very dangerous but that I don’t think that
that means that here in America uh where we espouse to be uh you know a free
country I don’t think that throwing people in a cage for making choices uh that arguably only hurt
themselves is the answer the other thing that I wanted to take on as my phone
starts ringing is uh therapy and how I think that legally mandated treatment is
cost prohibitive for most so cost proh cost uh therapy is cost prohibitive
obviously issuing citations which is uh one of the suggestions not to spoil this
conversation that Jordan gives to uh his issue um which is cannabis legalization
he thinks the answer would be to give people citations I think citations
combined with cost prohibitive mandated therapy
which I’m just assuming it’s cost prohibitive I’m sure maybe he’s aware of or somebody’s aware of some way to give
people the therapy for free through taxpayer dolls whatever my thing
is all of that sounds cost prohibitive to uh the poorest and and you know Among
Us it would affect minorities worst and first in my opinion when I hear things like that and I just wanted to address
those two topics from the onset you know um I’ll address the you know critiques
I’ve gotten in um the intro the actual intro for this episode that I’ll be playing here in just a moment but I
wanted to just take a moment to address some critiques I’m anticipating getting I think my last thought is you
know I look I don’t take Jordan to task on everything in this episode and I’m
sure he would probably say the same thing about me um at a certain point this is a conversation it’s not a debate
um and so though with that with that said this will not be the last time I have Jordan on the show so if there’s
something specifically that I didn’t add address please go to uh the co memo.com
and go to our contact form and send it my way I will be sure to address it with him and he’s super easy as I mentioned
in this podcast to book with so uh you can just go to the co memo and hit the contact button or you can go to the
memo.com fill out our contact form and you can
get in touch with us there’s a another option that you can uh select as well
just about to display it on my screen here you can if if you don’t want to
provide your name and email which I know some people are weird about you can message us on Twitter or Instagram so
once again if you go to the co memo there’s a tab that says contact and you can send us a message in case you didn’t
know I used to host a show called the chinois podcast Jordan had been on the show several times if you’d like to
check out those episodes I’ll have links to those episodes in the podcast description I believe they are episodes
number 179 number 205 and episode number 226
features Jordan Davidson and Justin stle who if you didn’t know was a
communications director for National normal which of course Works to legalize
cannabis at a federal or national level so if you’d like to see somebody else
have a conversation with Jordan Davidson that’s episode number 226 once again all
of those links will be included in the show notes for this episode of the coal
memo folks I hope you enjoy this episode and if you don’t or if you really do or
whatever if you have feedback please send it our way I’d love to hear it and I’ll keep it in mind the next time I sit
down with Jordan Davidson or anybody on the Cole memo
[Music]
enjoy uhhuh a Blas for me apostasy oh claim to be a Le
Jesus when
in this episode of the Cole memo I’m coming to you from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington
[Music] DC skies I see their face they change
the B them now stand
up today I smoked weed at the [ _ ] White House the United States capital Jesus Christ while I will not be storming the capital in today’s episode I think that the conversation we’re going to have today will take you by storm today I’m sitting down with my friend Jordan Davidson who is known for working with an organization called smart approaches to marijuana which is not exactly what it sounds like smart approaches to marijuana actually lobbies at the federal and state level to keep cannabis from becoming legal they argue that the legalization of cannabis is just propping up another industry that is based on addiction for profit as such as you can imagine Jordan and I don’t really see eye to eye on this topic but that’s exactly what I think will make today’s episode so great I’ve been critiqued in the past for sitting down with Jordan Davidson the number one question I always get is why would you give Jordan Davidson and smart approaches to marijuana a platform I engage in conversation with people that I disagree with because I’m confident in what I believe in and I really think that that’s the key to this if you’re afraid that by watching today’s episode your mind is going to be changed I think you need to watch today’s episode so whether you are tuning in because you’re a fan of the Cole memo or because you’re a fan of smart approaches to marijuana I encourage you to sit through this entire conversation even if you don’t agree with everything that you’re hearing without further Ado this is the co memo featuring Jordan Davidson enjoy [Music] all good we are hot Jordan thank you for joining me today on the coal memo still getting used to saying that awesome yes awesome to be here so glad you could come down to or come across I guess to to DC uh and and visit me and do an imperson pod yeah absolutely and I just wanted to acknowledge something that I told you so we just had lunch and I if you’ve seen the behindth scenes content you you will know that we just had lunch but one of the things I mentioned during our lunch is that you are easier to schedule with than I would say any cannabis how about I say most cannabis companies that I’ve worked with there is one that I’m thinking of that’s like you want to do something let’s do it but that’s how your approach was I was like hey Jordan I’m coming to DC I know you’re from around there let’s get together and you’re like yeah wi that was your only question yeah yeah yeah I’m I mean I like even if I have different opinions than many of your viewers uh you know I I’m a total nerd about marijuana policy and I know you are too and you’re one of the probably only people outside of you know my organization that I know and like now I’ve met personally that can keep up with me on talking like actually just knowing what’s going on in the space and I love that super exciting so always down yeah do you find yourself I’m speaking from experience do you find yourself having like at parties and stuff like like holding yourself back like let’s not talk about cannabis let’s like oh did you see the game the other day yeah yeah I don’t it’s well this is the thing I know that the second I start talking about it I won’t be able to stop I know it’s like you know maybe it’s just cuz I mean my job right I’m a lobbyist or whatever you know the an advocate as some people would probably prefer to be called um and so I think when I talk about it especially meeting new people maybe my goal is to persuade and tell you know try to convince of my opinion so yeah I I do try and not get too carried away yeah same here I have to remind myself sometimes even if it’s somebody that’s going to agree with me like where I’m like I know that they smoke weed I don’t get into the whole like what I get into which is the policy yeah yeah cuz there’s some people that at like surface level they’re like we’ll talk about smok and weed but it’s a five minute conversation you and I right right right yeah we go back and forth from the yes yeah yeah well hey uh one of the things just in the spirit of what I just asked and I asked you this in the past it seems like one thing that you that smart appr well before I ask that question why don’t you int reintroduce yourself forgot right for people who haven’t heard me before so Jordan Jordan Davidson I work for a group called smart approaches to marijuana uh or Sam and we’ve been around since 2012 really our Genesis was after Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana um we we felt like there were kind of two sides to the issue so there are people on one side that are like War on Drugs lock them up throw away the key everyone’s familiar you know how I get demonized as being uh and then there’s the other side which is we need to legalize uh which which we view as meaning we need to commercialize and uh we don’t think that going crazy and and being kind of hawks on the issue super Hardline and not giving people any sympathy or benefit of the doubt is good we also don’t think ending up like Seattle which has more pot shops than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined uh or you know Colorado where 70% of dispensaries pulled advertised to pregnant women is is also we don’t think that’s good but either good for public health or Public Safety so we kind of come down on it like we support what Biden did expunging the records Right cleaning records especially for possession we support decriminalizing we’ve gotten into this a lot we say decriminalizing low-level possession you know we say if you’re especially you know you’re a teenager or whatever have a run in with law enforcement you have a little bit of marijuana on you we don’t think that should ruin your life that should not give you a record that should not uh bar you from employment at the most we would support you know treating it like a speeding ticket essentially right that’s how we would treat uh that at that level um but that doesn’t mean we have to legalize marijuana it doesn’t mean we have to have dispensaries it doesn’t mean uh we have to commercialize a new addiction for profit industry that’s funded by groups like big tobacco um so that’s where we are and I’m someone I in December I’ll have 5 years of sobriety and addiction recovery and I work on the marijuana issue because I struggled with you know the high potency kind of like like dab pens right stuff that are being sold in in legal markets now and different than people know like the Woodstock read of the 7s uh and I want to help kind of raise awareness for that and educate people on it and because I learned the hard way so hopefully prevent people from going down that same path yeah so for for folks that want to look up Sam it’s smart approaches marijuana.com is that it’s so it’s actually learn about sam.org but you can just look up smart approaches to marijuana it will be right there perfect cool cool man well um we’ve done several podcasts together and I went to the capital this morning before I met to try to uh film like kind of an introduction like hey I’m in the capital today I’ll be speaking to Jordan Davidson and sir are you credentialed for media we’re going to need to ask you to get on the okay my bad they they said sir we’re going to need to ask you to get on the grass it’s like believe me you I’m on the grass sorry just a bad no but I had to leave the the plaza I was at the steps of the capital I wasn’t storming the capital uh but I am hoping today as or so you say yeah right yeah yeah the lame pun I made in the intro is that I am hoping that today’s conversation takes people by storm I’ve received criticisms from people that when they sit down with you they’re like if people even tweet me and they’ve obviously not listened to our conversations together they’ll be like did you ask Jordan about this it’s like yeah and I asked him about a lot more you should check out the episode that’s what’s so great about it I hope people can hear me out and that’s I’ll say if you’re like angrily shutting shutting this off right now just hear me out you may still be angry and disagree with me but maybe you can see where I’m coming from at least so just plug for myself yeah and I want to see if you agree with with what I said in the intro in that when people ask me they’re like why would you give Jordan Davidson a platform why would you give smart approaches to marijuana a platform and what I say to that is I enjoy having conversations with people that I disagree with and I’m confident in what I believe in and if that makes you uncomfortable maybe you need to ask yourself why and I’m talking on both s I’m talking I’m breaking the third wall right now talking to my camera I’m on both sides of the aisle right now like if if you’re Pro cannabis and you’re uncomfortable with this conversation or if you’re anti-cannabis and you’re uncomfortable with this conversation I I want you to ask yourself why like why can’t you hear an opinion that you may not agree with yeah I agree it’s like people people especially in this space you know I think I think every every every issue have people personal attachments to it but for some reason at the Cannabis space it’s like people get so I don’t even know how to say it they’re so attached to it on both sides cuz you have bad experiences or you’re in recovery or you have a kid who’s struggling with marijuana right like you’re going to be rabidly anti-legalization or this right then people who smoke marijuana I mean I don’t think you’re like this uh and maybe this will offend some of your viewers but like honestly it can be kind of cultish like the absolute almost idolization of a of a substance right like and and that pits people against each other I mean our country lives for watching presidential debates where people disagree with each other on stage like why can’t they disagree with each other in real life on an issue like you know just sit and listen and learn a few things that’s how I think yeah yeah well said and yeah I just again before we get into all this I wanted to just acknowledge that like I want you to think about that if if you thought about turning it off like why did you why did that come to to mind because I personally love conversations like these because you put me in a place and maybe sometimes I put you in the place to explain why you believe in what you believe in and I think it’s a healthy exercise for sure totally agree so I was curious I mentioned at the beginning you you know that it’s it’s hard for this this question came to mind when I asked when I was painting the contrast of how easy it is to book with you but then how hard it is to book with cannabis companies you mentioned at the beginning and and like you said maybe this will get get us back into this conversation we’ve talked about decriminalization a lot and as you as you’ve said Sam supports decriminalization of small amounts and I guess what I wanted to ask you today is why do you think that’s a position where Sam is like on par with cannabis companies like they also don’t believe in full decriminalization yeah um well I I guess I’d ask so can you elaborate on what you mean by that so they when when you say they don’t so well I you know I think I understand I mean I mean how I guess interpreting what you’re saying is they is it a black market thing is that kind of what you’re getting at they don’t want to compete with people who are just legally able to care carry around enough marijuana to be able to deal it it from what I’ve been told yeah they view initiatives like the complete decriminalization of cannabis which I do believe was like if you look back at the hippie like uh uh par or parades or protests or whatever like I don’t think they were like we want to legalize cannabis but we only want it to be certain amounts and we only want rich people to benefit so I feel like that’s the true Spirit of the Cannabis legalization movement and I understand why cuz because of our conversations you’ve got your objections to those policies but I I view it as ironic that like if you look at it that way and I can give a few more examples since you asked me um it seems like Sam is on the same page as cannabis company I hear you I I’d say a few things yeah so I’m I’m sure that our motivation um for that position is not the same right as we might end up in the same place but I don’t think it’s the same motivation because where we also disagree with cannabis companies is that we don’t we don’t think that there should be dispensaries like we don’t support the idea of having dispensaries so they want that policy because they want to have the domination over the market we don’t think they should have domination over the market or that the black market should of course the black Market’s going to exist with or without legalization our goal I think where we would agree with them as well is like we want to see the black market shrink right we want to see that shrink but I think that means inevitably we want to see marijuana use go down like reduce marijuana use uh increase prevention and not go to legalization so the end goal is like different there the Cannabis company’s goal is probably have more marijuana total ours is to have less so that’s where I’d say we disagree and we just think that you should be treating people who are dealers differently um or sellers differently than people who are users or you know who possess it right like that’s we just view those things in a totally different category you know also with the and maybe I need to brush up on my history of this but I’m just from what I understand right like let’s take the 60s right the starting the real movement like early 60s legalization you know I think the deal the situation with the cartels looks totally different in the 60s than it does in the 80s the ’90s 2000s today right like by the 80s and 90s they had a fully operational you know cartel system yeah with Escobar um with El Chapo right those guys coming onto the scene making it a bloody uh violent business um that I think from my understanding it was just on a different scale than it was 20 years prior in the 60s and so those guys probably would have benefited from a total decriminalization right like the the trafficking probably looked different so I think it was a different time a different era and different motivations and I guarantee you that the hippies of the 60s wouldn’t be happy with uh you know Cresco and Altria investing in marijuana and you know Columbia care whatever they wouldn’t be happy with that stuff so yeah yeah but like you say yeah they it’s interesting to me and I don’t know that we’ll necessarily be able to go any further than this but it’s just like it is interesting to me that you would think cannabis companies would be at the Forefront of like decriminalization but they really do view it as cutting into their profits yeah and that’s and that’s kind of like that’s kind of the point that Sam tries to make right like our slogan is preventing a new big tobacco we say that this is an addiction for profit industry that 80% of the profits come from 20% of the consumers these industries rely on addiction and they don’t care about anything else other than their bottom line they don’t care about the social justice they don’t care about um civil you know what people would say civil liberties right issues like that that You’ probably frame in that way um and it’s evident here you know I guarantee you that these the same guys would have probably been rah rah for decriminalization before legalization before they actually had the company and then once they actually have it they’re like no no no we need to just do whatever we can to maintain our bottom line not not what other people’s priorities might be um no matter how virtuous right but do do you think and I’m just like do you think that decriminalization I I know you disagree with it but if they disagree with it because of their profit motive do you think that kind of puts a hole in the addiction for profit like if they’re not they’re acknowledging like if we did it if we decriminalized it and just let everybody have like if we treated it like tomatoes they’re saying we can’t make money off of it so it kind of puts you it like you’re saying they want to legalize it so that they can make a money and you’re right right now you’re right but my thing is like if if what maybe I wanted to happen they wouldn’t be able to make as much money and I well it’s because you have both things at so it’s because you have both things at once right like where we would dis might disagree and I would disagree with some others is that I don’t want those businesses there in the first place I don’t want big marijuana companies to exist or even marijuana companies right I don’t want that and people are say oh so you like IL legal Market you like the black market no I don’t I’m just saying I think when you trade kind of the values and priorities the damage to public health and safety that I see legalization does I think that’s a a far greater damage um but Le if you have legalization and then you decriminalize just generally among non-licensed uh I guess you could say businesses right people who are just selling um that is a something that I don’t support because I don’t support you know decriminalizing sale but I also don’t support legalization right if you decriminalize a small amount of marijuana um and you don’t have legalization then I think that’s the optimal policy so that’s I guess where the difference is these these businesses don’t want to go out of business they they want legalization so I think it’s just a totally different landscape when you’re dealing with that that kind of dynamic right and I guess that’s what I’m that’s what I’m saying is like if they got what they want which is legalization I think you’re like 100% On Target but if the people got what they want I don’t mean to speak for people but if the people people got what they want like I don’t feel like I that as they say they won’t be able to profit yeah I I hear what you’re saying I just think I don’t and maybe it’s a moral thing yeah right like that’s probably what it boils down to I my values I don’t think that we should decriminalize the selling of drugs I just don’t yeah right that’s just period uh I I think people are struggling with addiction people who use that’s one thing um I view people who are selling in a a different way uh and I I just don’t want to do anything to encourage that or support that um so you know I just don’t think my my relation definitely just couldn’t get behind that I think it just boils down to a values thing yeah yeah and I I you know I can see from both sides not only from your side but also from even the legal side why they wouldn’t want kind of a fast and loose system like you just described a two-tiered kind of yeah right what do you think about the idea that I was was hoping that I could listen back to some of our podcasts but I didn’t have time to but I remember the one that we did before the structured conversation with Justin stle one of the things I tried just as a kind of a let me try to pitch this a different way I remember I said what if Jordan we were just the only two people on Earth yeah yeah yeah and you told me like that’s not the world we live in though Cole and you’re right it’s not but it it still kind of is like I’m sitting right in front of you right now you know what I mean so um I guess what I wanted to ask is so putting sales aside like I don’t sell to people do you think that and I know this is probably like this is such a focused laser question that it’s like it may not even apply or anything but I’m just curious a person like me who’s cultivating cannabis for themselves in their own home using it themselves it’s not leaving it’s not Society doesn’t even know EX for the fact that I just set it on the record right yeah do you think there’s a problem with that I’d say that I don’t have a serious personally right and I’m not speaking even for my organization right I don’t have a serious personal moral problem with that I don’t think you are an immoral person for doing that now I think if you were to get behind the wheel and and you know intoxicated if you were to sell that to others if you were to raise children in a house where you’re just growing you know people say it’s not a drug but it’s a drug drugs everywhere like I don’t just like if someone were drinking all the time with kids I wouldn’t say it any differently people are going to say oh you must love alcohol I always get oh he’s probably saying this with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other right no don’t do either um but you know right I don’t have any personal moral qualm with that yet do I support that as policy no and the reason is because you I consider you a friend and I trust you and I think you’re a responsible person um and so while I might trust a friend to responsibly engage in that uh I might not trust the guy next door and I don’t think uh that the potential consequences from that kind of a system even though it’s more limited than full legalization will be beneficial I think it’s inevitable that you’re going to have some loopholes it’s inevitable that someone’s going to sell that off uh someone’s going to drive under the influence right all those kinds of things so even if the base activity I might morally not think is the worst thing ever uh I do still have some issues with it and I think that that’s where the greater ideological divide is in the Cannabis space and in the drug space between myself and people maybe on the more libertarian end um people people oppos to me on this from the libertarian angle are kind of based in principle yeah right so they say my principle says that that activity is not immoral it’s okay and objectively to the letter of the law like just doing exactly what you describe doing that’s okay that’s not harming people or whatever but I I I say that’s great but we don’t live in that world that’s not the world we live in people do get behind the wheel stoned and drunk people do sell marijuana to others people do sell it to minors uh there’s a lot of issues so uh that’s why I can’t get behind those policies maybe that’s a little cynical but I think we’ve had ample evidence that that can happen yeah yeah I mean I I just really feel like your concerns boil down to the sales and how it would impact Society at large yeah you know and that’s why I’m trying to meet trying to like come up with a middle ground proposal because I agree with you that some of these people they’re like it’s like they want it and everything and so I’m trying to like find this yeah the middle ground I mean I think I you know I so so to give you the background on even the hom grow stuff um I used to have less of a problem with homerow than I even do now like if we were talking three years ago yeah I probably would have told you I’m totally fine with homerow like personally um but then exactly what I talked about those unintended consequences started to pop up like a I read a story and now I talk I talk about this a lot about drug cartels moving from Mexico and Cuba and other countries into Colorado because Colorado had hom grow loss it wasn’t the dispensaries it was the homerow loss they rented out suburban homes and they started to just grow pot in the backyard and sell it off because why would they waste the time and money on shipping and trafficking across the border internationally when they could go right grow right there in Colorado no one was going to stop them so it’s like I think probably and maybe I’m putting words in your mouth if you could choose whether that would happen I’m sure you would choose for drug foreign drug cartels to not come in and grow stuff and right like probably that’s not ideal for that system but it happens so that’s where I think my my skepticism or cynicism is is on this yeah Fair yeah it just like I say it gets tough for me like so we’ve talked about what you would propose like let’s just keep on this this hypothetical scenario for a second in the past you’ve told me that like what what do you think is the answer to me just doing that and then we’ll talk about like sales yeah but like let’s let’s again just like what my preferred policy would be yeah like what would how would you deal with Cole doing this the officials found out what’s answer yeah you know um you know man I I I mean I guess I have to admit what I don’t know I don’t I I don’t know exactly what kind of a penalty or that like a hom grow would do I I I you know I I just don’t know I don’t think I want that to be fully allowed do I know exactly I mean I’m not you know like in the case of a possession Poss so for like I think it just might be easier to explain like what I would prefer right to be permitted and and not per committed right I think as I said in the beginning of the Pod I think that we should treat marijuana and um use and possession the same way that we treat a speeding ticket that’s how I think it should be treated I think that if you are caught and you know people are going to try and nail me down on it’s like on a limit on this it’s like you know what’s funny it’s like the abortion argument like how many weeks or this or that do people okay like like in this convers right now without you know looking it over and thinking I’m not going to be able to say this is the exact limit I propose for this but just generally like a generally small amount you know enough for personal consumption like what you know you’re going out you know on a on a walk with the cousin at Thanksgiving right like that that like you know that’s what we’re talking about uh you know I think if you have an interaction with law enforcement that you should maybe pay a fine but but I don’t think that that should go on your record I don’t think that that should bar you from employment and I think you can go on your Merry way just like you get a speeding ticket uh and now there can be different infractions for example I actually might be a funny story for your viewers uh the reason I work at Sam is because of a speeding ticket I don’t know if I’ve told you this story so I uh it was it was nothing to do with substances I was in recovery I was just a total jackass and I was driving like 85 and a 55 the summer before College and it was at night and I was in my parents car and I was BL see music probably looked like a total jerk okay and I thought it was a 65 but still shouldn’t have got 85 and I got pulled over by a State Trooper this guy was like big tall Eastern European dude totally intimidating and he was like this is ridiculous you can’t be going this fast so he slapped me with a $450 speeding ticket yeah it was it was it was fat and uh so my parents were pissed but they were also so like you got to go we got to go to traffic court and get this expunged because the points on your license or whatever it is will be so much like more money and insurance over time rather than just trying to do something get her off the Record even if you have to pay more upfront or whatever like so that’s what we did and my sentence or whatever you want to call it from the Traffic Court judge was to do 25 hours of community service and I did it at nonprofit called smart approaches to marijuana oh and I’ve been working for them ever since so um but long story short point is like that speeding ticket it’s almost analogous like was a big one it was a really big one and I had to do more to kind of get past that right and so maybe if it’s a little bit more you get a bigger one or if it’s a little less you just get a smaller one right but that’s how I would view the issue and we’re not criminalizing people we’re not ending their lives you know I think there can be reasonable restrictions like I don’t think that there should be public use like I don’t think you should walking down the streets you can’t drink alcohol either like that or smoke cigarettes right exactly like we have a lot I think I think a lot of the same regulations that we have on alcohol and cigarettes people say let’s regulate it like that that’s not what I’m saying because when people say that they’re saying look at liquor stores look at how we sell tobacco I don’t think that’s how we should monitor marijuana at all but we’ve done a great job in some ways of rolling back a lot of the laws that allowed for more liberal use of alcohol and tobacco um you know public consumption one of them public drunkenness right there actually more arrests for alcohol than any other drug like over a million a year because people break these laws um but you know for marijuana I would consider the same thing um just without setting up a legal sales system um I think we can do that and you get fined and stuff but you’re not getting thrown in prison I think that’s a very reasonable system um and I also just think that that would provide a blanket of safety I guess for from the criminal justice system for most people like most people aren’t dealers most people and even half the dealers are just high schoolers with a few dab pens that are selling right to you know they’re they’re not like big-time dealers that is going to cover most people um and I just have a little less sympathy toward the dealers so right I think this this would be a system that would actually be net positive for for for for everyone and um would do good at both protecting people who you know maybe shouldn’t get a record but also making sure that we’re dis discouraging use cuz I think we should discourage use of all substances that’s that’s my opinion yeah and that’s where I will agree with you I agree that we should discourage use and I just I as you might expect I disagree with citations being the form of that like here’s the thing I know that it’s the example I’m about to give is brutal so feel free to choke slam me on it but like frankly the commercials that get my attention these days have you ever like even I don’t watch TV often but I went to my grandparents house the other day and it’s all background noise but then all there’s the sudden there’s this one commercial where it’s like I started smoking cigarettes when I was 17 and that I’m um it’s horrible I think we can both agree that that happened to that individual yeah but now they’re involved in public health campaigning like a public health campaign showing the negative effects of tobacco and not saying that means that we just open the doors and let’s see what happens but I I I mean I kind of am so that’s why I’m saying like I think we have opened the door though yeah we have open you know we have a lot of negative experiences already and I think we we we don’t have to keep going on the same path I want to address that point CU about the commercial I think that’s a really interesting point um to not go off top of pivot to that but but I want to address um I’m drawing a blank now we were saying about um you oh I know what I was going to say you know I do think so the re you know I don’t I I’m not just throwing out there citations for no reason I’m not just saying that for no reason you know uh cost is a real actually determinant for you know it’s a really determinative factor for drug use right really actually helps dissuade um we know that uh like prohibition of uh heroin I think has you know I forget it’s like between 10 and 30 I forget the exact percent you know dissuaded use right like reduction in use from its prohibition um you know anecdotally I have a friend who uh you know you went to a dispensary and just had no idea what the prices were going to be it was like the only dispensary in town or something right um and had no idea that the prices were going to be so high and realized it’s not even worth it and then they were like oh I don’t even want to really do this anymore yeah you know like that’s like a real life of like dissuading from use right um so I think citations can help with that and that’s why I’m not just throwing that out there is nothing um so that’s on on the price point and kind of why I believe that but the commercial point I I like we and now ecigarettes have kind of just blown it all up right in terms of the progress we made with tobacco and reduction but we made so much progress in reducing youth tobacco use right and you smoking I mean people used to smoke my grandpa uh used you know smoked when he was like 11 years old a pack a day right uh it was crazy and uh a lot of that has been advertising in commercials like the truth initiative and and tobacco free kids and um the government used to do a lot of these kinds of advertises and this is just a point of policy that’s something I really support and I’m actually fighting for in my job right now to to get to get back on DCP the office of National Drug control policy it’s a uniquely powerful agency or office of government there’s the Executive Office of the President so the White House and ondcp is in the white house then there’s om om is Office of Management and budget om is kind of like the the Top Dog in government and they manage the budgets and everything for all these different um agencies right but OMB has a lot less oversight over ondcp than it does other a cucp isn’t like a part of the state department or treasur it’s in the white house so they’re uniquely powerful you know group that does right within our government that does drug policy and since 1998 they have had in their congressionally approved mandate their Congressional mandate to do their job a section that says we would like funding and they have a plan for it for anti-drug youth media campaigns Allah those commercials right that like that okay that was defunded 10 years ago Congress stripped all the Appropriations away for that so it’s still within their mandate to do that but they have no money to do it and uh they said it it didn’t work whatever it wasn’t it wasn’t good we have a so much data some of those programs didn’t work I’ll readily admit some of those like media campaigns were were were bad some of them actually were effective and independent one with the girl on the couch like laying and fly there’s I don’t know which there’s one uh called uh against the influence ATI um and kind of like now it’s people have mixed feelings but but independent reviews show that that one was successful we know it worked and didn’t worked yet we gutted it like those commercials are effective like it gets your attention but we don’t even do that like we can do things we can decriminalize you marijuana possession and liberalize the laws in some ways while putting things in place to help counterbalance right and that’s what I support so yeah and you know I bring up the the commercials because I wanted to wrap it back to the citation idea like I’m sure that $450 ticket sucked but the reason they gave it to you I think is like and it’s not exactly equivalent so maybe I could make the same argument with with the citation thing but I think they slapped you with such a high ticket because you know you’re going 85 and they’re thinking proportionate to the damage in society you might be able to cause right yeah so we’re going to give you a big [ _ ] ticket so Jord you
think about speeding again but like in the example we just gave with a Thanksgiving walk like what’s the damage
to society that would you know require a citation for me
and my cousin that are just going to get prepped for the meal yeah no no I I hear
what you’re saying um about like direct damage I think there’s a ton of damage to society that just increasing drug use
has right like increasing drug use clearly is not good like in in most
measures it’s it’s increases driving Under the Influence uh you know it it
has a lot of bad effects on families um on communities uh I’m not trying to you know it doesn’t mean that every person
who has used a drug should be demonized like I used to smoke a lot of weed right I didn’t think of myself as a bad person
or like I was hurting anyone and I you know maybe I was harming my friends and family like relationships but I I wasn’t
harming people um but I just think that that’s something that should be dissuaded I hear what you’re saying I I
recognize the difference about like an immediate consequence to that action um
cuz like I think you would agree and maybe I would even agree if I like if a cop caught me giv some gummies to a kid
it’s like okay Cole that is a [ _ ] you’re given to somebody right yes yes there’s damage to society ticket and maybe it’s a lot maybe it’s even I don’t know prison time honestly cuz that’s something that comes into the equation when you do the same thing with alcohol so wouldn’t be opposed to that but yeah I hear your saying I mean I I think um I think I use it as more of um just a a a dissuasion and maybe it’s in the longer term right like I think I think of it on a mass scale right okay if we can cause a dissuasion of use and overall reduce the numbers of use that’s going to reduce the negative outcomes yeah it’s not so much about in the moment this or that and obviously driving Under the Influence would be or dealing would be more severe of a a penalty than something like that you know um you know like you know people float around okay like 50 bucks or something you know it’s not not not like finding people hundreds of dollars for whatever and uh and you know I would want enforcement of that but uh let’s just be real is that even going to be enforced like probably not right like like it’s not even I mean marijuana laws are not enforced to your point yeah when I went to to Maps I asked the officers cuz everybody’s just smoking weed in front of the conference center yeah and so I asked him I was like can I light this joint up right right now and they’re like I’m going to ask you to step away from me a bit but and no you’re not allowed but we’re not going to write you a citation for it they told me that like I got it on camera like we just don’t they they said from their perspective as an officer they said it was worth more time and trouble than it’s right to and here’s where I will actually agree with you I’ve had a researcher her name’s Suzanne shik she’s from the University of California and she goes to different cannabis business and I want to be mindful oh no no no you’re fine you’re fine I’m just making sure my B you know I get notifications all the time yeah but she she is pro cannabis but she also uh brings a device so she’s uh does a lot of research with like second hand smoke and I believe she was even a part of the group that coined the term third hand smoke do you know what third hand smoke is yeah you do yeah I do for folks that don’t know I want to just give a quick example so that we can move on but like sometimes parents will step into the garage right step out of the house in order to prevent giving their child some secondhand smoke and they think they’re being a good parent by doing that but so but what she’s pointed out is that the tobacco itself will get on your fingers in the walls on your clothing and you are still exposing your child to levels of nicotine carcinogens and it can be on the remotes and everything else light switches you know some people try and talk about like like fifth hand smoke I’ve never heard that I don’t even know how far it goes but yes I know about third an smoke yes yeah yeah so so but anyways uh just wanted for folks that didn’t know who she was she has given and collected amazing data that suggests that what I witnessed at psychedelic science 2023 is not okay and by that I mean so you’re not from Illinois but recently in Illinois we had these air quality alerts because of the the smoke from Canada my God we did you was so bad it was horrible it was like it was like being at a bonfire but everywhere everywhere crazy and so I had never been i’ had never experienced something like that but people in California have and so it was interesting at the time she gave me an example that didn’t quite resonate but now it resonates with me she said Cole at these events that I go to that are outdoor she also goes to consumption lounges as well to take levels with this device she has of the carcinogens in the air particulate in the air a bunch of other data she said even at the outdoor ones which I that was my proposal I’m like okay maybe we just don’t do it indoor do it outdoor you know open air it won’t hurt people as much and she said Cole even at those events there would be an air quality alert she said now granted that’s not as it’s not quite the same scenario that I laid out in psychedelic science where people are coming out and they’re smoking cigarettes and cannabis at different times this is often times everybody smoke at the same time kind a little bit of to your I just want to acknowledge to your point like we have to be careful and I’ve even gotten in some disagreements with people in Illinois when they’re proposing they’re like well let’s so we’ve got consumption lounges but why can’t they be part of restaurants why can’t they be a part of bars you know why folks cuz we’ve learned our lesson second smoke it’s it’s this is this is I think my biggest one of my biggest gripes like you can’t have your cake and eat it too right right like you you get the reforms and I’m against legalization but let’s say you get legalization right you’re getting this stuff everyone’s always like promising responsibility right you know I’m going to get in trouble for saying this in you know with some with some folks but like take another issue like the gun issue they always talking about responsible gun owners and and yes of course they’re responsible gun owners but the point is we have a lot of shootings yeah like it happens right right like and why probably part of the reason we’re ition guns out left right so think about marijuana right okay I might I’m I still wouldn’t just be I wouldn’t be okay with legalization but I might even be a little less oh sorry yeah I might even be a little less dogged in my opposition uh if if I really if I really believed that there was some level of responsibility but but what you see is okay so you have ization and then you have laws on the books to kind of counterbalance it you know no public use stuff like that reasonable things and yet people want to push for it people want to push it and they push it and guess what people are supposed to hold you accountable for it don’t hold people accountable and the less you hold people accountable the more people are just going to do it so and feel comfortable doing all of a sudden you don’t just have legalization and you don’t just have or don’t just have decriminalization you have people you know cities now rkek right and um smell personally I don’t really care of me because I smoked so it doesn’t bother me I know it bothers so many it’s so funny right it doesn’t actually bother me at all but it bothers so many people uh and you have all these issues with that so like you again you can’t have your cake and eat it too like you get some reform but people always are going to push it yeah so and that’s my problem people will always push it yeah so I want to be fair to both of us here sometimes I think I’m too optimistic like the the scenario I just laid out where you know I I’m at home and I grow myself you you pointed out like you know that’s you trust me to do that and maybe you wouldn’t have a problem with me but we’re not talking about just coal here yeah I think on the other end people might say that some of the things that not only you have but your organization has to like respond is you’re always worried about like what might happen and I want to say some of your stuff is not based it’s not that it’s not based in data you’re right you’re coming from a place where it’s it’s like yeah but some of it does just feel like and I don’t know how you address I’d be curious how you address this some of it just feels like slippery slope you know and I want to acknowledge once again I just said you have slippery slope maybe sometimes I’m too idealistic like I think it’s all going to be rainbows and butterflies so I’m trying to be fair and saying that so you know slippery slope I know objectively is a logical fallacy right like objectively it’s logal logical fallacy but in the marij space the drug policy space I think the slip re slope has really played out as being true and so um I’ll give several examples 20 years ago we had people you know my boss who was doing this stuff 20 years ago um and by the way was Kevin and ow DCP yeah so so he’s so he’s the only person who have ever been appointed as a drug policy staffer to both Republican and Democratic white houses so he worked for Clinton Bush and Obama he was a senior drug policy adviser to President Obama um yeah so you know people would tell him 20 years ago oh it’s just marijuana we’re just going to legalize weed and then we’re going to stop there we’re going to do no more than that right because other stuff is harder or whatever they would say so you know and it’s even geographical the slippery slope right things start in you know the uh Southwest Canada you know Pacific Northwest of the United States right starts there in Vancouver and places like that and Seattle and Portland and then trickles down to California and then goes across kind of leaps across to uh the the Northeast and trickles down the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest and then finally hits the South right that’s like literally how drug policy moves it’s like a migration it’s like following a yeah migration pattern um and so you start with just medical marijuana which by the way medical marijuana was a term invented by three billionaires in the 1990s because they were losing they perceived losing kind of their side of of the drug issue drug drugs were not popular people were very anti-drug and so they said well if we stick the word Medical in front of marijuana people are of course who can be against medicine right and that really started the trend 1996 California legalizes medical okay it’s medical medical medical Medical but then it becomes recreational recreational uh then it’s not just recreational legalization with taxes well now the taxes that we promised would fund the schools and fund the addiction treatment uh creating a black market are too high so then we have to cut the taxes oh now we also want consumption loues which were never on the table before but now we want these consumption loues uh now we want to sell all different kinds of products uh now there’s actually a bill in the United States Senate to do this so this I’m not just pulling this out of thin air uh now we want to uh allow television and radio advertisements for marijuana when we banned that for cigarettes in 1971 and so now we’re going to spread all this and then at the same time let’s start doing medical psychedelics not recreational of course not recreational but medical because just like marijuana they’re the Silver Bullet for PTSD which we were talking about at lunch uh you know and then well let’s experiment with just recreational psychedelics Colorado does that DC decriminalized it g Gavin new him has a bill on his desk in California to legalize psychedelics uh and then Oregon in 20120 let’s let’s have a a bill to legalize uh the possession of all drugs including fentanyl right uh then in Vancouver a guy set up the first ever like fentanyl dispensary right and then I had him on my show oh did you really yeah are you talking about Dana Larson I don’t know if it was but he right he sent all drug dispensary right and it’s like and you know I know overdose consumption sites are very or sorry sorry consumption sites uh you overdose prevention sites are are are controversial but uh you know then you have those and the point is like for me it’s clearly a slippery slope like it started with medical marijuana and now we have fentanyl that’s legal in Oregon yeah like that’s a very clear pattern to me of always the next thing yeah always the next thing um so that’s where I’m skeptical and I guess I don’t want to [ _ ] around and
find out right like that’s not I don’t we did that with cigarettes we did that with alcohol we’re doing it with marijuana
we’re just doing it with psychedelic and it hasn’t gone well that’s my opinion
people might think it has but oh you know two stats to leave you two stats to
not leave you with but to just like if you remember two things from this interview or this conversation people um
for why I’m concerned in the way that I am concerned um this would be it from 200000 to 2020 there was a
245 per increase in marijuana
abuse among people age 6 to 18 whereas
alcohol levels remain basically study alcohol abuse levels okay but skyrocketing from 20 to 2020 that’s one
stat second stat uh which is even scarier from 2017 to
2021 there was a 1,3 75% increase in
kids aged five and under uh getting poisoned by Mar by
ingesting to marijuana edibles you know so situations where you have a legal that’s probably a legal dispensary right
and you’re getting like gummies parent gets gummies or an older brother or sister leaves them out on the kitchen table mhm of course the kid’s going to
take them right you know and then you could and people are going to say well it’s irresponsible parenting so it’s like you know well blame the parents
don’t blame the dispensary it’s irresponsible parenting okay yeah blame the parents but we can avoid that problem like we have to take into
account that humans make mistakes humans are stupid we do irresponsible things and what can we do to create policy that
takes that into account and that’s why I’m so against the kind of guess libertarian dream of well like you know
that person should be held accountable individual responsibility with this kind of a thing like individuals often times
aren’t responsible and you have to factor that in because the consequences are statistics like that that I just
kind of you know told you about so that that’s kind of how why I feel the way it feel and and and I think it’s only going
to get worse if we continue down this path yeah yeah um I have not heard of
either of those but I’m sure people can Google them to find to find it yeah Happ
I’ll send if you want to put in the description too I’ll send them to you yeah yeah the the just just because you
brought them up and I had thoughts I don’t know exactly I might have you restate the first one
about the adults between 2000 you said like between six and 18 but then the
second thought really stood out to me you said that the second stat um you
said what was it again F four and how many year olds were po so five and under
so under six so five five five years old and under so 1, 375% increase from 2017
to 2021 um and that’s it’s like I think think that study was measured by like
poison control you know Center calls and stuff like that and measuring increases
yeah and I don’t think even if it did cause a death which I have heard of yeah
I’ve heard that too cannabis deaths where somebody will attribute it to being cannabis related yes like that’s
controversial say well there are there can be death by the way you know it’s not only just it’s not about like an overdose necessarily and also you know
it’s funny the word overdose cuz overdose just means you take too of it and have a biological reaction that
causes death rate like think about canabo hyperemesis syndrome which I know you’re familiar with CHS like you can
die from that because you vomit so much uh that that you die dehydration you have to go to the hospital like there
can be deaths I’m not trying to claim that it’s going to cause and I’ve never claimed that we’re going to have as many deaths as alcohol cigarettes but there
can be some instances yeah and that was the point I was going to make is that and I know that you know this but with
the kids it’s not like there were any fatal overdoses I I the only reason I
say that is because people in Illinois have been talking about delta8 and stuff and they call poisoning and my thing is
poisoning is like like they had this picture of this
kid and she’s like sitting there like it’s a young kid and I know it’s probably a sad thing to see but I see
some humor in every situation even and she’s sitting there just like this like with a sucker and it’s like I’ve seen
poisoning well so poisoning so so so there’s a reason they say poisoning so um like uh for example when they talk
about fentanyl they say fentanyl overdose and then some people say fental poisoning and my understanding is that
there’s a difference um like an overdose would probably be more attributed to like someone who’s just shooting up mhm
and they’re trying to use fentanyl they know they’re using fentanyl yeah um just like a heroin overdose they shoot up and
they die because they have too much a poisoning is like accidental gotcha right so if you die of fentanyl
poisoning it’s like a kid who orders what he thinks is a perk on Snapchat and it’s really fentanyl a kid who thinks
he’s eating gummies but it’s poisoned by marijuana because it’s accidental I think that’s why they say poisonings
just for clarity I think that’s why they use it yeah that makes sense um yeah the
other stat though I mean I don’t really have uh what what was it again that they were more addict what was the so it’s
like so so it’s a so there was a and I can even look it up to to get the exact so so basically uh there was a I know
the number is there was a 245 per increase uh in from ages 6 to 18
in marijuana abuse I think is the actual language of the study yeah so um teen
poisonings so this is so according to a new study published in clinical
toxicology which reviewed records of nearly 339,000 uh Poison Control cases the
number of calls involving marijuana Rose 245 per among 6 to 18 year- olds between
2020 uh sorry between 2000 and 2020 over 80% of exposures
were among adolescents 13 to 16 and I think I think the most important part is
alcohol use has steadily declined over yeah the study actually says the first
line in the study is adolescent cannabis abuse has increased 245 since 2000 in
the US while alcohol abuse has steadily declined over the same time and so the question is you know people often say
treat it like alcohol CU people make all the people make all these comparisons to why it’s similar and why it’s different of course it’s a different substance
right but I think some people think of it at almost like the same level right like of a hardness or some you know some
people like to think of it right so why if both are so common has there been such a sharp increase yet a decrease
with alcohol and I say that’s down to policy and policy and normalization kind
of fuel each other so that’s the impact of my opinion of policy um and good good
versus bad yeah I agree with you that it’s policy I just wonder if it’s like I not even disputing the
numbers I believe those numbers I wonder if it’s a result of cuz especially if you’re talking
about starting in 2000 like there’s not any real regul
back then but nowadays like I’ve heard that I know this isn’t perfect in all states but I think Colorado was pretty
well like they had very little issue with like children getting into their dispensaries so in other words if a
child’s going to get cannabis it’ll be like alcohol hopefully ideally yeah I mean I think there’s just so much
underage there’s I understand hard I mean I think there’s so much underage drinking there’s under smoking like you
know I got sober before I could have my first legal drink or legal smoke right like you know I it’s it’s it’s yes of
course there can be some counterbalance there with those laws but I think on the whole we’re seeing such a sharp increase
and I think that that is also just cultural right but I think the policy
contributes to that cultural shift because there’s it’s almost like a chicken and egg debate you know like did
did the policy create the culture or did the culture create the policy and I view
the two as like fueling each other of course there are reasons California did this first and Alabama hasn’t right like
there are definitely reasons but I think they can fuel each other you know yeah
yeah yeah and I just wonder that we’re going to have to find a middle ground because this issue isn’t
going away from I think my side of the fence where I think that I I you know I’m going to Pat myself on the back here
I think I argue in better Faith than most here’s the thing I’m not in the
Cannabis industry yeah yeah right so I’m not which is kind of why I like talking to you yeah yeah like you argue in very
good faith I mean you and it’s like this is what I try to do which is why I like talking to you cuz I feel like you’re
the same way when you don’t know something fully you admit it when you
are wrong about something you’ve admitted it and when you uh you know you even started off a show one time saying
I looked more into something you said and I realized I was wrongly and you know if there’s a point that I feel that
you might have feel like I bested you on you’ve admitted it and I I feel like I do the same things like earlier in the show I think you know there was
something I said about the exact citations or something like that right I don’t know exactly like I the homerow
the penalty right I don’t know like there are things I you know that need to be flushed out and that I need to make a decision on right um but and it’s not
combat because of that because we’re able to admit that neither of us are like perfect people with exact thought
processes that have figured everything out that’s a good conversation but it’s it’s hard for me to interact with the
folks from the industry cuz I feel like it’s such a motivation there to just push the point yeah it’s tough yeah I
wanted to ask you about Denver so don’t let me forget that I’ll try not to forget it Colorado Denver um but uh back
to what we were just discussing like again this isn’t going away so
like you know you you guys have your heels dug in on this is addiction for
profit and I concede that in many ways it
is but like where that’s that’s my thing it’s
just I know I’ve made this pitch to you before and I know how you feel about like the civil liberties pitch but it’s
like where in this Freedom espousing country is is there like a lane where
it’s like we’re very honest about what could happen about cannabis if you start
using young anything else yeah but we also still don’t
have I know you’ll disagree with me on this but mandated treatment or even law enforcement criminalities for things
that that aren’t causing harm to society yeah I mean I don’t I I don’t know where you
are on like mandated treatment in terms there’s total opposition or only in some cases the only thing I don’t like about
mandated treatment and we’ve talked about it in the past is like okay it’s mandated what happens if I don’t respond
to that mandate and the answer seems to be you’re going to jail yeah yeah no no I hear you on that I mean I mean I’m
very I’m I’m for mandated treatment you know people say compulsive people say
compul compelling someone into recovery or whatever it doesn’t work well it actually does um the research shows it
does people just don’t like to think it does because that’s not a world that they want to live in oh well people need to come to things on their own actually
the process can be sped along um because my opinion this is i’ I’ve come
up with this definition kind of proud of this definition cuz I feel like I thought about this for several years and I finally come to it cuz I you know it’s
like think about addiction like what does rock bottom mean right cuz people have like they call it your B hitting
your bottom right for me my bottom was relatively High some people have to get a DUI where they kill
someone on the road some people just have to lose their girlfriend or something you know some people right so it’s like what really is the bottom of
addiction how can you even Define it because kind of can’t and I’ve defined it as hitting bottom is the point where
you’ve run out of fuel for your own denial addict the Hallmark of addiction
is denial you deny that you have a problem you never admit I’m not an alcoholic I’m not an addict I’m not this
you deny that your actions have consequences right it’s all about denial
and you can deny to yourself all you want and when you run out of the ability to really deny that things are not good
then then you got to look at yourself in the mirror and say what’s going on and you still might not get help but it’s only until you reach that point that you
can’t get help so my whole thing about the mandated treatment is is it 100% effective
no the second someone goes in front of a drug court does that cure them no but in
my opinion in my personal experience with addiction and knowing what it feels like to go through that
process could stepping in front with waking up one morning and going to drug court facing a judge saying it’s either
treatment or jail that’s going to be a pretty big wakeup call for some people yeah if you
haven’t had your wakeup call that’s kind of got to be it right so it’s like waking up one morning and
just realizing holy [ _ ] my life is out of control right like admitting the that’s why the first step in the 12 steps and I’m not like advocating one way or another on that like I’ve done I’ve you know I’ve done a lot of meetings I don’t really go anymore but you know like is is admitting that you have a problem right that’s why because that’s the first step because you’re not that AKA you’re not in denial anymore and so that’s kind of I just almost in a philosophical way or why I am not against mandated treatment yeah yeah and I know again I’m like just it’s a tough example to use myself but like I’m going to go on the record right now on the Cole memo and saying I think I’ve told you this in the past by the way but I’ve got an addiction to C AB yeah yeah just let the air settle for a second like I’ve yeah like yeah sometimes I have to be like you know and it’s tough yeah it’s tough and I have cravings and uh there are withdrawal symptoms now are they you know unpleasant not all the time I’ve had unpleasant withdrawal symptom symptoms like uh not having an appetite or whatever but some other withdrawal symptoms I’ve had is like crazy lucid dreams I don’t know that was pretty [ _ ] cool but uh yeah I I had
that too yeah yeah and you might but I also think the difference in I look I don’t know everything about your life dude for all I know you could live the
perfect life your personal life could be in shambles you don’t need to talk about I’m just saying who the heck I don’t know but but you know there’s other
layers to addiction like yeah maybe physically like you might have that too I think even a more important aspect of
it is you know addiction one of the definitions of addiction is you know continuing to do something despite
negative consequences right it’s it’s just like IID have people ask themselves and maybe like you
also ask yourself and not necessarily publicly but just like thinking there food for thought like you know maybe
maybe you have trouble with your use or moderation of cannabis
but is it how is it impacting your life cuz there are several people out there who maybe they’re marijuana use doesn’t
impact your life but maybe it really impacts their relationship their family their friends their job they’re not able
to succeed right like that and that’s just a worst place to be in you know what I mean yeah and I think that’s even
what makes a difference even more than like a physical like withdrawal right yeah yeah and I guess that’s again I
know I’m the it’s a hard case to use but it’s like when you talked about like
finally being confronted with that like yeah I think for most people that have a problem that are in denial like that is
a good thing that we’re offering them for society like a choice and it’s a
clear one and it’s like dude you need to get [ _ ] treatment or do you want to go here like I get the the binary of that but like for somebody like me I’d be looking at it and I’d just be like are you kidding me these are my two options like what what I know that it has to be pretty serious for me to get into that case where I’m like sitting in yeah well that’s right that’s the other thing right like and I and I and I think I think it’s like I don’t want to live I’m not saying I don’t want to live in a society where cops are busting down Cole’s door and saying hey Cole your friends have told us that you smoke a [ _ ] ton of weed you got to go to drug court now like no you
know you know drug use is problematic in many ways but it’s obviously most
problematic when it starts to impact other people and other things you know
things as small as disrupting your family Dynamic to you know not saying this is
common with marijuana all the time but like you know for addiction like robbing a store right to get money to fuel to to
be able to buy drugs or whatever it is right and I I think it’s a compassionate thing to if if we can recognize a crime
that’s been committed um not not just use but definitely use you know if you’re on the street like using like
that’s I think we should utilize drug courts but if you commit a crime that probably not a violent one but like you
know if you commit a crime and maybe you shouldn’t just immediately get thrown in jail maybe if drugs are the motivating
thing in your addiction maybe we should try and rehabilitate like maybe we should try and give that option so I I
don’t view it as like I’m performing a citizen’s arrest on you during this podcast and like I don’t think you’re
the you are not the the type that I I think needs to go to drug court you know
what I mean like I’m not like you don’t have to be militant about it in that way like they’re obvious reasonable limits
where it’s like I think you’re a productive member of society and you’re doing your thing you know yeah and
that’s like you know before we get to Colorado and Denver I wanted to talk to you about some things that we have
talked about in the past but I actually figured out like what the lobby the lobbying initiative that you guys were
able to accomplish was so I thought it’d be I don’t know if you’re familiar with it but we can get to that stuff that Sam
has lobbied for and yeah yeah yeah but um yeah that’s you know just to kind of wrap this topic I thought one of the
most interesting things would be to just like sit right in front of each other
yeah like I can touch you right now yeah dude it’s so cool man and but but I feel like it makes
this I I wondered about you you know and I wondered like what you actually
thought and it did give me uh some faith in humanity when we were walking over and you’re like no I don’t really have a
problem cold that you smoke like and I asked you if you’d like if you hang out with people that smoke and you said yeah
I know people that still use cannabis from time to time but am I going to like hang around them while they use it no
you know and I respect that just because I gave you an example where it’s like I don’t really like to hang around people
litter drinking you know so I can you do like I even like I’m around people who
even when they use it I go to like I just graduated college like I went to parties I’m not like a not a total maybe
half of one right but you know it’s like my issue
is what I what I said to you was if you asked my advice on is this a healthy
activity is this something that you would support or think I should be doing I would say no uh if someone asked me
that um but am I not going to going to be your friend because you use cannabis
no I’m not naturally going to be hanging around people who are like smoking every
single day right that’s just not my lifestyle and it’s not a grudge against anyone or like people often say oh
you’re just jealous that like you couldn’t handle it I get that on Twitter all the time and I can I’m like no I’m
really actually not I actually like my life actually like my life sober uh prefer it but it’s just that’s not just
like you wouldn’t just people who are smoking every day probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me cuz I don’t right like they they might not have anything
against me but they probably don’t want to hang out with me cuz it’s just an incomati lifestyle yeah you know um
that’s how I view it it’s not any more complicated than that I don’t have a problem and that’s why it’s like at Sam we support the criminalization because
we don’t we don’t have a grudge against people who smoke weed or think that they’re bad people or think there’s a
moral failing or anything like that is it do we think it’s healthy no do we think we should dissuade it yes
our real Grudge and the people we really think have a moral failing is this industry yeah that’s that’s who we
have real animosity towards is an industry that wants to profit off of
those people particularly the ones that have a problem yeah yeah and that’s why just to wrap up the hypothetical
scenario we’ve been running around but that’s why I do think that my scenario I know that you’re saying that it doesn’t
play out perfectly I would prefer your scenario yeah that’s a smart approach to Mar yeah so yeah so if I had to choose
like you know there’s so many different ways of doing marijuana policy sure like if I could list an order of worst to
best you know I think your preferred system of the homow system would I would
that would definitely be on the side of okay better than most options is it my optimal solution no but it’s certainly
better than what most St on it’s yeah right exactly so that so so I I think we
can find some common ground there I think it’s a more intelligent solution yeah yeah and forgive me for you know a
bit of a like personal question but since you mentioned cannabis use disorder one of the things you’ve
mentioned in the past and correct me if I’m wrong but like you mentioned that I think when you were trying to stop
cannabis that you also had maybe gotten into your parents’ liquor cabinet or something like that yeah can I ask you
look I I don’t view this as like just because you had an issue with other drugs that you don’t have cud I
acknowledge cud is a a thing and I acknowledge that I think I suffer from
it in some ways but uh I wouldn’t call it suffering CU I don’t view my cannabis
use as a problem but I do acknowledge that I have an addiction to it just like I’m addicted to Coca-Cola like you saw
me pass on a Coke during the burger we have you have no idea how like I really wanted a Coca-Cola I’ve been trying to
cut down sorry I got a Diet Coke I feel no no you didn’t you didn’t trigger didn’t trigger you yeah no but what I
wanted to ask you was and I don’t view this as like taking away from the fact that you had cud but can I do you also
feel like you just had an AB a substance abuse issue 100% that’s the thing right like I I don’t view it as taking away at
all um I I just hope you didn’t view that as like a I so as you said like cud is a
medical diagnosis right like it’s a real thing and it’s definitely what I had but
when I think of myself I don’t think of myself as yes I often times like now we
have a more long form right deeper conversation here so I can go into this
you know if I’m doing just kind of my pitch to people on Sam and my personal story I’ll say I can suffered from
Cannabis usess order but that’s not really the first thing that comes to my mind right I have an addictive I’ve gone
back and forth whether I like the word addictive personality but just for to boil it down I have an addictive
personality right marijuana was my drug of choice right that was what was most
attracted to me now I cannot hold my alcohol MH if I have a little bit of
alcohol I’m going to have a lot of alcohol if alcohol’s in front of me and I’m drinking I’m going to drink it I’m not going to say no to it right just
like if it were marijuana it just so happened that marijuana was the thing I preferred and did more often and so
maybe was I guess the root of more problems than alcohol by itself but if all the marijuana in the world vanished
in the middle of my use I would have been drinking every day right so there I
just I had a problem and uh and and I see that crop up in my everyday life I have a huge Sweet Tooth I I too freaking
you know I I went out with my girlfriend to get some breakfast and I got I could have gotten like a ham and cheese
sandwich that was like kind of a breakfast style thing or I could have gotten like a bacon egg and cheese I’m not saying it’s healthy but sure but I
had two freaking pastries like huge danishes right like that’s what I chose
right so like it’s how I am it’s how it’s How my mom is right I have no do
you want to know I’m proud of this I do my girlfriend gets so mad at me all the time cuz she always gets hungry and
she’s like are you kidding me I don’t have I don’t have a the only snack that I have in my apartment is literally like
rice cakes because if I have a box of Oreos or back whatever pack of Oreos I will eat it in one night gone Ben and
Jerry’s gone one night chips gone like just totally gone I and I’m sober man
like and it’s gone so I I have to do things right so yes so I did have a
canas usess where I met criteria for that but I I had a problem and something that always stuck with me was my sponsor
in na Narcotics Anonymous which I went to always said to me switching drugs is like switching
seats on the Titanic you’re still going down like you could think oh I st and
dict you know I stopped this but I did you know and I know I know plenty of people who and and I will say and I’ll
admit this and this is something that I don’t think a lot of people on my side of the issue will admit so maybe we can find some common ground on this as well
and people maybe can get some respect that I can acknowledge this
like I do not think that all problematic substance use is addiction or that all
problematic substance use means that you have to stop using substances for the rest of your life I think I always think
that just not using substances as healthier and I would advise someone stop if they have a problem with
substance use but like for example like I had a friend and he’s uh he smokes a
lot and he uh and he used to drink a lot and he like struggled with depression
and stuff and he just had a abouted depression and he was drinking so much right he was drinking a lot and now he’s
totally fine there no problem with alcohol drinks like normally right like a kid you know 22y old kid or
23-year-old kid or whatever um but it was like yes he had a problem with
substance use has a history of of substance abuse but it wasn’t really like an addiction he was leaning on it
as a crutch in a moment and was still unhealthy and he still shouldn’t have done that for his own health and even
mental health and physical health that doesn’t mean he has an addiction like I can acknowledge that just like and you can use marijuana the same way I just
think that leads to addiction so often right
that can often lead to addiction but it might not always be the case like drugs are just so much Nuance right and it’s
not black and white so I can also like fully acknowledge that and I just wasn’t one of those people I know that if you
gave me a joint right now like I wouldn’t just get mildly stoned like I want to see how far could go until I was
sick you know that’s that’s how I would do it that’s just how my brain works yeah and I want to be respectful of you
asking this question just like I’m respectful of you know you know people in my life but that that suffer with
addictions yeah do you ever think about it doing it again yeah not not really
like actually no like not at all are you sure I’m just joking I’m joking no so so sorry I didn’t mean to no no no no no no
no not no you’re not at all I so I really love my life yeah I’m really
really happy yeah um and it’s like when I first started in my
recovery was like the primary reason was like okay like if I did this again like it would devastate my mom and my dad and
people who care about me and have supported me and invested their time and energy in me and love me and my school
and maybe my career and now it’s like I just don’t have a desire yeah I
love my life I find enjoyment in my life in other places and I also like I work
in politics I I find it so funny like a disproportionate number of people who are really far in their career in
politics are sober not not not meaning that you can’t drink or do something whatever Richard Nixon was a raging
drunk but like literally like three out of our last four presidents you know Prime Minister of England uh now former
Speaker of the House you know one of the most do you do fun fact one of the most Pro marijuana members of Congress is a
tea Toler nothing doesn’t drink doesn’t smoke nothing and tells his kids don’t do anything do you know who it is no
Jamie Raskin oh Jamie Raskin had in a while he’s pushing the Cure act which is
a marijuana bill that he’s a he like I’m a te- toer I don’t do anything is that crazy yeah that’s interesting very
interesting so I and I feel like it just like helps me I always it’s like before I was almost addicted to not being in
control and now I feel like I’m almost addicted to being in control I’m always on I’m always there at events I’m always
on I know I’m never going to be uh like inhibited from from being able to
do what I you know from doing what I need to do right for my work and personal life and and I enjoy that kind
of security or Comfort I guess now yeah you probably won’t be able to relate to this thought but it’s just funny for my
stoners that are out there uh to your point like there’s still even stigma
among you know people that let’s say practice or smoke they use the drug I’ll
just be blunt about it pun intended uh like I walk walked into the Marriott uh
at benzinga and I ran into some people that right now and the first thought was like oh my God I probably wreak of
marijuana right now cuz I had just smoked like several joints with people in the front and it’s funny that I even
had that thought because I was at a cannabis yeah yeah no one’s going to Care they didn’t care so again I didn’t
bring that up like you would relate to it but maybe that’s sort of what you’re like I was in a weird head space kind of
for a second because I was like oh [ _ ] they can smell me like could and but when I come to a place you know I’m just just you know like I don’t have those different worries you know what I mean those were worries as a result of my drug use literally like I was like I smell like well I have no yeah I have no worries now right like do you know the first the first relief from stopping smoking marijuana for me was the loss of General paranoia about that right like being a being a smoker or a stoner or whatever like you’re just always paranoid yeah whether it’s about how you smell whether it’s you know am I going to like if you drive cuz I I don’t I think it’s bad but if a lot of people smoke and drive like am I going to get pulled over oh my God that cop is definitely following me or whatever right like all the time you know that always worried someone’s going to look at you and just instantly know if you’re still in school or high school or college like oh my God my teacher is going to know like my parents are going to like always that fear of just someone finding out that you’re on something that was lost I’m like no more anxiety about that and I was very happy with that relief yeah yeah I’m sure dude cuz that’s a big weight off of your shoulders and it’s the same thing I happened when I would get like grounded in high school I was like you know this sucks but at least I’m not like having to worry about hiding like I didn’t have that stress to enable my drug Hab you know what I mean yeah going oh my God hiding stuff in your room going off and like hoping like your parents don’t go in there and find something got terrifying tery exactly yeah every time your door opens up you’re like [ _ ] like
it’s stress and you just don’t stress yeah you don’t need that so when I stopped it’s like I did I didn’t have that anymore and I felt so much better
in those in those ways but funny thing and we kind of talked about this at lunch but some of the paranoia and some
some of my most profound experiences with drugs have come from thoughts that
have either come up via paranoia in the case of cannabis or or you know just
epiphanies in the case of like psychedelics and as we talked about I definitely started that experience
because I was like I want to get high dude yeah but I came out of that experience and I know it sounds cheesy
and feel free to like call me on it but transcended in that I had thought through some things that I needed to
think about and that I wasn’t able to break out of my pattern for whatever reason being sober and literally
changing my perception I feel I feel I’ll say that again cuz
it’s not like proven allowed me to see the world differently and um I don’t
really have a question there I just wanted to share that it’s weird you mention the paranoia and stuff sometimes
that paranoia is like really good for me like it doesn’t feel that way when I’m going through it but it is I can give
you an example like the last time we released a podcast together I love and I’m going to do it afterwards and we’re going to take a picture and be like you
won’t believe who I had lunch today with yeah yeah yeah because I love blowing up the internet like that oh great oh my God I blow up the internet all you can
imagine I mean the comments but the moment I do that Jordan I’m not going to lie that maybe tonight when I’m smoking
I’ll be thinking like I’ll just it’ll go through the rig roll of all the worst thoughts and that’s like healthy for me
cuz I go through all the worst case scenarios yeah and I’m like prepared for them all I want to acknowledge again
though that I don’t know that that’s good for everybody and that I’ve had experiences with paranoia just being
discombobulated for a lack of better words that would not be good for a vulnerable person like I I consider
myself stable somebody that watches my show a lot might not think so much but I can for sure yeah no I’m joking but uh
it’s I wanted to say that not that you would have anything to add on but to just prove a point that in a weird way
some of those bad experiences that people talk about I like value them and to quote Joe
Rogan I feel cheesy for doing doing it but he’s like you know the scary trips that’s when you learn some [ _ ] that’s when you learn some [ _ ] about I hear what you’re saying I think and I almost like hate to sound like I’m like barging
in as almost like the adult in the the room like you know preaching like okay reality check here guys
but I hear what you’re saying and that it’s like that sounds wonderful and
you’ve heard it before I’ve heard it before yeah and that sounds great but we’re talking about a country with
hundreds of millions of people and we have to create policy for hundreds of
millions of people with different life experiences different levels of stability different whatever and there
are people are going to say free the plan free this free that let’s just do it it’s great like everyone’s going to
do it some have good experiences some have bad experiences but we’re going to be great at the end of the day like that’s not how things should be and they
should be like let’s research what that experience means let’s do meaningful
studies on you know the impact of marijuana the impact of psychedelics on Mental Health pros and cons like what is
it what is it going to do the impact find isolate you know how can we use the substance in a safe and effective way if
we can at all to treat XY or Z and then in a clinical setting right like we can
do that with therapists or with whomever right you know you hear a lot about psychedelics and um I told you at lunch
even you know uh I’m still very skeptical of the whole psychedelics thing and I’m against psychedelic legalization but you know the idea with
psychedelics from what I’ve heard is that you know you you go through therapy sessions using just a few times right
and then that’s supposed to kind of break you open and and get you to a point where you’re able to process some
feelings that you weren’t able to process that’s very different than giving you a med card and saying go smoke for the rest of your life and
that’s right get whatever you want however want forever how long as you want it’s just very different tracks
right I still think the psychedelics can feed into addiction for profit and I still think there are people who are going to make money off it that way
right but those are two very different strategies and approaches um that doesn’t mean that I think that it’s 100%
sound science but it’s just the goal seems to be a bit different um and so I
I think like we have to think about it is to maximize the good and to minimize the harm and I think kind of
freewheeling just doing whatever is is not the best way to do that um for so
many people um in in this country yeah well um I think uh I think history is
going to show that you guys were right about a lot of the things with regard to health conern but I don’t even know if
there’s really a butt there I you know I think can I give a prediction
sure there’s obviously you know it’s like what I want to happen you know what
I really don’t want to happen and what I think is going to happen right
yeah I think that this I I do have hope that we can turn stuff around and stop
the tide but I think there’s a very and it doesn’t mean that I it’s not motivating me in my work even more right
I think we can delay things and educate people to minimize their harm still but I think this is going to end up looking
in so many ways a lot like cigarettes tobacco and alcohol
right we legalize a substance and
everyone has this kind of euphoric period of it’s all great it’s perfect no harms yeah and then we go to a point
where now like with alcohol and tobacco everyone admits what the harms are it’s
common knowledge that they’re bad no parent is ever going to tell their kid
oh you should start smoking cigarettes and drinking right you know it it does
damage people agree that maybe the way we commcial
commercialize these drugs is not so good and they might even roll some things back like they did with tobacco
right does that mean they’re you know and and does that mean that they’re going to call to prohibit something again I don’t know but but you know it’s
kind of like a hump of History it’s like on the way up right great great great oh this isn’t so great you know and then on
the way down like Rishi sunak the prime minister of Britain of the UK just announced that he’s going to you know
propose policy to ban cigarettes basically through u a wave like the age
every year so a 14-year-old today will never legally be able to buy cigarettes and we don’t have to get into that you know the black market thing going to
come up with that of course again but right like that’s a policy I would certain like I would certainly support
and um New Zealand did that already I believe and so you know we’re starting to trickle seek some countries figure
some things out to how do we kind of reduce use even more and I think that’s possible that that could happen to marijuana and I you know and and I won’t
feel feel good on the day that I can say I told you so that won’t make me feel
good yeah you know uh cuz I think most people will understand what even though
we’re on different sides of some issues what we understand because I think you understand what I’m saying and I understand what you’re saying um but
when the mass masses understands the science and the health risks behind this
if it’s too late I won’t I won’t Revel in that um I just hope we can do some
education to make sure that it’s not as bad as it can be yeah how do you think
sorry I just you were talking about how do you think we’ll look back on things like this
God honest opinion like those guys are just total idiots and yeah jackasses and
just look stupid like this like I’m going to look people are going to look at that like people look at videos of
dumb Frack guys on bar stool who do some stupid trick with a keg like that’s like
like even and that’s even St oh my God like like like and even today does anyone really take that seriously like
the if you show that to an everyday person just average person right are they going to look at that and be like
that’s normal or like sane probably not you know and I actually think it hurts
the the marijuana movement or whatever you can call it um because just looks so
stupid and so absurd it’s not that is not freedom to smoke a joint that is like ridiculous yeah ridiculous and I
just wonder like I say how we’re going to look back on that and the reason I brought it up is to your point I think we’ll look back and be like what the
[ _ ] were we doing yeah in many ways like the way we look at you know old news stations where everybody’s smoking a cigarette inside a doctor’s office is the they used to have ashtrays in the doctor’s office yeah um yeah absolutely so I think that that’s those are ways that we are going to acknowledge in the future that cannabis is not healthy I think that’s funnier when people say that that like I’ll get in disagreements with people like when I will say like let’s regulate it like alcohol people will actually get mad at me because of that because they’re like like alcohol it’s so much more dangerous than alcohol why would we regulate it like alcohol and I’m like dangerous more dangerous than alcohol what okay so right now we’re breathing in air I know this is going to seem like a weird point but if I gave you a joint do you think that smoking the joint is more healthy or do you think breathing the fresh air is more healthy breathing the fresh air it’s not healthy that’s my point none of the [ _ ] drug use is not healthy so I hate it when people I hate I hate that too cuz like that whole
alcohol marijuana comparison it’s just like the ways in which they’re unhealthy
are actually very different yeah you know like like marijuana for the lungs obvious obviously is worse than alcohol
marijuana is also much worse for mental health issues than alcohol is like marijuana exacerbates depression anxiety
schizophrenia psychosis PTSD things like that and can even be the onset of some of those things far more than alcohol
now alcohol is going to do more damage to your liver right and stuff with you know deaths related to just pure
drinking right so like they’re just differences and how they’re bad like it’s just a stupid thing to say worse
some worse in some ways and better in ways right yeah well and then you’re like you know I’m sure you haven’t done
this but you can you can take a dab through a bong and then smoke weed thr a bong and you notice how much particulate
collects because you ran that dab first through and then so my the point I’m trying to make is people that dab
regularly they’re coating their lungs yeah it’s it’s so funny the push back
that you get like smoking weed isn’t bad for your lungs like are you stupid dude just like just
admit it like the thing the thing I really dislike about some of the people who are who comment on my Twitter and
and you know what I will say is people who work for Sam and who I work with and
I don’t mean to pit you know my people against your people or something but like we don’t do make the types of
comments that I get on a daily basis I mean I was I I don’t care what anyone says to me I was ready to like throw my
phone like I was so pissed there there was some coordinated attack on our like Instagram cuz I don’t really we don’t
really post on our Instagram but one day got like a 100 comments from all different people it was like very odd
and posted like a year and you know my mom commented on a video that I did like talking about my
recovery and my mom G like three like clapping emojis and someone like replied
to my mom and said you know go jump off a bridge and kill yourself Jesus like I was so angry that someone
said that to my mother like I don’t say whatever you wants to me I don’t care like don’t say it to my mom don’t say it to my family like I would never dream of
saying that to someone right it’s just it’s it’s just like the how personally
people take this like I can I say one negative thing about marijuana and it’s like I’m insulting their their favorite
team their children right like I say that marijuana is bad for your lungs and you’re like you’re feeling like you’re
I’m insulting your family name like what yeah this ridiculous like I feel look at
yourself in the like why ask yourself why you care so much cuz I don’t care
when someone disagrees with me on MAR I don’t I don’t get I don’t get bent out of shape I just disagree yeah do I you
know I don’t literally tell someone to die you know yeah I don’t deal with it I think as
much as you do but do
you how do you deal with online I I you know I think it used to be tougher for
me um it’s I I just deal with it I’m just like kind of brush it off I don’t
even look sometimes I’ll look and just at all at one time to just give a good laugh and just see what the craziest comments are
um what it proves to me is why it’s so hard for this issue to be talked about and why I get so many DMS all the time
from people who I went to high school with or went to college with telling me I’m struggling with my marijuana use or my brother is really struggling with
marijuana use or this whatever because I’m so public about it and that people feel like they can talk to me about it and I’m really glad I can be that but
people see comments on Twitter pages like mine and it just shows why this
issue doesn’t have many Advocates on my side of it right it they don’t have people in recovery from marijuana who or
who are addicted who are talking about it all the time and being very public like people talk about other drug use like who would like you know and I
really don’t mean to almost um woe is me this is really not trying to me being a
victim or whatever but I really believe that in terms of how we talk about
mental health solely almost only marijuana use disorder is like 30 years
behind the times imagine telling someone who comp tweets
about struggling with depression saying go kill yourself right or alcoholism
or recovery from fentanyl or bipolar disorder you suck you’re terrible you’re
doing Satan’s work you are a total liar and a fraud I mean if someone said that
someone who said I’m struggling with depression or alcoholism like people would be like that is a sick disgusting
person who would say that and that is not what we do now that’s what we did 50 years ago but for marijuana it’s like no
one cares like why like why is it different it’s it’s just not but somehow
it’s so acceptable and it’s like if you think it’s not acceptable to say those things to any to someone struggling with
any other mental health issue you really need to check yourself and look how you’re talking about you know this particular one and it’s just like yeah
yeah okay yeah so great now a teenager who is struggling with their use who wants to talk about it with their
friends or make a tweet about it or whatever they’re going to see that Instagram page or that Twitter page and
see I’m not [ _ ] talking about that right cuz someone’s just going to tell me to kill myself right so it’s like a it’s a vicious cycle and so the fewer people who talk about it then those people who are commenting on those things aren’t exposed to anyone but me who’s talking about it so they think I’m the liar right it’s a vicious cycle it just perpetuates right and so that’s why I still talk about it because I want to get that out there the message out um and you know those guys are losers just total losers anyone who comments anything like that not just to me but to any human being I’ve never commented something like that in my life losers and most of them have no profile picture and a fake name and I put my whole self out online and I comment with my face and you can look me up and you know who I am and so if you’re going to use a faceless profile that tell me some vile thing to me or my mother it’s just like uh pretty much total loser so that’s how I think about it I would agree dude and I’m glad you have that that view on it because somebody who’s going to hide behind uh you know an online profile and make I wouldn’t even call it a bad faith argument a bad faith comment cuz I’ve seen not even arguments they’re just you argue with me like tell me I’m wrong about my opinion I don’t care send me an essay telling me why I’m wrong I don’t care it’s different to insult a person right and also and so I I’ll say though like to get more personal about it the hardest part for me has been not anymore but maybe more than a few years ago not letting those things get to me not in terms of getting offended but more like preventing me from gaslighting myself right because like it’s almost it’s like gaslighting right like people say you’re fake you’re a liar you’re making this up right and people tell you that so often you begin to question yourself and your own experiences you know like so I question okay the most negative experience of my life am I just making that up like am I am I did I just exaggerate everything like did I really even have a problem am I really just kind of a imp you know uh you know am I what these people say I am you know is this really could I really just do this responsibly you know is it really addictive is you know was I just totally overreacting and because you hear that all the time right like it can get to you um so and I think that has been the biggest obstacle in my recovery is not letting the gaslighting get to me someone just said to me we were talking in a conversation like you gaslighting only works if the person on the other end is you know stupid enough to basically accept it right if you’re just like yeah your gaslighting just straight up isn’t going to work like no you’re just wrong go away you know that that person has no power so I think I’ve had to work on letting that not have power over me um and I’ve been pretty successful with it but I’d say that’s like to answer your question head on like the toughest thing dealing with that dude I’m right there with you and I I was curious because again I don’t think I get it as much as you or maybe in the spirit that you get it it’s like pure hatred it’s like ridiculous you know it’s like curious how you deal with it cuz I I and I’m glad you it sounds like you’re thinking about it the right way which is like if somebody’s reaching out to you on the internet seems like nowadays they’re either trying to hurt you or they are actually trying to help and it’s very [ _ ] obvious which of the too yeah yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean like when I reached out to
you it was probably obvious I don’t even remember when I reached out to you for the first time that was a long time ago
but it was probably like I told you before the reason we switched to the Cole memo is because you probably looked at my thing the first time when you’re
like eh but you were able to see from my message it wasn’t like hey [ _ ] let’s come on and I’m going to own you yeah no and you’ve never done that yeah and we’ve always had good dialogue so it’s yeah right and that’s yes it’s very easy to tell um but you know I I just don’t I think this this space is just so crazy man just in so many ways and people have such a reverence for marijuana in some ways yeah well you said it you know you said it earlier and I’ll be honest in some ways like the reason I started with the topic I talked about where I said you know you said in the past it’s like we’re not in that world and everything it it is sometimes hard not to take what you guys are proposing personally but I have to really listen I have to really listen to what you’re saying you know what I mean because I still you know disagree with some of the points but it’s just interesting to me to see people jump off the hip and be like you guys are big alcohol and big tobacco it’s like no they’re saying that’s wrong too I know right we say that all the time people it’s I your donors oh big Pharma must paid a lot for that Tweeter and I hear okay so this is I’m glad you said that that it’s hard to not take it personally I’m really glad you said that because because I feel the same way because there are moments where there are so many moments where I’ll talk to someone about the legalization issue and in my mind if someone is really hard on the other side of it not even like you just like really right like no just I listen to everything you have to say and I still disagree I think how my mind processes that is because I view the issue the way I do because of my personal history a lot of it is because of my own addiction so I feel the consequences so I obviously have a more negative outlook on it right um I think for a long time my mind processed oh so if you because my reasoning so I’m not being concise here my reasoning for supporting the policy position I do partly has to do with my personal lived experience so if you disagree with that policy even after we’ve talked about it then you must be denying my personal lived experience and that it’s valid and that has felt really hurtful to me at sometimes so I felt that to take it personally but I’ve learned that you know and I was talking to someone about this and they said well you you saying that is kind of denying my lived experience like what if I have different Liv experience like that that informs my position right like you can’t say like that’s hurtful to you but so you know like you can’t it’s kind of throwing that back at me you know um and so I’ve had to work hard to do that but just because I feel that way and even if you sometimes feel that way neither of us go online and tell people just vile and disgusting things right right like you we’re human and so we’re going to feel like that sometimes it might not be logical or totally accurate but we’re going to feel it big leap between that or big difference between that and saying you know go die or something on social media yeah right that’s you can feel that without doing it yeah last on this topic do you ever have to take like a break yeah so yeah um I did actually um I I cut back to working one day a week um for a few months um when I was just to graduate college several months ago I I really did you graduate yeah I did I didat thank you I uh graduated May and I burned out it totally crashed and burned um I was doing College working at Sam since my four years ago this month I started working for Sam so I was a freshman in college at the time so I worked at Sam I I usually had one or two jobs at least Sam and then some sometimes usually something else on top of it plus my school work right plus struggling like relationships and some friendships and stuff like that um and I just just a few things happen at once in my life just like few crazy things like death in the family and just like total shakeups in life issues with friends and thing and then school work stress of graduating finding a new place to live and figuring out oh my God I’m work work full time and I I just crashed and burned and I had to learn how to not do that um and part of that was taking a step back starting to go to therapy um you know really cutting back work and now I work totally full-time and I’m so glad I took some time off and took a step back I think it’s important like I think if you if you if you know you have to do it you have to do it and it doesn’t mean you can’t come back to it cuz now I’m in the full swing of things lobbying every day on the hill and and and back at it full time so yeah yeah well cool uh thank you for being willing to talk about it it’s something that as I Branch out from different topics I like to ask people like you that are really involved in policy like you doing okay yeah it’s cuz I wonder about myself sometimes too so you know and I do consider to be a friend so I wanted to ask you that like a place of caring you know it’s it’s hard it’s like it’s a lot and and I’m and I feel like I’m always working and um but it’s you know I can channel that kind of addiction into a more positive way like really investing in my work and loving and I love what I do and uh it’s it can be a lot but I find it rewarding and I just find like the work life balance is something I really have had to actively work on and separate you know I used to like watch movies with friends in college and secretly be texting my boss or doing something for writing something for work while people are watching the movie and like I don’t do that really maybe sometimes I don’t really do that anymore like if I’m sitting down with my girlfriend or with some friends out at dinner watching a movie you’re there doing something I’m there got to live in that moment yeah you know and that’s a huge part to it yeah cool well thank you for for discussing that I wanted to start to wrap up here in a little bit but like I said I wanted to talk about uh cannabis in Colorado we had talked about it in the past and I even saw one one of the little pamphlets that you I don’t mean to say you but Sam and maybe others were behind making making that become a thing so it’s like a pamphlet that shows like what the serving size of DS are and stuff and I don’t know everything about this policy and do you know much about the policy I wanted to ask you color the new Colorado yeah some of the changes you guys lobed for so I do more Federal stuff but I know um part of it was putting more restrictions on the medical program like I know I believe part of it was establishing a limit that you could get per day correct um and making sure you couldn’t just like hop from dispensary to dispensary to get you know get just max it out you know at the dispensaries right down the street um I know that was a big part of it and I think strengthening kind of the laws around like what qualifies for medical not just dishing it dishing it out to some 18-year-old K says he has back pain or whatever um but yeah I think it was HB 1317 was the house bill 1317 that became law um and that’s an example of what we can do in a legal State like in legal states like we don’t waste our time rolling back legalization you know um we don’t think that’s a good use of our time and effort but we can do things like like really strengthening the regulations in a positive way to ensure safety like we are just we are def you know definitely dedicated to that like in a really honest way so we we don’t feel like oh we’re done when legalization happens no that’s actually when we just get started you know you know we say all these bad things are going to happen well how can we work in a state to to make sure that that’s mitigated as best as possible with a legalization structure yeah and since you lobby at a federal level maybe you don’t know why people made the choices they made but I’m just curious like when I learned what you just described I was like I like what the [ _ ] like because
it’s the medical PA patients that are having to deal with those uh limits
and to because you might not be like picking up what I’m putting down just yet I a person that don’t even live in
Colorado could hypothetically pick up more product in a day because I’m not
from Colorado and they don’t track those Adult Ed sales yeah and so I’m just like dude if there’s going to be a clamp down
anywhere and I realized that clamping that down would be a harder thing and that they’ve tried to clamp it down
but it’s like man on the medical side like well I just don’t like I I I just
like medical marijuana even more than recreational yeah because it’s not medicine yeah if it was FDA prooved
product and it was dispensed in a dispensary not sorry it was it was told that in a pharmacy by a licensed
pharmacist uh you know in a dosage that requires a prescription every other freaking medicine you need a
prescription or refill yeah you know and you don’t get as much as you want over the counter like medicine isn’t you go
to a quack for a 30 second online consultation so you have anxiety and go to a dispensary with a bud tender and
get as much dabs as you want right that’s not medicine right it’s it’s actually like a disgrace to medicine and
then voting on it yeah like when did a state legislature or a ballot initiative
like voters decide what’s medicine or not right like what if we put the vaccines up for a voter on the ballot
that would be ridiculous right that’s not how we do medic in this country well to your point I think the strongest
point that you just had was like name another scenario folks that are listening where the doctor says like
here you go now go pick out whatever the [ _ ] you want yeah right exactly it’s like it’s like it’s like there are studies that show like 80% of people who use medical just admit that it’s you know it’s just a good eye like it’s for recreational like yeah I got my medical card cuz it was illegal in my state and I was like I’m tired of driving to Colorado get me I’m going to talk to a doctor pay whatever I [ _ ] need to pay and now I don’t have to drive to Colorado anymore and then it became
legal in our state so and that’s still price but I’m not even going to get into it prices everybody out the prices are
so high Illinois is a perfect example of where they want legalization but not
decriminalization because if we actually had full decriminalization as I was saying at the beginning of the show
their profit motive goes right out the door because as an a license holder said it there’s only so few stores so if you
need to come and acquire it you got come to us you know um so so yeah anyways
that’s not that’s really all I had for it I was just like it it feels like and I get your like disagreement with the
medical cannabis system as a as a whole I just thought that was pretty crazy
like you and I could go and purchase more cannabis than somebody who’s had a conversation with their doctor legally
no I want to be clear about that it’s not legal right it’s like also I could it’s also not even prescription right
they don’t ever right they don’t so but yes I I hear what you’re saying but I
just I think we should just roll back the craziness wherever we
can whether it’s wherever it’s politically feasible cuz it’s crazy that that’s a system for medicine right like
that’s just it’s it’s absurd um let’s wrap up with reschedule and safe safer banking that sounds great what so here’s
my thing on rescheduling everybody is freaking out about rescheduling and there’s a large fracture in the Cannabis
Community itself not only just the grer policy but even within the Cannabis
Community like nobody agrees yeah here’s my perspective on it but I’d love to hear yours folks we’re operating under the co
memo we are disregarding the Controlled Substances Act so why if it goes from
most dangerous to whatever schedule 3 means are you worried at all about what
we’re doing because no matter you know we’ve got the list here we’re saying [ _ ] the list right so why does it matter if it’s being res like why are people worried if we’re not even taking that list into account that’s my perspective why have people been like freaking out if it’s like [ _ ] the controlled substances list anyway why are you worried about such a
good way to put it and I didn’t even think of it like that that’s actually such we’re not even looking at the list anyway we’re just totally disregarding
it but I’m curious what’s what’s your perspective on on rescheduling first um
I don’t think it’ll be rescheduled really no I don’t you think the DEA will
be like nah dude yeah I do yeah yes do you do you just feel that way or do you
CU you’re I’m asking you this because you’re uh you’re here in DC have you
heard no but um and I I am not going to go into any
detail um but I don’t think they’re happy with how this has all played out okay I don’t
think I think they’re very pleased with how this all play I don’t think the DEA or yeah okay and I don’t
think few things I’m rescheduling one just basic marijuana absolutely is a schedule
one drug yeah it just is a schedule one drug right like if you don’t like the
fact that marijuana is a schedule on drug you shouldn’t disagree with that you should just not like how we schedule
drugs that’s what I always say to people so yeah number one thing saying this directly to the camera there you go
scheduling is the scheduling system is not a harm index so I hate to call you
out Cole but even what you said about most dangerous to least dangerous that’s actually not if you read what it means
what scheduling means scheduling is defined broadly by two things and then it’s broken down by an eight factor
analysis into very specific things right so broadly scheduling is potential for
abuse and accepted medical use right marijuana whether you like it or not has
a high potential for abuse about 20 to 30% right marijuana’s potential for abuse the the the basically the the
chief study on the dependability rate of drugs was done in like 07 or something
like that so when marijuana wasn’t even nearly as potent as it is today and even then marijuana’s dependency rate was
higher than like more than half of schedule one drugs so high potential for
abuse accepted medical use like safe medical use I think is the language right they’re just like the
medical community does not have consensus on a safe use for smoking
marijuana period now marijuana as a plant just using it like get in Bud and
smoking it not been proven to be medicinally valued now there is
medicinal value in certain compounds of cannabis for sure we have epidex which
is CBD which is a schedule 5 drug we have Marinol which is THC which is a schedule three drug you can have drugs
that are derivatives of cannabis that are differently scheduled just like other drugs it’s not just with marijuana
um I think it’s GHB um which is a schedule one drug and that has a derivative one of the
compounds of GHB has actually been turned into I think it’s some sleeping medication I’m not so sure but it’s some
medication that’s a I believe it’s a schedule of three drug like you can do that so yeah you can isolate some things
and those might be differently scheduled but marijuana as a whole no because that does not pro to have medicinal value in
and of itself in a safe way so if you don’t like that say ditch ditch how we
schedule things that’s what people should be saying so that’s just what my opinion is on the issue um the other
thing is this has been done in bad faith look I’m not anti-biden I voted for Joe
Biden I’m going to vote for Biden again you didn’t storm the capital I did not storm the capital but
but the fact that so they dropped this on dea’s lap and I
know for a fact they were not they did not tell them HHS give no warning to DEA about this the first time DEA heard
about this was when the whole world did okay drop this on their lap this is supposed to be like a quiet handoff of
the recommendation to the DEA for to make their determination this was a press conference at 4:20 p.m. from
highest ranking official at HHS tweets have been sent out at 4:20 p.m. about this correct that is yes this is not
supposed to be political this is supposed to be based in science based in research that does not tell me that they
take it very seriously if they did an announcement that they’re shifting their policy on
legalization and they’re Pro legalization now and they wanted to do that at 4:20 p.m. what I give them an
eyebrow role sure would I disagree with them sure but I would be more okay with
that because 420 is like celebrating like marijuana and like liberalizing marijuana using marijuana and that’s
part of what legalization is about scientific this is a scientific process this has nothing to do with politics or
legalization or anything which by the way schedule 3 still keeps it illegal so I think that was in bad faith uh I don’t
think that showed that it was only scientific and the final point is they have not released the letter they
haven’t released it I have somebody who’s trying to Foy it I know I the attorney right the guy yeah like
like tell the world if you’re going to do this big press conference and you know make DEA look like the bad guys the
boogeyman when when they say maybe when they say oh it’s going to be schedule keep it schedule one now I have a theory
as to what happened which is not proven or backed up by anything but I’m just thinking okay you
know you and me we’re going to be following this move by move right like every little development and going to be
get in the weeds pun intended about this but the public at large all they’re going to remember is they recommended to
make it schedule 3 and does DEA accept it or not right right now some people even think it’s already
sched yeah right if if at the time HHS released that letter that would have
given all the news outlets all the media an opportunity to rip it shreds right if it
really is I mean unless it’s a really great document I have no reason to believe like why would they hide it like
if it’s you know not kind of just yeah a little politicized so the media could
have said in the stories uh HHS recommends schedule 3 based on shaky
science or something like that right like they could have added a spin with what the letter said but they withheld
it so now when DEA makes her determination even if they release the
letter it’s going to be lost on the public the news Cycle’s done public if they release it now there not
going to be stories written about it because the news Cycle’s over and the public isn’t going to see it the average
person isn’t going to read it they’re not probably going to understand it not like they’re too stupid but like they just don’t people don’t pay attention to
marijuana policy right they don’t even know the basic facts about marijuana a lot of the time uh and that’s not going
to get picked up so I suspect that they knew that they could avoid probably potentially a lot of bad press by
keeping it to themselves and releasing it later and then make DEA look like the bad guys yeah so um I just I it’s just
not it’s not based in science and you know I have a big you know I have a bigger problem even with the abuse
potential like marijuana it’s like it’s so funny cuz you on the medicinal front like more Studies have just been trying
to show I think some studies show that marijuana isn’t used for medicine more studies are trying to show that
marijuana is used for medicine like even though I disagree it’s more accepted now that marijuana is like has some
additional capacity uh even though I disagree with that um but it’s becoming
more acceptable the idea that marijuana is more abusable right it’s more potent so
it’s like you’re like for for decades Republican and Democratic administrations said that marijuana had
a high potential for abuse and now that it’s actually even more High has a way higher potential than it used to have
now you’re saying it has a lower one just makes no sense to me like what the potency jacked up like what do that even
this makes no sense so so I recently saw you read a DE thing how was that great
that was cool I wasn’t choking to you when I said no I couldn’t tell I kind of couldn’t tell if you’re were saying that was a it was good so it was the 50th
anniversary of the DEA attorney general M Garland was there um DEA administrator
Milgram ASA Hutchinson is running for president used to be da admin like most of the former da administrators were
there and it was really good really cool did you get a chance to talk to anybody um I got so I stood with my boss while
he talked to an Milgram he tweeted that out um got flam for that one did he get
some good looks in did he make his points yeah yeah he did he did really he did a really good job um my boss
actually just got back from the border uh he’s writing a book and uh he’s or I think it’s for a book and he’s he went
to the border for a day visited and like for research on drug trafficking doing a
lot of cool stuff meeting a lot of cool people um but yeah that was cool it was like a lot of great people and like
like-minded to me on drug policy obviously it’s really awesome yeah I still want to talk about safer banking
but just before I forget this line I think you’re going to love what I’m about to say I think the reason we both
I think if there’s going to be anything we completely agree on today it’s going to be this I think the reason we both find
this topic fascinating for different reasons is because this is the biggest separation between federal policy and
state policy since slavery yes huge huge separation yes it’s pretty
crazy really crazy yeah so not much more to that thought I mean if you want to add on to it I can’t
to just totally I it’s a huge separation it’s fascinating just a legal conundrum yeah yeah safer banking is it safer yeah
no notated uh if Schumer had the votes he’d put it
on the floor I saw that you said and I liked this tweet and I almost retweeted
it and framed it I will I will Graduate hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry it passes I’m sorry that was a really funny tweet good [ _ ] on that one I had I just had to put him in his place he anyways though do you so you feel that way it’s not going to pass this is all just punch B news punch bu news which is like the preeminent you know like news Capitol Hill reporting basically group punch so punchable news they’re like they’re they’re outlet and they’re like they’re the guys on the hill that do reporting every like 99 plus% of Hill staffers subscribe to them they’re like the people basically um the most trusted folks on the hill uh they do a survey of all these issues and just release 133% of senior staff on Capital Hill think safe banking will pass 133% this year 13% when did they release that a couple days ago oh okay so um uh might have even been yesterday um so you know just rattling off a few points here if Schumer had the votes he’d put it on the floor yeah there’s reasons that safe banking had eight GOP co-sponsors and this one only this new version only has four cut in half they haven’t re-up on their co-sponsorship there’s a reason that Republicans tried to renegotiate on the negotiated deal on Section 10 with the gun the Firearms right and people are still trying to negotiate um now that would make it to be clear so that cannabis users could purchase no so that’s something different so so section 10 of the bill is a republican sweetener that was added after the NRA lobbied on the bill four years ago and it basically says that currently there’s some banks that like sh 10 years ago Obama the Obama Administration launched this thing called operation chokepoint where they shut down customer accounts that were engaged in high-risk activity and it basically mostly affected Firearms manufacturers and obviously conservatives went an uproar about shutting down bank accounts of gun manufacturers uh you know we don’t have any position on that either way right Sam but um it was a republican sweetener for the bill then Jack Reed Democratic senator from Rhode Island was like yeah no I don’t want to basically just gut this operation chug point and make it illegal to do um and they had a huge fight over that lasted two months it slowed down progress of the bill they came to a negotiation and look the Bill’s either going to protect the Firearms industry or not and one side has to cave and so the Republicans caved um so the bill doesn’t protect the Firearms industry um and that means it’s Dead on Arrival in the house by the way the person who put got that in there in the house says this bill’s dead yeah so even if it passes Senate which I don’t think it will because the gram act which is what you talking about allowing marijuana users to get guns um is kind of a republican sweetener that Chuck Chuck Schumer wants to add to the bill and then the Hope act which is a cannabis expungement provision which is also really bad legislation which we oppose actually um he wants to attach as well and you know we I say we’re pro expungements um but to be clear and uh you know this is why I think it’s actually going to be harmful to put the Hope act in there um and I think some Democrats are going to be against it the Hope act provides $20 million to the Department of Justice to give to State and local jurisdictions to basically help fund Expediting like you know cannabis offenses um if it was for cannabis possession that would be one thing but the bill defines cannabis offenses as any cannabis offense that has been eliminated or reduced in penalty pursuant to or following legalization in a state so take Oregon concrete example Oregon legalized marijuana and pursuant to their legalization law they reduced the penalty for delivering marijuana to a minor that is actually an expungeable offense in Oregon after a certain amount of years of conviction so federal dollars totally could be totally legally used to fund the expungement to a legal clinic to help a guy who’s selling drugs to minors get that expon from his record now that’s not something that Sam believes in or thinks should happen so that’s why that we we disagree with this bill but it’s a sweetener but we think it goes too far so that’s look and then rapael waro who voted against it in committee says that that’s not even enough so yeah end of the day and it’s based on some of the things that maybe not complete Spirit but some of the things I was saying earlier right it was his comment about it doesn’t go far enough in terms of decriminalization or am I thinking just in ter social justice just social jce like he doesn’t think this he thinks the safe Banking Act is just going to help Rich wealthy bankers and it’s totally true 100% will and he doesn’t think it will help communities of color so he wanted like a study done to measure its effects and then have the bill sunsetted after 5 years if it’s determined that it hasn’t helped communities of color like proportionately and and they voted all against that um you know there’s a term in Washington for bills um we call them Christmas trees um some bills right if this bill becomes a Christmas tree which means that they just going to tack a bunch of ornaments on it like add a bunch of bills out a bunch of amendments and measures and basically you know it’ll kind of drag it down and uh it’ll sink the ship I think if they add too much too much cargo uh so that’s what I think will happen because to get those diff disperate factions on they have to add sweeteners but to many is going to then piss off the other side so uh I think they’ve got a really tough path here in the Senate and and near impossible one in the house and final note here is uh the two leading candidates for the new speaker race are again anti-marijuana uh the chairman of financial services where the bill needs to go through who’s now the temporary speaker Patrick McKenry is against the safe Banking Act and even the Republicans in the house who are pro safe banking we’re only Pro because of the section 10 and now it’s been gutted so I just don’t think it’s going to happen gotcha well thanks for weighing in on that I want to just wrap up with a few questions I think this will be a quick one or maybe you have some something to say about it I meant to bring it up during our rescheduling conversation uh you know damned if I do damned if I don’t on that one on this one what do you what do you say to the folks because they say it all the time and they’ve maybe already even said it to you well cannabis and and sorry alcohol and tobacco aren’t scheduled your response um I know what my response is I’m just trying to word it carefully sure um trying to [ _ ] is that how you were going to start I’m just joking
I I have a sense of humor they probably [ _ ] should be they probably [ _ ] should be oh they should be scheduled is
what you’re saying probably [ _ ] they should alcohol and tobacco absolutely meet the definition of Controlled Substances yeah it’s politics yeah the liquor Lobby and the tobacco Lobby it’s politics it absolutely meet the definition but we can’t go back like trains really left the station on that like like alcohol’s been tobacco been really huge parts of of our culture since Constitution and don’t give me and and not you but don’t everyone give me [ _ ] on the Thomas Jefferson like
smoking hemp or something like let’s be real okay totally different marijuana just does not have the longevity of the
cultural significance in American life as alcohol and tobacco it just doesn’t right so
uh the liquor Lobby is incredibly powerful tobacco Lobby is incredibly powerful um the taxes that people get
right the politicians don’t want to give that up even though the social cost is far you know out outweighs that um right
so it’s never going to happen and this is what I always say but people are going to you know hear me say this oh okay so Jordan’s a prohibitionist so
Jordan’s just a prohibitionist this prohibitionist that this is what I’ll say we’ve learned from the lessons of
prohibition we’ve learned from alcohol prohibition and the downsides of that
we’ve learned from marijuana prohibition and the downsides of that but alcohol
and tobacco are not controlled at all and so we’ve also learned the downsides of a totally
uncontrolled um regulated because it’s so funny because controlled substances
are regulated technically by law substances but we call alcohol and tobacco regulated even though they’re
weird right so but you know we’ve also learned the dangers of full commercialization so that’s why Sam says
let’s go somewhere in the middle we don’t need to go back to the days of alcohol prohibition but we don’t need to
go to you know pre-1971 cigarettes when they’re having ads all over TV and radio and Marl bur
man and righted carto do we really need to go there right that’s where we fall
fair enough well thank you for answering yeah do you think they should be scheduled so uh yeah I you know what
can’t call me inconsistent yeah yeah can disagree we can’t call me inconsistent well I think this is my
last question and I it was inspired by something you had said when we were out at dinner um or out at lunch what what
did you mean I think I knew what you meant earlier but what did you mean when you say that you think that you and the
parabola Center are like actually starting to it seems I’m not trying to put words in your mouth so correct me if
I’m wrong but that you don’t maybe disagree on as much as people might think yeah I mean I think I think it’s
like I think the with people like shelene who you know I don’t even know her super well so I’m not going to like
pretend that like I’m friends with her but um but you know she certainly knows us and we know her um but at the par
center right like I think actually the differences and similarities between them is actually the similarities and
differences between us right like we talked throughout this conversation woven and it’s kind of the theme between maybe me being a little pessimistic and
you being a little optimistic and I think that’s the difference right like you and the prop Center recognize what’s
really going on and the commercialization and the big tobacco takeover and the addiction for profit I
think like three of our our entities recognize that um the difference is I think like you and them I’ll Lo I’ll
group together think that there is a solution that uh there’s kind of a you
can thread the needle right like you can figure out a way to really liberalize these laws and not have that happen and
not have a big tape over not have it monopolis to have more kind of utopian vision of it right where like the
hippies imagined you know um 50 years ago right uh I don’t think that’s the case so we
recognize the same problem but our solution is different um I think the solution is to not go down that path at
all uh whereas you and maybe shellene or people at problem Center might disagree
with that uh I think that’s the main similarity and difference cool well Jordan uh it’s been a blast to have
lunch with you today yeah man have a good conversation before I go uh would you
like to have space for the last word here on the Cole memo you know I think
we’ve yet again fleshed out pretty much most of the topics um but I am so happy
to be here with you in DC and happy and I love the name the Cole memo think it’s fantastic and uh I I hope that people
who are gotten this far have enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a thing or two and can check us out at ww.
learnabout sam.org and you can email me at Jordan n learn about sam.org
um yeah I think one one thing we could say to the people that are still listening right now is that they’re obviously as much of a cannabis nerd as
you and I yeah 100% so y props to you folks for uh listening even if you
disagreed with myself or if you disagreed with Jordan I hope that you you stuck it in for the Long Haul and
Jordan I appreciate you man thanks man yep all right folks hope you found value in this conversation I sure did we’ll
see you on the next episode of the Cole memo
[Music]
The Cole Memo 
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