WEBVTT

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This episode is brought to you by 5 .11 Tactical,

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-L .com. Use the code SHIELD15, save 15 % and

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make a difference in your community. Welcome

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to the Behind the Shield podcast. My name is

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James Gearing and this is episode 317 and I am

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so excited to bring to you my next guest, Johan

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Hari. Now, Johan is the author of Chasing the

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Scream and Lost Connections. And if you have

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read either of those books, you will know that

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he literally has spanned planet Earth, finding

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some of the greatest people in the mental health

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arena and in the addiction arena. Not only from

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a clinical side, but from the people down the

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streets, the addicts and people who have found

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other ways of overcoming this epidemic that we

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have and innovating in certain countries. So

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I cannot stress highly enough how much you need

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to listen to this episode. The men and women

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on the streets, the first responders, the medical

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personnel, we see the side effects of mental

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illness, and that manifests many times in addiction.

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So this needs to be heard by all of us and everyone

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else, all the citizens of all the countries around

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the world, because there are nations that are

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doing incredibly well and having amazing success,

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and there are nations that are doing incredibly

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poorly, causing a huge amount of violence and

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death and magnifying the problem before we get

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to that interview as i always say please just

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take a moment go to whichever podcast app you

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listen to this on subscribe to the show leave

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feedback and leave a rating the five -star ratings

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truly do make us more visible the people looking

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for a project like this and as i've mentioned

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this is a free library of information People

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like Johan truly have answers that will save

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lives around planet Earth. And all I ask you,

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the audience, to do is to simply share these

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episodes. So with that being said, I introduce

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to you Johan Hari. Enjoy. Johan, I want to start

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by saying thank you so much for taking the time.

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I know you're writing the book at the moment.

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I know you're interviewing with other people

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as well. But this is a conversation I wanted

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to have for, I want to say, since the podcast

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started like three plus years ago. So firstly,

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thank you so much for taking the time at eight

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o 'clock at night in England to come on the Behind

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the Shield podcast. Thank you so much. I am actually

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basically nocturnal. So this is the middle of

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the day for me. So that time is no problem. Also,

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I feel like you are someone with a similar problem

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to me, which is you're a British person in the

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United States. So I'm in the US about half the

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year. And I can feel your accent sliding around

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in comical ways. Empathize with that. A similar

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thing has happened to me. So I once went into

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a diner in a place called Cactus, Arizona, when

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I was first spending a lot of time in the US.

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And I remember it was actually, I think it was

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an IHOP actually. And I said to the woman, like,

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hi, can I have some pancakes? And she looked

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at me and she said, what, what? And I said, can

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I have some pancakes? She goes, what? And I said,

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can I have some pancakes? She goes, what are

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you saying? And this went on for like three minutes.

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And then she looked at me very seriously and

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she said, do you speak English? And I was like,

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people fucking invented it, right? And then I

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said, can I have some pancakes? And she was like,

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why didn't you just say that at the start? So

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that was when I realized I had to adjust my voice.

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But now it happens like unconsciously. It's like,

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yeah. So anyway, I empathize with you. Yeah,

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it's so funny because if my wife was listening

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now, she would be laughing her ass off. The number

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of times I've gone to a drive -thru, and again,

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I'm in America, so I don't get angry about it.

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But I'll say, oh, can I have a... Yeah, whatever.

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French fries and a burger, please. And I'm sorry,

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what? And so I'm like, can I get some French

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fries and a burger? And they're like, okay. I

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love American accents. I'm very happy for my

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accent to be polluted by Americans. I'm delighted.

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So now the game is to do different accents, whether

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it's a camp one from New York or a southern one.

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So I get to play with them now. So the table's

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turned. Any American accent I do, it doesn't

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matter who I'm trying to be, whether it's Trump

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or Oprah or anyone in between, always turns into

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Cartman in South Park. Oh, my God. Stop doing

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this. Respect my authority. So basically all

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my American accents were Converge on Cartman,

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which is an unfortunate voice to have. You always

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end up with chicken pot pie. Exactly. It's a

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tragedy. All right. Well then, so you mentioned

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about splitting your time. Where in America is

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your other place of... God, I kind of spit my

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words out now. Where's your base in the States?

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So it totally varies. At the moment, it's Las

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Vegas because I'm writing a book about Vegas

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and something I'm not meant to talk about it

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yet, but something that's been happening in Vegas

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and not something good. And yes, I'm spending

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a huge amount of time in Vegas and I will be

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over the next couple of years. But it's a place

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that I absolutely love. I know it polarizes people

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and a lot of people are kind of snooty about

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Vegas. I absolutely love it. And it's a very

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complex and weird and fascinating place and quite

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disturbing place in some ways. So, yeah, that's

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that's my. Have you been to Vegas? You know,

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I haven't yet. And it's somewhere I want to go.

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I lived in California, Southern California for

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a few years, and that was not too far a drive.

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But I do want to get out there. So maybe I'm

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being totally presumptive now. But when you're

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back out there next, maybe we can do a second

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one face to face. I really recommend it because.

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And this is a very pretentious reason to recommend

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Vegas. There's a million reasons. But the French

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philosopher Jean Baudrillard said that Vegas

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was the most purely American place. And I think

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there's some truth in that. I mean, in some ways,

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I think Vegas is a vision of where the world

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is headed, for good and bad. So, yeah, I'd definitely

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come. It's amazing. And it's never boring. Brilliant,

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brilliant. Yeah, so we'll do that. I'll align

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going to Vegas as a trip and then maybe a second

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interview for us as well. Excellent. Okay, well

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then the other half. So where is your base in

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England now? Oh, I'm from London. So I was born

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in Glasgow because my mother's Scottish. But

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they moved here when I was a baby. My parents

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had met here in London. They live next door to

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each other. And my dad's an immigrant. My dad's

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from Switzerland, a tiny little village in the

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Swiss mountains. And him and my mother lived

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very close to each other, but they didn't speak

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the same language. And they had what my mother

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calls a series of one night stands, which I tried

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to explain is not a concept that makes sense.

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It isn't a one night stand. And she got pregnant

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and they thought they had to get married. And

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then unfortunately, he learned English. And she

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often says. He seemed so fucking nice when I

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couldn't understand what he was saying. I think

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they learned the same language, although they

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are still together, intermittently. They've now

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been together for 50 years, miraculously. She

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said to me once, when I met him, he looked like

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Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire. I didn't

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realise I'd end up with fucking Marlon Brando

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from Apocalypse Now. Very unfortunate. Anyway,

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there was a long way of saying. I grew up in

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a place called Edgware, which is the end of the

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Northern Line, a kind of suburb of London. And

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now I live in a different bit of North London,

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a kind of swankier bit of North London. But yeah,

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this is where I'm from. And I love London. Yeah,

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I went to University of North London and I worked

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on Hampstead Heath as a lifeguard for a while

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on the ponds there. Oh, wow. Amazing. I lived

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in Hampstead for a couple of years. Yeah, it

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was weird living in Hampstead because I went...

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I lived on Brick Lane, which for people who don't

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know London, is this really bustling, intense

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immigrant part of East London. And when I moved

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there, it was regarded as a bit of a shithole

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and then it really rapidly gentrified. So I lived

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there for 10 years in the middle of this kind

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of bustling chaos. And I loved it. And then almost

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exactly on my 30th birthday, I started finding

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noise irritating. Until then, I was like, hey,

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this is great. It's always good. People never

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stop. And then I was like, shut the fuck up,

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everyone. I've got things to do. But they didn't

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shut the fuck up. And therefore, I moved to Hampstead,

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which is a kind of fancy part of London. And

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I've never lived anywhere like that before because

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my family didn't have money or anything. And

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it was really weird because Hampstead, it was

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like moving into a very beautiful old people's

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home. you don't ever actually see anyone, right?

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It's really weird. Like everyone's in their fancy

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houses, but you don't see anyone on the street.

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You don't, you know, you don't, it's a very weird

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and have that weird sense of, you know, that

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kind of class migration sense you get in Britain

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where you suddenly like feel slightly out of,

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although I've always, it's weird, although my

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parents were both from working class backgrounds,

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I've always had this weird posh voice. I don't

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understand. It's even in childhood videos. It's

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really odd. I sound like Stewie from Family Guy.

00:11:12.470 --> 00:11:14.669
But my mother's like, what's going on? What are

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you talking about? And I'm like, mother, stop

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being so absurd. But Hampstead, yeah, it was

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too empty and weird and desiccated for me. So

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I left in the end. Right. So speaking of childhood,

00:11:27.419 --> 00:11:29.500
so obviously we're going to explore mental health

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and a whole host of areas. You had touched on

00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:35.620
in the book about some trauma. So what was the

00:11:35.620 --> 00:11:40.840
lows of your childhood? I'd rather not go too

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much into the detail of it because I think it's

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one of those things where you can sort of tell

00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:49.159
your own story, but you don't want to tell other

00:11:49.159 --> 00:11:52.740
people's stories for them. And it's not really

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a story I can tell in a great deal of detail

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without. disclosing things about other people,

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but what I can say is we had a lot of addiction

00:12:00.129 --> 00:12:06.929
in my family and a lot of craziness, for want

00:12:06.929 --> 00:12:09.370
of a better word, when I was a kid and as I was

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growing up. I was mostly raised by my grandmother,

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who was an amazing person. She was kind of a

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Scottish working -class woman. She'd left school

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when she was 13. and had an incredibly hard and

00:12:23.860 --> 00:12:28.960
incredibly beautiful life. But I was very interested

00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.379
in childhood trauma and I've done a lot of work

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on it for both my books, the one about addiction,

00:12:34.259 --> 00:12:36.700
Chasing the Scream, and the one about depression

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and anxiety, Lost Connections. And I guess, I

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mean, I learned so much about childhood trauma,

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but one of the people who taught me the most

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It was an amazing man. You should have him on

00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:52.000
your podcast, actually, called Dr. Vincent Felici.

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He did this incredible research. He made a huge

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breakthrough in our understanding of childhood

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trauma. And he did it in a slightly unexpected

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way, actually. He wasn't looking for evidence

00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:09.440
about childhood trauma at first. What happened

00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:13.919
is Dr. Felici is based in San Diego in California.

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And he was... approached in the mid -1980s by

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Kaiser Permanente, one of the big not -for -profit

00:13:21.830 --> 00:13:24.909
medical providers in California. And they said

00:13:24.909 --> 00:13:26.490
to him, look, we've got a real problem here.

00:13:26.509 --> 00:13:30.210
We need your help. Every year, obesity is getting

00:13:30.210 --> 00:13:34.090
worse. And every year, we try giving people diet

00:13:34.090 --> 00:13:36.570
advice and nutrition advice. And even sometimes

00:13:36.570 --> 00:13:39.129
we give them personal trainers. And nothing is

00:13:39.129 --> 00:13:42.029
working. If we give you money, will you just

00:13:42.029 --> 00:13:44.070
do blue skies research to figure out what the

00:13:44.070 --> 00:13:46.429
fuck is going on and how we can put it right?

00:13:47.470 --> 00:13:49.870
So Dr. Felitti agreed and he starts doing this

00:13:49.870 --> 00:13:51.490
research and he first didn't really know where

00:13:51.490 --> 00:13:54.549
to start. So he began to work with 200 severely

00:13:54.549 --> 00:13:56.570
obese people, people who weighed more than 400

00:13:56.570 --> 00:13:58.889
pounds. So people whose weight was putting them

00:13:58.889 --> 00:14:01.389
in real and imminent danger and people who tried

00:14:01.389 --> 00:14:05.649
many other forms of treatment for obesity and

00:14:05.649 --> 00:14:10.929
none of them had worked. He starts working with

00:14:10.929 --> 00:14:12.669
them and he's thinking, you know, what can I

00:14:12.669 --> 00:14:17.029
do? What can I do? One day he has an idea that

00:14:17.029 --> 00:14:20.509
seems like and in fact is quite stupid. He asked

00:14:20.509 --> 00:14:25.830
himself, what would happen if severely obese

00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:29.690
people literally just stopped eating? And obviously

00:14:29.690 --> 00:14:31.909
we gave them like vitamin shots so they didn't

00:14:31.909 --> 00:14:34.570
get scurvy and we gave them nutritional supplements

00:14:34.570 --> 00:14:37.889
so their bodies didn't shut down. Would they

00:14:37.889 --> 00:14:40.110
actually lose weight? Would they actually get

00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:43.350
down to a healthy weight? So with an absolute

00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:45.570
load of support, obviously, and a lot of medical

00:14:45.570 --> 00:14:48.309
checks, they started doing this. And incredibly,

00:14:48.549 --> 00:14:52.470
at first, it worked. It worked really well. Initially,

00:14:52.549 --> 00:14:57.409
there was this big, really drastic reduction

00:14:57.409 --> 00:15:03.990
in weight for lots of people. So I'll give you

00:15:03.990 --> 00:15:05.269
an example of a woman. I'm going to call her

00:15:05.269 --> 00:15:07.529
Susan to protect her medical confidentiality.

00:15:07.549 --> 00:15:09.789
It's not her real name. who went down from being

00:15:09.789 --> 00:15:13.490
more than 400 pounds to 130 pounds, right? It's

00:15:13.490 --> 00:15:16.429
incredible. People are congratulating Dr. Felitti.

00:15:17.990 --> 00:15:19.990
Susan's family is saying that he saved her life.

00:15:21.090 --> 00:15:24.529
And then one day, something happened that no

00:15:24.529 --> 00:15:28.309
one predicted. Susan cracked. She went to KFC

00:15:28.309 --> 00:15:32.250
or whatever it was. She started obsessively eating.

00:15:32.850 --> 00:15:35.350
And before long, she's back at this really dangerous

00:15:35.350 --> 00:15:37.169
weight. Not quite where she'd been, but a dangerous

00:15:37.169 --> 00:15:40.279
weight. And Dr. Felitti called her in and he

00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:44.000
said, Susan, what happened? What happened? And

00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:46.299
she said, I don't know. And she looked really

00:15:46.299 --> 00:15:51.840
ashamed. And he said to her, well, tell me about

00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:54.960
the day that you cracked, the day you started

00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:58.139
eating obsessively again. Did anything unusual

00:15:58.139 --> 00:16:00.799
happen that day? It turned out something had

00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:02.480
happened that day that had never happened to

00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:06.289
Susan. in her entire adult life, she'd been in

00:16:06.289 --> 00:16:08.269
a bar and a man had hit on her. Not in a bad

00:16:08.269 --> 00:16:10.090
way, not in a predatory way, quite a nice way.

00:16:10.409 --> 00:16:12.309
But she felt really frightened and she went and

00:16:12.309 --> 00:16:15.309
started obsessively eating. And that's when Dr.

00:16:15.389 --> 00:16:17.070
Felitti asked her a question he never thought

00:16:17.070 --> 00:16:19.830
to ask any of the obese people he was working

00:16:19.830 --> 00:16:23.649
with. He said, when did you start to put on your

00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:26.289
weight? And in Susan's case, it was when she

00:16:26.289 --> 00:16:29.120
was 12. He said, well... did anything happen

00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:30.740
when you were 12 that didn't happen when you

00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:32.820
were nine, didn't happen when you were 15, anything

00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:36.039
in particular that year? And Susan looked down

00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:39.379
and she said, yeah, that's when my grandfather

00:16:39.379 --> 00:16:44.580
started raping me. And Dr. Faluti started to

00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:47.720
interview everyone in the program. And it turned

00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:51.740
out a staggering, a majority of them had put

00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:53.879
on their weight in the aftermath of being sexually

00:16:53.879 --> 00:16:56.820
assaulted or abused, which is... It first seems

00:16:56.820 --> 00:16:58.419
really weird, right? Because that's obviously

00:16:58.419 --> 00:17:00.740
much higher than the proportion of the general

00:17:00.740 --> 00:17:05.359
population who have been sexually abused. It's

00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:08.160
not half, obviously, or more. So it's like, well,

00:17:08.220 --> 00:17:10.299
why would that be? Why would being sexually abused

00:17:10.299 --> 00:17:12.380
lead to weight gain? And Susan explained it really

00:17:12.380 --> 00:17:15.460
well to him. She said, overweight is overlooked,

00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:20.180
and that's what I need to be. that this thing,

00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:23.380
Dr. Felitti realized, this thing that seems so

00:17:23.380 --> 00:17:25.460
irrational, and obviously is bad for you, right,

00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:27.079
being severely overweight brings with it all

00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:30.079
sorts of challenges to your health. In fact,

00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.240
for these individuals, it was performing a positive

00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:34.400
function, right? It was protecting them from

00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:36.180
sexual attention, which was something they had

00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:38.440
very good reason to want to protect themselves

00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:41.299
from. And Dr. Felitti realized that this thing

00:17:41.299 --> 00:17:47.660
that seems so irrational was performing... performing

00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:51.779
an important function. But this was like a small

00:17:51.779 --> 00:17:55.859
study, right? It's only 200 people, it's hard

00:17:55.859 --> 00:17:58.480
to make big conclusions. So Dr. Felitti went

00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:02.339
to the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, and

00:18:02.339 --> 00:18:04.940
got a shit ton of money to do a much bigger study.

00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:08.619
So everyone who came for healthcare to Kaiser

00:18:08.619 --> 00:18:14.200
Permanente for a whole year in San Diego, the

00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.200
whole city, no matter what you came in for, schizophrenia,

00:18:17.779 --> 00:18:22.619
broken leg, anything in between, was given two

00:18:22.619 --> 00:18:25.819
questionnaires. And the first questionnaire asked,

00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:30.539
did any of these 10 bad things happen to you

00:18:30.539 --> 00:18:33.380
when you were a child? Things like neglect, abuse,

00:18:33.819 --> 00:18:37.059
cruelty, that kind of thing. And the second part

00:18:37.059 --> 00:18:40.859
asked, Have you had any of these problems as

00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:42.400
an adult? And at first it was just going to say

00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:44.420
obesity, but luckily for us at the last minute,

00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:47.599
they added things like depression, suicide attempts,

00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:53.960
all sorts of other problems. And when at first

00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:55.359
they added up the figures, they thought they'd

00:18:55.359 --> 00:18:57.880
made a mistake. So they added them up again and

00:18:57.880 --> 00:19:00.859
they were really stunning. For every category

00:19:00.859 --> 00:19:03.779
of childhood trauma you experienced, you were

00:19:03.779 --> 00:19:06.559
two to four times more likely to have problems

00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:10.450
with depression. addiction and so on. And when

00:19:10.450 --> 00:19:13.410
you got into the multiple categories, the figures

00:19:13.410 --> 00:19:16.930
exploded. If you had had six categories of childhood

00:19:16.930 --> 00:19:23.150
trauma, you were 3 ,100 % more likely to have

00:19:23.150 --> 00:19:26.029
attempted suicide and you were more than 4 ,000

00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:29.490
% more likely to have an injecting drug addiction.

00:19:29.990 --> 00:19:32.670
I mean, those are just staggering figures, right?

00:19:32.710 --> 00:19:35.309
You don't get figures like that very often in

00:19:35.309 --> 00:19:40.180
epidemiology. Dr. Robert Ander, who's another

00:19:40.180 --> 00:19:41.759
one of the scientists who worked on this, said

00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.799
to me, it made him realize that when someone

00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:46.259
is doing something that seems self -destructive,

00:19:46.500 --> 00:19:50.960
obesity, addiction, whatever it might be, we

00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:53.440
need to stop asking what's wrong with you and

00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:56.799
start asking what happened to you. And in my

00:19:56.799 --> 00:19:59.559
case, you know, I had experienced some quite,

00:19:59.660 --> 00:20:03.220
some very extreme acts from an adult in my life.

00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:06.039
And as an adult, I had been quite depressed.

00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:12.500
and a lot of the time not all the time and um

00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:16.839
until i learned about this science from dr felitti

00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:20.859
i didn't i didn't really see the connection it's

00:20:20.859 --> 00:20:23.160
not that i was stupid i didn't i would have denied

00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:25.619
there was a connection i didn't really think

00:20:25.619 --> 00:20:27.500
about it and it's actually i remember when i

00:20:27.500 --> 00:20:31.400
went to see dr felitti he's a lovely really incredibly

00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:36.299
admirable person feeling really hungry when I

00:20:36.299 --> 00:20:38.880
spoke to him and afterwards because I didn't

00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:42.839
want to think about the connections between these

00:20:42.839 --> 00:20:46.420
childhood events and my trauma it was and some

00:20:46.420 --> 00:20:50.140
of the negative feelings I'd had I didn't want

00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:52.640
to think about it it felt tremendously painful

00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:55.039
but I'm glad I did because of what I learned

00:20:55.039 --> 00:20:58.589
later which perhaps we'll get to Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:58.710 --> 00:21:02.130
I'd love to explore, interweave the two books

00:21:02.130 --> 00:21:03.630
and what you talk about because I think there's

00:21:03.630 --> 00:21:07.809
so much to be said. It's interesting with obesity

00:21:07.809 --> 00:21:09.529
though. So here I am originally from England,

00:21:09.589 --> 00:21:11.569
now moving to the States and not only that, but

00:21:11.569 --> 00:21:13.710
becoming a firefighter paramedic. So the last

00:21:13.710 --> 00:21:17.650
14 years of my career, we really got to pull

00:21:17.650 --> 00:21:21.289
back the curtain on so many fallacies that we're

00:21:21.289 --> 00:21:24.529
told. And one of the big things that I talk about

00:21:24.529 --> 00:21:29.869
a lot is you know that that for example the pharmaceuticals

00:21:29.869 --> 00:21:31.470
i'm not even talking about mental health ones

00:21:31.470 --> 00:21:33.009
i'm talking about blood pressure and you know

00:21:33.009 --> 00:21:36.309
type 2 diabetes and all these things that though

00:21:36.309 --> 00:21:38.049
you take those and then you're going to be better

00:21:38.049 --> 00:21:42.680
which is complete myth. We have a huge epidemic.

00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:45.720
And from the other perspective I get is I coach

00:21:45.720 --> 00:21:49.359
at a local CrossFit gym as well, which is the

00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:51.640
proactive side of it. Reactive, I'm sticking

00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:53.400
a tube down someone's throat while my partner's

00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:55.140
doing CPR. And the other side is we're trying

00:21:55.140 --> 00:21:57.599
with other trainers to get people away from that.

00:21:58.259 --> 00:22:01.920
But I've got members of the gym that have been

00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:05.299
coming for years, training diligently, curious

00:22:05.299 --> 00:22:08.200
about changing eating habits, but obviously not

00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:11.480
actually manifesting that and one element that

00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:13.700
i have to say through all the things that i've

00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:16.740
been talking about it really didn't strike a

00:22:16.740 --> 00:22:18.819
chord as heavily as it should have is the mental

00:22:18.819 --> 00:22:22.200
health element in the obese and the two things

00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:24.160
we talk about in america for example is obesity

00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.400
epidemic and right now our mental health epidemic

00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:28.900
and yet no one's really kind of i say no one

00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:31.200
there's some people are but the majority of us

00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:33.319
are not putting two and two together and understanding

00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:36.059
that People say, well, why didn't they stop eating

00:22:36.059 --> 00:22:37.500
when they got a little bit heavy? That maybe

00:22:37.500 --> 00:22:40.559
this addiction is no different than the opiates

00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.819
or the social media or the gambling or the porn

00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:46.000
or all these other things that people cling to.

00:22:46.539 --> 00:22:50.059
But those men and women, food seems to be the

00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:52.019
coping mechanism. And then you add the other

00:22:52.019 --> 00:22:55.519
layer, as you were saying. You were, as so many

00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:57.819
of my guests have had on, abused as a child.

00:23:00.089 --> 00:23:01.789
The fact that you don't want to be attractive

00:23:01.789 --> 00:23:04.309
to another person after being abused as an innocent

00:23:04.309 --> 00:23:07.930
child makes perfect sense. It's tragic, but it

00:23:07.930 --> 00:23:10.609
makes perfect sense. Yeah, I think there's a

00:23:10.609 --> 00:23:12.250
lot in what you just said that's really important.

00:23:12.569 --> 00:23:15.029
I mean, I think it's important to stress a few

00:23:15.029 --> 00:23:17.170
things, obviously, that there are all sorts of

00:23:17.170 --> 00:23:19.569
medications that are hugely beneficial to people.

00:23:19.950 --> 00:23:21.450
Obviously, as a paramedic, you obviously agree

00:23:21.450 --> 00:23:24.250
with that. Also, it's worth stressing, this is

00:23:24.250 --> 00:23:26.589
not the only cause of the obesity crisis in the

00:23:26.589 --> 00:23:28.869
US. I don't think it's actually the biggest.

00:23:28.890 --> 00:23:32.269
The biggest cause is the catastrophic food supply

00:23:32.269 --> 00:23:36.470
system, which is a very recent invention. It's

00:23:36.470 --> 00:23:40.029
why obesity has exploded. And the fact that we

00:23:40.029 --> 00:23:42.650
increasingly live in built environments where

00:23:42.650 --> 00:23:45.049
it's very hard to walk and cycle anywhere. So

00:23:45.049 --> 00:23:47.190
it's hard to because we've created a culture

00:23:47.190 --> 00:23:49.849
where it's hard to eat well. And it's hard to

00:23:49.849 --> 00:23:53.430
be physically active in healthy ways. And so

00:23:53.430 --> 00:23:55.410
the childhood trauma element is very real and

00:23:55.410 --> 00:23:57.470
significant to some people. I don't think it's

00:23:57.470 --> 00:23:59.710
the biggest determinant. Although you're absolutely

00:23:59.710 --> 00:24:01.569
right. If you create a society of people who

00:24:01.569 --> 00:24:06.150
are constantly, A, tired, physically tired, and

00:24:06.150 --> 00:24:09.009
B, stressed. All of us, when we are physically

00:24:09.009 --> 00:24:12.130
tired and stressed out, unless you're very unusual,

00:24:12.289 --> 00:24:14.309
some people react differently. But most people...

00:24:14.490 --> 00:24:16.549
want to eat more and they want to eat more shitty

00:24:16.549 --> 00:24:19.230
food when they're tired and stressed out, right?

00:24:19.670 --> 00:24:22.470
Obviously, comfort eating is a very real thing.

00:24:22.630 --> 00:24:24.150
So if you create a society where people are chronically

00:24:24.150 --> 00:24:27.829
stressed and chronically tired, that in itself

00:24:27.829 --> 00:24:30.210
will make, quite apart from childhood trauma,

00:24:30.410 --> 00:24:34.009
that kind of ongoing, grinding, low -level trauma

00:24:34.009 --> 00:24:38.890
will make people want to eat shittier food. And

00:24:38.890 --> 00:24:41.789
you then got a society where the shittier food

00:24:41.789 --> 00:24:45.420
is much cheaper, much easier to get. And healthy

00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:49.279
food is hard to get. So there's a whole kind

00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:53.960
of complex going on there. But I think, yeah,

00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:57.680
yeah. So I think I agree with you. I think it's

00:24:57.680 --> 00:24:59.180
really important that we think about these things

00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:02.500
as interconnected. Yeah. And then, like you said,

00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:04.960
you mentioned the word hard. And that's a great

00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:09.259
description is it shouldn't be hard for a child

00:25:09.259 --> 00:25:10.940
to be able to move around. It shouldn't be hard

00:25:10.940 --> 00:25:15.279
for. you know an adult to go to wherever they

00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:18.000
get their food from and walk away with clean

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:20.440
meat clean vegetables you know not processed

00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:23.759
food but it is you know so the sad thing is you're

00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:26.599
right that the label discipline goes on healthy

00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:28.700
eating right now which shows you how broken our

00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:33.779
system actually is yeah and also that we transfer

00:25:33.779 --> 00:25:38.680
the way we try and solve these problems is very

00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:41.630
often to just You know, there's this phrase,

00:25:41.789 --> 00:25:44.450
some people who criticize self -help use this

00:25:44.450 --> 00:25:47.609
really important phrase. They talk about cruel

00:25:47.609 --> 00:25:50.529
optimism. So cruel optimism is where you take

00:25:50.529 --> 00:25:54.670
a really big problem with big social causes for

00:25:54.670 --> 00:25:58.009
a lot of people like depression, obesity, anxiety,

00:25:58.589 --> 00:26:02.309
addiction. And in a very upbeat way, you say,

00:26:02.430 --> 00:26:05.730
hey, Joey, you can solve this problem for yourself,

00:26:05.970 --> 00:26:08.470
right? You say, all you need to do is these three

00:26:08.470 --> 00:26:11.490
things and you're going to get better. And there

00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:13.369
is a place for individuals to make changes in

00:26:13.369 --> 00:26:15.089
their lives. I'm strongly in favor of it. I've

00:26:15.089 --> 00:26:18.369
argued for it in my books. But the reason it's

00:26:18.369 --> 00:26:20.269
cruel optimism for a lot of people is, to be

00:26:20.269 --> 00:26:22.829
honest, in a culture like this, they're going

00:26:22.829 --> 00:26:26.670
to be running up a down escalator, right? It's

00:26:26.670 --> 00:26:29.329
really, really, really hard. And the biggest

00:26:29.329 --> 00:26:31.990
thing we need to do is to change the overall

00:26:31.990 --> 00:26:33.849
culture and society, which is something we can

00:26:33.849 --> 00:26:36.589
do as citizens. It's happened many times before.

00:26:37.410 --> 00:26:39.390
We're all the beneficiaries of these changes.

00:26:40.109 --> 00:26:43.730
in the past um you need to you need to actually

00:26:43.730 --> 00:26:45.970
change the direction of the escalator right you

00:26:45.970 --> 00:26:48.269
need to stop it so that instead of it being hard

00:26:48.269 --> 00:26:52.349
to eat well hard to spend time with your children

00:26:52.349 --> 00:26:55.470
hard to not be depressed to get your needs met

00:26:55.470 --> 00:26:59.380
we need to make it easier to do that and make

00:26:59.380 --> 00:27:01.880
a society where that is actually the norm rather

00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:04.640
than something you have to fight like the devil

00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:07.380
to achieve. And there are all sorts of ways we

00:27:07.380 --> 00:27:09.019
can do that. And obviously a big part of my books

00:27:09.019 --> 00:27:11.460
are about, okay, how do we do that? Where has

00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:15.079
done that? And what kind of evidence can we use

00:27:15.079 --> 00:27:17.319
to do that? And I think that's essential. I think

00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:19.940
locating the problem at the level of the individual

00:27:19.940 --> 00:27:25.880
sounds empowering. And there is a place for it.

00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.440
Definitely a place for individual changes. But

00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:31.759
actually locating it entirely at the level of

00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:35.440
the individual is really cruel, right? Look at

00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:37.819
a photograph of a beach in the United States

00:27:37.819 --> 00:27:42.240
50 years ago. Everyone is what we would now call

00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:47.700
skinny or slim. Literally everyone, right? There's

00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.920
nobody that we would call fat. Now you look at

00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:54.039
a beach and, you know, lots of people are very

00:27:54.039 --> 00:27:57.059
overweight, right? It's not. The explanation

00:27:57.059 --> 00:27:59.319
for that is not that everyone in the United States

00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:01.660
just suddenly became individually flawed and

00:28:01.660 --> 00:28:03.480
weak -willed. That's an absolutely ludicrous

00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:05.460
thing to think, right? Or think about it as simple

00:28:05.460 --> 00:28:07.559
as the difference, think about places I've spent

00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:09.599
time. The difference between Lexington, Kentucky

00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:13.079
and Copenhagen in Denmark. Lexington, Kentucky,

00:28:13.500 --> 00:28:16.420
most people are obese in Lexington, Kentucky.

00:28:17.419 --> 00:28:20.299
And very few people are obese in Copenhagen and

00:28:20.299 --> 00:28:23.000
Denmark, right? Why is that? It's not that Danish

00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:25.539
people are somehow, you know, morally better

00:28:25.539 --> 00:28:28.660
people than the people in Lexington. It's that

00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:30.779
in Denmark, they've got a government that has

00:28:30.779 --> 00:28:33.720
prioritised making sure people can get cheap,

00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:37.420
fresh, healthy food. They can bike to their work,

00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:39.740
you know, and they can walk around their city.

00:28:39.980 --> 00:28:42.220
And in Lexington, Kentucky, I mean, I tried to

00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:45.329
walk places and it's literally impossible. to

00:28:45.329 --> 00:28:47.589
walk other than tiny little bits of Lexington.

00:28:48.029 --> 00:28:51.589
And it's really hard to not buy the kind of shitty

00:28:51.589 --> 00:28:53.609
food that I find extremely tempting. And it's

00:28:53.609 --> 00:28:56.809
very hard to buy fresh and healthy food, especially

00:28:56.809 --> 00:29:00.009
if you don't have a lot of money. So I think

00:29:00.009 --> 00:29:03.549
with most of the problems that you and I are

00:29:03.549 --> 00:29:05.069
going to talk about, most of the big problems

00:29:05.069 --> 00:29:08.109
that we face, social problems, they can't be

00:29:08.109 --> 00:29:10.680
solved by isolated individuals. But they can

00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:13.140
be solved when individuals band together and

00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:16.359
collectively change the way we live. Yeah, yeah.

00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:18.539
And I think that the perspective I have, and

00:29:18.539 --> 00:29:21.859
it's the same with mental health in my profession,

00:29:21.940 --> 00:29:25.039
the fire service, is I've actually been very,

00:29:25.079 --> 00:29:28.279
very fortunate to have got through my career

00:29:28.279 --> 00:29:31.329
without... any real problems however and i've

00:29:31.329 --> 00:29:33.509
had ups and downs don't get me wrong but however

00:29:33.509 --> 00:29:35.549
i've also been very fortunate to grow up on a

00:29:35.549 --> 00:29:37.750
farm in england be exposed to how to cook when

00:29:37.750 --> 00:29:39.869
i was young and what real food looks like and

00:29:39.869 --> 00:29:42.589
have healthy outlets and have good family dynamics

00:29:42.589 --> 00:29:46.349
despite you know a divorce um so overall was

00:29:46.349 --> 00:29:50.490
given the tools to to get through it um and the

00:29:50.490 --> 00:29:53.049
issue i have is as you said well you know you're

00:29:53.049 --> 00:29:54.490
having depression we should just do this this

00:29:54.490 --> 00:29:56.920
and this Just because it worked for you doesn't

00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:58.920
mean it works for someone else. And if you're

00:29:58.920 --> 00:30:01.079
doing well, like I always talk on this podcast,

00:30:01.380 --> 00:30:02.619
if you're one of the ones that just is doing

00:30:02.619 --> 00:30:04.519
well, if you're staying in shape despite being

00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:06.799
a police officer, despite sitting in a car all

00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:09.059
day and sleep deprivation, all these things.

00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:11.660
Good for you. Now start helping the people that

00:30:11.660 --> 00:30:13.539
are struggling. And I think that's what the conversation

00:30:13.539 --> 00:30:16.799
is. Just because this one Uber athlete has done

00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:19.180
okay and they are genuinely fine mentally and

00:30:19.180 --> 00:30:21.319
physically, now you have to become the beacon

00:30:21.319 --> 00:30:24.440
for change for other people and work out where

00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:27.200
they're stumbling and how we can create an environment

00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.640
for people to thrive, not fail. I think that's

00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:33.039
really true. I would also, and this is something

00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:35.259
you'll know more about than I do, but I would

00:30:35.259 --> 00:30:40.440
also use a different analogy. So car accidents

00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:42.640
are still the biggest cause of death. I mean,

00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:45.359
as we're speaking, COVID -19 might have temporarily

00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:48.160
overtaken it, but car accidents are the biggest

00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.319
cause of death in the United States. Sometimes

00:30:50.319 --> 00:30:54.119
it level pegs with heart attacks as well. And

00:30:54.119 --> 00:30:57.059
so the thing about the problem of car accidents,

00:30:57.099 --> 00:30:59.900
which obviously firefighters do incredible work

00:30:59.900 --> 00:31:04.500
getting people out of, we don't say the problem

00:31:04.500 --> 00:31:07.940
of car accidents... should be solved solely by

00:31:07.940 --> 00:31:10.079
isolated individuals, right? We used to do that.

00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.759
Go back to the 1940s. What they did, basically,

00:31:14.839 --> 00:31:17.180
was very little regulation on cars. What they

00:31:17.180 --> 00:31:19.079
said was to pedestrians, get out of the way of

00:31:19.079 --> 00:31:21.740
the car, and to drivers, drive carefully, right?

00:31:22.380 --> 00:31:25.279
And we realised that didn't work very well. It

00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:28.859
doesn't work very well. So, and we certainly

00:31:28.859 --> 00:31:31.960
don't say to, you know, if someone is mangled

00:31:31.960 --> 00:31:34.599
in a car wreck, right, we don't say to them,

00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:40.119
Well, it's your job now to, you know, enforce

00:31:40.119 --> 00:31:42.980
the speed limit. That's not what we do. This

00:31:42.980 --> 00:31:46.319
is a social problem. So we have a social response.

00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:49.920
We do a huge amount, right? We have driving tests.

00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:54.220
We have speed limits. We have airbags. We arrest

00:31:54.220 --> 00:31:59.000
DUIs. There's a massive array of things that

00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:02.099
we do as a society to deal collectively with

00:32:02.099 --> 00:32:04.319
the problem of car accidents. If we left it up

00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:07.140
to isolated individuals and just said, hey, everyone,

00:32:07.220 --> 00:32:09.579
I'm going to teach you the skills to avoid speeding

00:32:09.579 --> 00:32:13.559
cars, right? The problem would be drastically,

00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:15.880
in fact, was drastically worse when we did that

00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:18.420
and would be drastically worse now if we carried

00:32:18.420 --> 00:32:22.480
on doing that. In a similar way, I think we need

00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:25.539
to shift our understanding of depression and

00:32:25.539 --> 00:32:29.279
addiction and anxiety so that we have a response

00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:32.480
that is more like. how we deal with car accidents.

00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:35.140
Of course, once someone is mangled in a car wreck,

00:32:35.299 --> 00:32:38.440
you guys do your amazing work at getting them

00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:39.660
out of the car wreck, and then they're taken

00:32:39.660 --> 00:32:41.700
to hospital, and the people in the emergency

00:32:41.700 --> 00:32:43.619
room do amazing work piecing them back together.

00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:46.640
But that's not our main response to car accidents.

00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.019
Our main response... is to do a huge amount of

00:32:50.019 --> 00:32:53.059
work so that we don't get to that point, right?

00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:55.200
And in a similar way, we need to do something

00:32:55.200 --> 00:32:57.039
very similar with depression, anxiety, and addiction.

00:32:57.500 --> 00:32:59.519
And there's very good evidence for how we do

00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:02.140
that. We should be dealing with the problems

00:33:02.140 --> 00:33:04.660
that are causing depression, anxiety, and addiction

00:33:04.660 --> 00:33:09.839
upstream way more than we are. Yeah, I couldn't

00:33:09.839 --> 00:33:12.619
agree more. Now, our journey separately took

00:33:12.619 --> 00:33:15.079
us in front of the same gentleman in Lisbon,

00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:17.119
and I want to get to that, but I want to start

00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:21.569
at that. Yes. I want to start at the very beginning,

00:33:21.670 --> 00:33:23.089
though, because I think one of the most powerful

00:33:23.089 --> 00:33:25.710
things for me as a first responder, again, pulling

00:33:25.710 --> 00:33:28.250
the curtain back. Not only do I see the failure

00:33:28.250 --> 00:33:32.130
in our drug policy in the men and women that

00:33:32.130 --> 00:33:35.750
some we save, some that die, but also in our

00:33:35.750 --> 00:33:38.190
own first responders. Like in my immediate area

00:33:38.190 --> 00:33:40.410
here, I've lost three fellow firefighters to

00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:43.630
opiate overdose overdoses alone. That's not counting,

00:33:43.690 --> 00:33:45.690
you know, alcohol and all these other other.

00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:52.359
forms of addiction as well. And the prison population

00:33:52.359 --> 00:33:55.519
side is also staggering. And we talked when we

00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:57.920
were going to record last week about both knowing

00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:02.099
Tom Eberhardt. The staggering statistic that

00:34:02.099 --> 00:34:05.940
in the 70s we had 350 ,000... prisoners and now

00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:09.480
we have 2 .3 million prisoners here most of which

00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:12.659
are drug related in some way shape or form again

00:34:12.659 --> 00:34:15.360
if you're a numbers person shows the huge failure

00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:18.599
of the system so if you would i know you've done

00:34:18.599 --> 00:34:20.480
this on other podcasts but i think it's so important

00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:23.179
to paint the picture can you can you lead people

00:34:23.179 --> 00:34:26.219
through the the the beginning of prohibition

00:34:26.219 --> 00:34:29.139
with anslinger and billy holiday just so people

00:34:29.139 --> 00:34:31.360
have an idea of how this even came about in the

00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:34.039
first place It's interesting, I've been thinking

00:34:34.039 --> 00:34:35.659
about this a lot the last six months again because

00:34:35.659 --> 00:34:40.380
we've been making a meeting out of the story

00:34:40.380 --> 00:34:45.119
that opens Chasing the Scream. So I open my book

00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:47.579
Chasing the Scream at this moment. I think when

00:34:47.579 --> 00:34:48.980
some people first read it, they think, well,

00:34:49.019 --> 00:34:50.679
why is he starting a book about addiction and

00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:52.139
the war on drugs with this? What's that got to

00:34:52.139 --> 00:34:55.539
do with it? It tells you so much about why the

00:34:55.539 --> 00:34:59.900
drug war began and why it continues. In 1939...

00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:04.440
In a hotel in midtown Manhattan, Billie Holiday,

00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:08.760
the great jazz singer, walked onto a stage and

00:35:08.760 --> 00:35:12.780
she sang a song called Strange Fruit. A lot of

00:35:12.780 --> 00:35:15.579
your listeners will know that song. It's a song

00:35:15.579 --> 00:35:17.739
against lynching. It's the idea that in the South,

00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:19.760
there's a strange fruit that hangs from the trees

00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:23.199
and it's the mutilated bodies, murdered bodies

00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:25.500
of African -American men who've been lynched.

00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:29.780
And that night, Billie Holiday got a warning.

00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:32.820
from the agents of something called the Federal

00:35:32.820 --> 00:35:35.199
Bureau of Narcotics that was run by a man called

00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:38.840
Harry Anslinger. And the warning said, basically,

00:35:38.840 --> 00:35:42.320
stop singing this song. You think that's a weird

00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:44.719
place to begin. Why would you begin the story

00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:48.219
there, right? So you've got to understand who

00:35:48.219 --> 00:35:50.679
this man was and then something about Billie

00:35:50.679 --> 00:35:56.179
Holiday. So Harry Anslinger took over the Department

00:35:56.179 --> 00:35:59.780
of Alcohol Prohibition just as alcohol prohibition

00:35:59.780 --> 00:36:02.530
was ending. So he takes over this huge government

00:36:02.530 --> 00:36:06.590
department that's lost the war on alcohol and

00:36:06.590 --> 00:36:09.530
is about to have nothing to do. And he invented

00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:11.989
the modern war on drugs. He's in fact the first

00:36:11.989 --> 00:36:14.929
person to ever use the phrase war on drugs to

00:36:14.929 --> 00:36:18.210
keep his department going. And he built it, and

00:36:18.210 --> 00:36:19.670
it was absolutely sincere in what he believed

00:36:19.670 --> 00:36:22.449
it would help people as well. He built the war

00:36:22.449 --> 00:36:26.769
on drugs around two really intense hatreds that

00:36:26.769 --> 00:36:30.699
he had. One was a... really deep hatred of African

00:36:30.699 --> 00:36:34.800
Americans and Latinos. I mean, he was so racist

00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.559
that he was regarded as a crazy racist in the

00:36:37.559 --> 00:36:41.360
1920s. He used the N -word so often in his official

00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:44.000
police memos that his own senator said he should

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.380
have to resign. But the second group he really

00:36:48.380 --> 00:36:52.760
hated was people with addiction problems. He'd

00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:55.539
grown up as a little boy in a place called Altoona.

00:36:56.090 --> 00:36:59.230
in Pennsylvania, a small town, our farmhouse,

00:36:59.230 --> 00:37:02.590
where the next farm down, the farmer's wife had

00:37:02.590 --> 00:37:04.349
an addiction problem, and he was terrified of

00:37:04.349 --> 00:37:07.550
her. And to him, Billie Holiday was a symbol

00:37:07.550 --> 00:37:09.929
of everything he wanted to destroy. She was an

00:37:09.929 --> 00:37:12.429
African and American woman resisting white supremacy,

00:37:12.610 --> 00:37:16.349
and she had an addiction problem. But Billie

00:37:16.349 --> 00:37:18.230
Holiday, going back to what we were saying, related

00:37:18.230 --> 00:37:20.349
to what we were saying before, when Billie Holiday

00:37:20.349 --> 00:37:25.019
was 10 years old, A 41 -year -old man called

00:37:25.019 --> 00:37:29.099
Wilbur Rich came to collect her and said, your

00:37:29.099 --> 00:37:32.079
mother's told me to come and get you and bring

00:37:32.079 --> 00:37:37.900
you to her. And he horrifically raped her. And

00:37:37.900 --> 00:37:40.500
he was sent to prison for a year. Billie Holiday

00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:44.340
was punished much more severely. The police said

00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:46.960
that she was, as they put it, a little whore.

00:37:47.139 --> 00:37:50.039
They said that she'd led this man on. She was

00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:52.539
sent to live in a convent away from her grandmother

00:37:52.539 --> 00:37:56.159
who she lived with. And this convent tormented

00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:58.980
her. They tried to get her to accept, in inverted

00:37:58.980 --> 00:38:01.619
commas, that she had made this man do this. She

00:38:01.619 --> 00:38:04.159
refused to do that because it wasn't true. They,

00:38:04.260 --> 00:38:06.280
I mean, tormented her in those terrible ways.

00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:08.960
To teach her a lesson, they locked her overnight

00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:11.780
with the dead bodies. I mean, really horrendously

00:38:11.780 --> 00:38:15.699
cruel things. And Billie Holiday had enough sanity

00:38:15.699 --> 00:38:18.409
to see that I'm not taking this shit. And she

00:38:18.409 --> 00:38:21.170
ran away to be with her mother. But her mother

00:38:21.170 --> 00:38:24.289
was working in a brothel in Harlem. And when

00:38:24.289 --> 00:38:26.309
Billie Holiday got there, she started kind of

00:38:26.309 --> 00:38:29.530
working, again in inverted commas, alongside

00:38:29.530 --> 00:38:32.190
her mother. So she was being prostituted. She

00:38:32.190 --> 00:38:34.690
was being raped by strangers when she was quite

00:38:34.690 --> 00:38:37.829
young, night after night after night. And in

00:38:37.829 --> 00:38:39.789
those circumstances, Billie Holiday was terribly

00:38:39.789 --> 00:38:43.010
traumatized. And she started seeking out whatever

00:38:43.010 --> 00:38:47.920
anesthetic she could get. He initially drank

00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:50.360
a lot of alcohol and then used a lot of heroin.

00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:55.380
But when Harry Anslinger tells her to stop singing

00:38:55.380 --> 00:38:57.639
this song, she effectively said, fuck you, I'm

00:38:57.639 --> 00:38:59.940
an American citizen, I'll sing what I damn well

00:38:59.940 --> 00:39:02.940
please. And that was when Harry Anslinger resolved

00:39:02.940 --> 00:39:09.460
to destroy her. So he hated employing African

00:39:09.460 --> 00:39:11.000
-Americans, but you couldn't really send a white

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:12.900
guy into Harlem to stalk Billie Holiday, it'd

00:39:12.900 --> 00:39:14.869
be kind of obvious. So he employed an African

00:39:14.869 --> 00:39:17.869
-American agent named Jimmy Fletcher. And he

00:39:17.869 --> 00:39:19.889
said to Jimmy, follow Billie Holiday everywhere

00:39:19.889 --> 00:39:24.750
she goes, track her, document her drug use, we're

00:39:24.750 --> 00:39:27.530
going to bust her. And so Jimmy Fletcher, this

00:39:27.530 --> 00:39:31.329
is part of the focus of the movie, Jimmy Fletcher

00:39:31.329 --> 00:39:34.710
followed Billie Holiday everywhere. And Billie

00:39:34.710 --> 00:39:36.750
Holiday was so amazing that he fell in love with

00:39:36.750 --> 00:39:39.210
her. And his whole life he felt really ashamed

00:39:39.210 --> 00:39:41.889
of what he did next. He busted her. She was put

00:39:41.889 --> 00:39:44.460
on trial. She said the trial was called the United

00:39:44.460 --> 00:39:46.780
States versus Billie Holiday. And that's how

00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:50.280
it damn well felt. The movie is called the United

00:39:50.280 --> 00:39:55.300
States versus Billie Holiday. And she was sent

00:39:55.300 --> 00:39:57.900
to prison for 18 months. She didn't sing a word

00:39:57.900 --> 00:40:03.400
in prison. And when she got out, the cruelest

00:40:03.400 --> 00:40:05.239
thing really happened to her, which is that to

00:40:05.239 --> 00:40:08.239
perform anywhere where alcohol was served, which

00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:09.840
was pretty much everywhere where you could sing.

00:40:10.400 --> 00:40:12.340
You needed something that was called a cabaret

00:40:12.340 --> 00:40:15.219
performer's license. And Anne Slingham made sure

00:40:15.219 --> 00:40:18.300
she didn't get it. One of her friends, Yolanda

00:40:18.300 --> 00:40:20.199
Boban, said to me, what's the cruelest thing

00:40:20.199 --> 00:40:22.860
you can do to someone is to take away the thing

00:40:22.860 --> 00:40:24.800
they love. This is what we do to people with

00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:26.900
addiction problems all over the world. You know,

00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:30.300
we punish them and shame them and give them criminal

00:40:30.300 --> 00:40:32.940
records. And in that circumstance, Billie Holiday

00:40:32.940 --> 00:40:36.199
relapsed. One day she collapsed in Midtown, not

00:40:36.199 --> 00:40:38.079
very far from where she first saw Strange Fruit.

00:40:38.889 --> 00:40:41.349
She was taken to a hospital. First hospital wouldn't

00:40:41.349 --> 00:40:43.110
even take her because she had an addiction problem.

00:40:43.530 --> 00:40:48.409
Second hospital let her in. And they diagnosed

00:40:48.409 --> 00:40:54.750
her with liver cancer. And she didn't have any

00:40:54.750 --> 00:40:56.690
heroin in the hospital, so she went into withdrawal,

00:40:57.150 --> 00:40:59.670
which is very dangerous if you're as weak as

00:40:59.670 --> 00:41:02.829
she was with liver cancer. And her friend, Maylee

00:41:02.829 --> 00:41:05.250
Dufty, managed to insist they give her methadone,

00:41:05.429 --> 00:41:09.829
which they did. And she got better. And then

00:41:09.829 --> 00:41:12.489
after 10 days, Anstinger's rules meant that she

00:41:12.489 --> 00:41:15.610
got cut off. And she died the next day. One of

00:41:15.610 --> 00:41:18.309
her friends told the BBC that she looked like

00:41:18.309 --> 00:41:21.130
she had been violently wrenched from life. And

00:41:21.130 --> 00:41:24.010
I think this story is so important for so many

00:41:24.010 --> 00:41:26.269
reasons. It tells you about what the drug war

00:41:26.269 --> 00:41:29.190
was about right from the start. It was about

00:41:29.190 --> 00:41:32.030
racism. It was about destroying people with addictions,

00:41:32.030 --> 00:41:34.389
not helping them, shaming them and punishing

00:41:34.389 --> 00:41:39.489
them. making their lives worse. But also to me,

00:41:39.530 --> 00:41:41.590
it tells something much more important, even

00:41:41.590 --> 00:41:45.389
more important, which is, you know, in this culture,

00:41:45.530 --> 00:41:48.570
we tell one story about addiction that's admirable,

00:41:48.789 --> 00:41:50.969
that people with addiction problems sometimes

00:41:50.969 --> 00:41:53.789
recover. And that is indeed admirable. And everyone

00:41:53.789 --> 00:41:56.469
listening to your podcast who's recovered from

00:41:56.469 --> 00:41:58.909
addiction deserves a huge amount of love and

00:41:58.909 --> 00:42:01.289
congratulations. But that's not the only heroic

00:42:01.289 --> 00:42:03.610
story about addiction, right? Billie Holiday

00:42:03.610 --> 00:42:07.030
never stopped being addicted. She died with an

00:42:07.030 --> 00:42:10.389
addiction problem. She was still a hero. You

00:42:10.389 --> 00:42:13.489
know, no matter what they did to her, she always

00:42:13.489 --> 00:42:16.630
found somewhere to sing Strange Fruit, right?

00:42:16.710 --> 00:42:18.789
She would go to the worst parts of the Deep South

00:42:18.789 --> 00:42:21.829
where they threw bottles at her, and she sang

00:42:21.829 --> 00:42:24.690
her song. I remember, yeah, I didn't put this

00:42:24.690 --> 00:42:27.469
in the book. I wish I had. Yolanda Bavan, who's

00:42:27.469 --> 00:42:33.869
herself a great jazz singer, who knew Billie

00:42:33.869 --> 00:42:37.320
Holiday. said to me, you know, towards the end

00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:38.900
of her life, Billie Holiday thought she'd be

00:42:38.900 --> 00:42:40.960
completely forgotten. No one would remember her.

00:42:42.179 --> 00:42:45.239
And I said to her, what would you say to Billie

00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:48.599
Holiday if you could speak to her now? And she

00:42:48.599 --> 00:42:52.400
said, I'd say to her, Billie, today I went into

00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:54.420
Whole Foods and they were playing your songs.

00:42:54.960 --> 00:42:58.420
Nobody forgot you, baby. And I think in some

00:42:58.420 --> 00:43:01.360
ways, like this conflict between Billie Holiday

00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:05.690
and Harry Anslinger continues, right? most of

00:43:05.690 --> 00:43:08.070
the world still follows some version of harry

00:43:08.070 --> 00:43:11.789
anslinger's war on drugs and it makes us weaker

00:43:11.789 --> 00:43:15.269
and sicker than we need to be and yet all over

00:43:15.269 --> 00:43:17.110
the world people listen to billy holiday and

00:43:17.110 --> 00:43:20.909
it makes them stronger and it makes them psychologically

00:43:20.909 --> 00:43:25.829
richer and it makes them better and uh that conflict

00:43:25.829 --> 00:43:31.610
goes on yeah it's it's So, so awful when you

00:43:31.610 --> 00:43:33.230
read the book and everyone listening to this,

00:43:33.269 --> 00:43:35.369
you need to read Chasing the Scream. Simple as

00:43:35.369 --> 00:43:37.869
that. Especially if you're in any sort of first

00:43:37.869 --> 00:43:40.650
responder profession where you're a part of the

00:43:40.650 --> 00:43:44.389
story. But when you take a step back and look

00:43:44.389 --> 00:43:47.309
at... addiction as a mental health problem and

00:43:47.309 --> 00:43:49.610
not and i've talked about this on so many episodes

00:43:49.610 --> 00:43:52.510
oh it's just a bum just a hooker just uh you

00:43:52.510 --> 00:43:54.750
know whatever just a gangbanger but you actually

00:43:54.750 --> 00:43:57.610
take into someone's life story from that giggling

00:43:57.610 --> 00:44:01.829
little toddler to where they are today sending

00:44:01.829 --> 00:44:05.530
someone to prison because they had audacity to

00:44:05.530 --> 00:44:10.389
become dependent on a drug is just so nonsensical

00:44:10.389 --> 00:44:12.849
and you know we'll get to portugal in a moment

00:44:12.849 --> 00:44:16.730
but Fundamentally, it's not working. Say it was

00:44:16.730 --> 00:44:19.809
this great experiment. We know now purely from

00:44:19.809 --> 00:44:21.949
the numbers of incarcerated men and women that

00:44:21.949 --> 00:44:23.949
it is not working. You've been shaming them for

00:44:23.949 --> 00:44:26.909
100 years. That has not worked. You told people

00:44:26.909 --> 00:44:28.769
to pull themselves together and get over it.

00:44:28.829 --> 00:44:31.530
That hasn't worked. So we are at a crossroads

00:44:31.530 --> 00:44:34.190
now. And thank goodness there are some countries

00:44:34.190 --> 00:44:36.670
that are leading the way where we have to fucking

00:44:36.670 --> 00:44:39.489
reinvent this because it has not worked. It's

00:44:39.489 --> 00:44:42.400
so broken. It's causing more crime on the streets.

00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:44.619
It's causing more of our fellow first responders

00:44:44.619 --> 00:44:47.860
to be murdered in the streets. And our citizens

00:44:47.860 --> 00:44:51.260
are, you know, are being locked away by the millions,

00:44:51.519 --> 00:44:54.579
the millions, because they had the audacity to

00:44:54.579 --> 00:44:58.059
be addicted. And it is just, it's crazy. I think

00:44:58.059 --> 00:45:03.880
that's true. And I think it's, so sometimes people

00:45:03.880 --> 00:45:08.500
say, oh, the war on drugs doesn't work. Truth

00:45:08.500 --> 00:45:11.130
is actually quite a bit worse than that. It makes

00:45:11.130 --> 00:45:14.630
the problem a lot worse. And it's interesting

00:45:14.630 --> 00:45:17.090
because in a way, anyone who's ever loved someone

00:45:17.090 --> 00:45:19.369
with an addiction problem, you know, will feel

00:45:19.369 --> 00:45:21.369
this conflict in them. And we'll have a kind

00:45:21.369 --> 00:45:24.190
of, we all have a Harry Anslinger in our heads

00:45:24.190 --> 00:45:25.530
that looks at someone with an addiction problem

00:45:25.530 --> 00:45:26.909
and thinks, oh, someone should just stop you,

00:45:26.989 --> 00:45:31.170
right? And why are you doing this? But most of

00:45:31.170 --> 00:45:32.969
us have a more compassionate part as well. And

00:45:32.969 --> 00:45:35.550
I think, you know, something that really changed

00:45:35.550 --> 00:45:37.780
my mind about this. You know, I was never in

00:45:37.780 --> 00:45:39.239
favour of punishing people with addiction problems

00:45:39.239 --> 00:45:41.539
or anything like that, but something that really

00:45:41.539 --> 00:45:47.219
helped me to see the madness of quite how harmful

00:45:47.219 --> 00:45:50.880
what we do is, is when I kind of learned that

00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:54.300
I had actually really deeply misunderstood what

00:45:54.300 --> 00:45:58.460
addiction is. So, like I say, you know, we had

00:45:58.460 --> 00:46:01.360
addiction in my family, and I had a very clear

00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:04.789
story about addiction in my head. which everyone

00:46:04.789 --> 00:46:06.829
listening to this podcast will have heard in

00:46:06.829 --> 00:46:11.170
some form, which is, let's take heroin addiction,

00:46:11.309 --> 00:46:12.710
because that's something that was close to me.

00:46:13.889 --> 00:46:18.010
If you'd asked me when I started doing the research

00:46:18.010 --> 00:46:19.710
for Chasing the Scream, whenever it was, eight,

00:46:19.789 --> 00:46:23.510
nine years ago now, what causes heroin addiction,

00:46:23.769 --> 00:46:25.269
I would have looked at you like you were an idiot,

00:46:25.369 --> 00:46:27.889
and I would have said, well, the clues in the

00:46:27.889 --> 00:46:30.730
name dummy. Obviously, heroin causes heroin addiction.

00:46:31.469 --> 00:46:33.590
We've been told this story for 100 years. It's

00:46:33.590 --> 00:46:35.530
actually been a big resurgence during the opioid

00:46:35.530 --> 00:46:37.710
crisis. I hope we get a chance to talk about

00:46:37.710 --> 00:46:43.289
that. It's not totally wrong, but turns out to

00:46:43.289 --> 00:46:46.250
be one part of a much bigger picture. So we think,

00:46:46.349 --> 00:46:49.809
you know, I'm sitting here in London. We think

00:46:49.809 --> 00:46:52.909
if I kidnap the next 20 people to walk past my

00:46:52.909 --> 00:46:56.730
apartment and like a villain in a horror movie,

00:46:56.829 --> 00:46:59.230
I injected them all with heroin every day for

00:46:59.230 --> 00:47:01.929
a month. At the end of that month, they'd all

00:47:01.929 --> 00:47:05.150
be heroin addicts for a simple reason. That there

00:47:05.150 --> 00:47:07.789
are chemical hooks in heroin that their bodies

00:47:07.789 --> 00:47:10.170
would start to desperately physically crave,

00:47:10.409 --> 00:47:12.869
right? That they'd start having this tremendous

00:47:12.869 --> 00:47:18.530
physical hunger for heroin. In fact, that's why

00:47:18.530 --> 00:47:20.389
we call it being hooked, right? Because you crave

00:47:20.389 --> 00:47:23.389
the physical hook. The first thing that alerted

00:47:23.389 --> 00:47:26.190
me to the fact that there's something too simplistic

00:47:26.190 --> 00:47:28.750
about this story is when it was explained to

00:47:28.750 --> 00:47:32.780
me. In Britain, if I step out of this interview

00:47:32.780 --> 00:47:36.119
now and I get hit by a truck and I break my hip,

00:47:36.340 --> 00:47:40.000
I'll be taken to hospital and I'll be given a

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:43.000
lot of a drug called diamorphine. Diamorphine

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:46.360
is heroin, right? It's medically pure heroin.

00:47:46.480 --> 00:47:47.980
It's actually much better shit than I'd ever

00:47:47.980 --> 00:47:50.219
score on the streets, right? Because it's pure.

00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:54.659
People in Britain are given this drug in hospitals

00:47:54.659 --> 00:47:56.440
quite often. If anyone listening to this has

00:47:56.440 --> 00:47:58.730
a British grandmother. who's had a hip replacement

00:47:58.730 --> 00:48:01.130
operation, your grandmother has taken a lot of

00:48:01.130 --> 00:48:03.530
heroin, right? If what we think about addiction

00:48:03.530 --> 00:48:07.190
is right, that it's caused primarily or entirely

00:48:07.190 --> 00:48:10.909
by exposure to the chemical hooks, what should

00:48:10.909 --> 00:48:13.070
be happening to all these people in British hospitals,

00:48:13.210 --> 00:48:14.769
right? They should be leaving and trying to score.

00:48:14.889 --> 00:48:17.250
Some of them should, right? Granny should be

00:48:17.250 --> 00:48:20.769
leaving with this tremendous physical hunger

00:48:20.769 --> 00:48:23.090
and so on. This has been studied very carefully.

00:48:23.170 --> 00:48:25.949
It doesn't happen, right? And when I learned

00:48:25.949 --> 00:48:28.690
that, and read the relevant scientific studies,

00:48:28.989 --> 00:48:34.769
I just thought, I can't be right. How could it

00:48:34.769 --> 00:48:36.690
be that you would have someone in a hospital

00:48:36.690 --> 00:48:39.690
bed being given a shit ton of really powerful,

00:48:39.789 --> 00:48:43.230
potent, pure heroin, and they don't become addicted?

00:48:43.349 --> 00:48:45.050
And then you've got someone in the alleyway outside

00:48:45.050 --> 00:48:48.050
the hospital shooting up actually a weaker form

00:48:48.050 --> 00:48:52.090
of the drug, and they do become addicted. I didn't

00:48:52.090 --> 00:48:56.139
get it. And I only really began to understand

00:48:56.139 --> 00:48:59.699
it when I went to Vancouver and interviewed an

00:48:59.699 --> 00:49:01.900
amazing man named Professor Bruce Alexander,

00:49:02.239 --> 00:49:04.019
who did an experiment that's really transformed

00:49:04.019 --> 00:49:06.019
how people think about addiction all over the

00:49:06.019 --> 00:49:07.539
world, including in Portugal, where you ran.

00:49:07.940 --> 00:49:14.260
So Professor Alexander explained to me that this

00:49:14.260 --> 00:49:15.880
story of addiction that we have in our heads,

00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:18.139
that comes primarily or totally from the chemical

00:49:18.139 --> 00:49:21.019
hooks, comes from a series of experiments that

00:49:21.019 --> 00:49:23.900
were done earlier in the 20th century. They're

00:49:23.900 --> 00:49:26.099
really simple experiments. Your listeners can

00:49:26.099 --> 00:49:27.920
try them at home if they're feeling a bit sadistic.

00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:31.840
You take a rat, you put it in a cage, and you

00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:33.800
give it two water bottles. One is just water,

00:49:33.800 --> 00:49:36.239
and the other is water laced with either heroin

00:49:36.239 --> 00:49:39.739
or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost

00:49:39.739 --> 00:49:42.320
always prefer the drug water and almost always

00:49:42.320 --> 00:49:45.039
kill itself. So there you go, right? That's our

00:49:45.039 --> 00:49:48.199
story. But in the 70s, Professor Alexander came

00:49:48.199 --> 00:49:50.539
along and said, well, hang on a minute. You put

00:49:50.539 --> 00:49:55.309
the rat alone. In an empty cage, it's got nothing

00:49:55.309 --> 00:49:58.369
that makes life meaningful for rats. All it's

00:49:58.369 --> 00:50:00.909
got is the drug. What would happen if we did

00:50:00.909 --> 00:50:04.010
this differently? So he built a cage that he

00:50:04.010 --> 00:50:06.989
called Rat Park, which is basically like heaven

00:50:06.989 --> 00:50:09.449
for rats. They've got loads of friends, they've

00:50:09.449 --> 00:50:11.909
got loads of cheese, they've got loads of coloured

00:50:11.909 --> 00:50:14.909
balls, they can have loads of sex. Anything a

00:50:14.909 --> 00:50:17.190
rat would want in life is there in Rat Park.

00:50:17.570 --> 00:50:19.469
And they've got both the water bottles, the normal

00:50:19.469 --> 00:50:22.239
water and the drug water. And this is the fascinating

00:50:22.239 --> 00:50:24.340
thing. In Rat Park, they don't like the drug

00:50:24.340 --> 00:50:27.880
water. They hardly ever use it. None of them

00:50:27.880 --> 00:50:30.900
use it compulsively. None of them ever overdose.

00:50:31.380 --> 00:50:34.800
So they go from almost 100 % compulsive use and

00:50:34.800 --> 00:50:37.119
overdose when they don't have the things that

00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:40.280
make life meaningful to none when they do have

00:50:40.280 --> 00:50:42.059
the things that make life meaningful. Now, there's

00:50:42.059 --> 00:50:44.199
lots of human examples that show the same thing

00:50:44.199 --> 00:50:46.059
that I can talk about if you like. But what I

00:50:46.059 --> 00:50:48.300
realized is, you know, this shows us that the...

00:50:48.670 --> 00:50:51.150
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, important

00:50:51.150 --> 00:50:53.630
though that is to many people. The opposite of

00:50:53.630 --> 00:50:57.130
addiction is connection. You know, the core of

00:50:57.130 --> 00:50:59.929
addiction is about not wanting to be present

00:50:59.929 --> 00:51:02.690
in your life because your life is too painful

00:51:02.690 --> 00:51:06.349
a place to be. And once you understand that,

00:51:06.409 --> 00:51:09.210
you can see where we started, which is that.

00:51:09.880 --> 00:51:12.320
Why the drug war is such a disaster? The drug

00:51:12.320 --> 00:51:13.880
war is based on, if you think about it, it's

00:51:13.880 --> 00:51:15.900
been a holiday. The drug war is based on the

00:51:15.900 --> 00:51:17.780
idea that if someone's got an addiction problem,

00:51:17.880 --> 00:51:19.440
you need to punish them in order to give them

00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:22.000
an incentive to stop. But once you understand

00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:24.500
that pain is the cause of addiction, pain is

00:51:24.500 --> 00:51:27.119
the driver of addiction, you can see that actually

00:51:27.119 --> 00:51:28.719
what you're doing is pouring more fuel on the

00:51:28.719 --> 00:51:31.739
fire. You're making the addiction worse when

00:51:31.739 --> 00:51:34.539
you punish people. So all this drug war infrastructure...

00:51:35.159 --> 00:51:37.219
that claims it's about protecting our children.

00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:38.900
It doesn't do that. I can talk about how if you

00:51:38.900 --> 00:51:41.039
want. That claims it's about reducing addiction.

00:51:41.559 --> 00:51:45.260
Actually, it's making addiction worse. Yeah.

00:51:45.340 --> 00:51:47.340
And I see that. You see, that's the thing. I

00:51:47.340 --> 00:51:49.599
get to see that from the streets and on the East

00:51:49.599 --> 00:51:51.539
Coast and the West Coast as a first responder.

00:51:52.500 --> 00:51:56.000
And it's... Wait, how do you see it? How does

00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:59.179
it become visible? So what you see is, for example,

00:51:59.179 --> 00:52:01.679
pulling a sheet over a 14 -year -old boy who's

00:52:01.679 --> 00:52:04.920
been murdered in a gang, you know, warfare. You

00:52:04.920 --> 00:52:08.960
see the OD that you save in a Dunkin' Donuts

00:52:08.960 --> 00:52:11.199
by having to stick a needle in her neck because

00:52:11.199 --> 00:52:14.539
she's so atrophied on her AC area, you know,

00:52:14.559 --> 00:52:17.500
the normal place we do needles. You see the...

00:52:19.389 --> 00:52:21.530
The accidental overdose of the guy who had shoulder

00:52:21.530 --> 00:52:24.849
surgery and either forgot or was taking too much.

00:52:24.909 --> 00:52:27.050
You see it all over the back. There's so many,

00:52:27.050 --> 00:52:29.630
you know, dead people in my little Rolodex of

00:52:29.630 --> 00:52:31.829
memories just from 14 years. That's a very short

00:52:31.829 --> 00:52:34.309
time. It's the East Coast. It's the West Coast.

00:52:34.429 --> 00:52:37.349
And then factoring in the firefighters that I've

00:52:37.349 --> 00:52:39.949
lost, you know, personally that weren't the patients.

00:52:40.010 --> 00:52:41.789
They were responders and they also were the patients.

00:52:42.170 --> 00:52:44.570
And I think that, you know, that's what made

00:52:44.570 --> 00:52:46.710
it so powerful. So the backstory of how I ended

00:52:46.710 --> 00:52:50.659
up in Portugal. My mother and brother moved to

00:52:50.659 --> 00:52:53.519
Portugal about 20 years ago from England, kind

00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:57.559
of just created a new foundation out there. And

00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:00.099
I started the podcast. And so obviously I was

00:53:00.099 --> 00:53:02.780
talking a lot more about just social problems

00:53:02.780 --> 00:53:05.739
in general. And she said, did you know they decriminalize

00:53:05.739 --> 00:53:08.340
drugs here? And I was like, no, I'd never heard

00:53:08.340 --> 00:53:10.619
of that. So I started researching it. Initially,

00:53:10.639 --> 00:53:12.699
I was trying to get one of the police officers

00:53:12.699 --> 00:53:15.000
from the vice special that they did about it.

00:53:15.619 --> 00:53:18.760
But at the end, I just emailed Zhao, Zhao Gulau,

00:53:18.900 --> 00:53:21.260
who was the man that spearheaded this incentive.

00:53:21.980 --> 00:53:24.099
And I said, I'm going to be out there. Could

00:53:24.099 --> 00:53:25.860
I come see you? And he was like, yeah. So I got

00:53:25.860 --> 00:53:27.800
to sit down with Zhao the same way as you do.

00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:30.719
And I'll obviously let you tell the story. But

00:53:30.719 --> 00:53:33.940
I saw it for myself. It wasn't like I read it

00:53:33.940 --> 00:53:37.500
in some newspaper article. Having witnessed it

00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:39.840
myself and coming from a first responder perspective,

00:53:40.039 --> 00:53:42.860
knowing it doesn't work, you know, tell me about

00:53:42.860 --> 00:53:45.300
your journey to Lisbon and what you saw them

00:53:45.300 --> 00:53:48.380
doing there. I'm so glad you met Shiraz. Isn't

00:53:48.380 --> 00:53:51.039
he an amazing man? Oh, so, so nice. And just,

00:53:51.139 --> 00:53:54.079
I mean, talk about changing the world. His passion

00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:57.579
has saved hundreds of thousands of lives in that

00:53:57.579 --> 00:54:01.440
country. Yeah, he's an incredible person. And

00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:03.400
he was absolutely central to the change that

00:54:03.400 --> 00:54:07.070
happened. I'm interested to hear more about what

00:54:07.070 --> 00:54:10.650
you saw there. The way it began is that by the

00:54:10.650 --> 00:54:14.349
year 2000, Portugal had one of the worst drug

00:54:14.349 --> 00:54:17.550
problems in the world. 1 % of the population

00:54:17.550 --> 00:54:21.230
was addicted to heroin. And every year they tried,

00:54:21.250 --> 00:54:24.650
essentially the American way, more. They arrested

00:54:24.650 --> 00:54:28.230
more people, they imprisoned more people. And

00:54:28.230 --> 00:54:30.650
every year the problem got worse. And one day

00:54:30.650 --> 00:54:32.710
the prime minister and the leader of the opposition

00:54:32.710 --> 00:54:34.809
got together and they said, look, we can't go

00:54:34.809 --> 00:54:39.250
on like this. What are we going to do? So they

00:54:39.250 --> 00:54:41.690
decided to do something incredibly radical, something

00:54:41.690 --> 00:54:44.989
nobody had done in 70 years. At the drug war,

00:54:45.050 --> 00:54:47.210
they said, should we ask some scientists what

00:54:47.210 --> 00:54:50.309
we should do? So they set up a panel of scientists

00:54:50.309 --> 00:54:53.409
and doctors led by Joao Gulau, who had set up

00:54:53.409 --> 00:54:56.050
the first drug treatment center in Portugal after

00:54:56.050 --> 00:54:59.550
the fall of the dictatorship in the early 1970s.

00:54:59.769 --> 00:55:06.050
And they said to this panel, it was doctors,

00:55:06.190 --> 00:55:09.469
social workers and a judge. They said to them,

00:55:09.570 --> 00:55:12.829
oh, and some social scientists. They said, you

00:55:12.829 --> 00:55:15.969
guys go away. Look at all the best evidence about

00:55:15.969 --> 00:55:18.809
addiction. go anywhere you need to go in the

00:55:18.809 --> 00:55:22.489
world, take as much time as you need, and we've

00:55:22.489 --> 00:55:25.929
agreed in advance we'll do whatever you recommend.

00:55:26.329 --> 00:55:29.070
So it just took it out of politics. So the panel

00:55:29.070 --> 00:55:30.809
went away, they looked at loads of things, they

00:55:30.809 --> 00:55:34.650
looked at Rat Park, amongst other things, and

00:55:34.650 --> 00:55:38.269
they came back and they said, okay, this is what

00:55:38.269 --> 00:55:39.590
we're going to do, we're going to decriminalise

00:55:39.590 --> 00:55:42.250
all drugs, from cannabis to crack, a whole lot.

00:55:42.610 --> 00:55:45.980
But, and this is the crucial next step, We're

00:55:45.980 --> 00:55:48.159
going to spend all the money we currently spend

00:55:48.159 --> 00:55:51.219
on screwing people's lives up, harassing them,

00:55:51.260 --> 00:55:53.739
arresting them, imprisoning them. And we're going

00:55:53.739 --> 00:55:56.059
to spend all that money instead on turning their

00:55:56.059 --> 00:55:58.699
lives around. And interestingly, it's not really

00:55:58.699 --> 00:56:00.340
what we think of as drug treatment in the United

00:56:00.340 --> 00:56:03.119
States. So there's some residential rehab that

00:56:03.119 --> 00:56:06.000
has some value. But the biggest thing they did

00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:09.400
was a big program of meaning and job creation

00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:12.599
for people with addiction problems. Say you used

00:56:12.599 --> 00:56:15.090
to be a mechanic. they go to garage they'll say

00:56:15.090 --> 00:56:17.750
if you employ this guy for a year we'll pay half

00:56:17.750 --> 00:56:20.670
his wages they set up a big program to distribute

00:56:20.670 --> 00:56:23.250
small loans to people with addiction problems

00:56:23.250 --> 00:56:25.690
so they could set up and run businesses about

00:56:25.690 --> 00:56:28.170
things that they wanted to do the goal was to

00:56:28.170 --> 00:56:30.389
say to everyone with an addiction problem in

00:56:30.389 --> 00:56:35.710
portugal we love you we value you we're on your

00:56:35.710 --> 00:56:40.519
side we want you back And by the time I went

00:56:40.519 --> 00:56:42.800
to Portugal, that had been in place, that system,

00:56:42.840 --> 00:56:45.559
for 13 years, and the results were very clear.

00:56:45.619 --> 00:56:47.679
Portugal went from being almost at the top of

00:56:47.679 --> 00:56:50.380
the European league tables for drug problems

00:56:50.380 --> 00:56:54.500
to the very bottom. Overdose deaths were down

00:56:54.500 --> 00:56:58.079
by more than 50%. Injecting drug use was massively

00:56:58.079 --> 00:57:02.360
down. HIV transmission was massively down. And

00:57:02.360 --> 00:57:04.079
one of the ways you know it works so well is

00:57:04.079 --> 00:57:06.039
that, you know, Portugal's a democracy. They've

00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:09.110
got five big political parties. None of them

00:57:09.110 --> 00:57:12.650
want to go back. And I went to interview another

00:57:12.650 --> 00:57:16.429
amazing person called Gerard Figueroa, who was

00:57:16.429 --> 00:57:19.150
the top drug cop in Portugal at the time of the

00:57:19.150 --> 00:57:22.570
decriminalization. And he said what lots of people

00:57:22.570 --> 00:57:24.929
totally understandably say when you talk about

00:57:24.929 --> 00:57:27.650
decriminalizing all drugs. He said, this is crazy.

00:57:27.909 --> 00:57:29.809
What are you talking about? This is going to

00:57:29.809 --> 00:57:32.329
cause an explosion in drug use and in children

00:57:32.329 --> 00:57:36.170
using drugs and more overdoses. And he said to

00:57:36.170 --> 00:57:40.260
me. Everything I said would happen didn't happen.

00:57:41.099 --> 00:57:43.440
And everything the other side said would happen

00:57:43.440 --> 00:57:46.199
did. And he talked about how he felt really ashamed

00:57:46.199 --> 00:57:49.980
that he'd spent so many years shaming and punishing

00:57:49.980 --> 00:57:52.199
people under the old system when he saw now that

00:57:52.199 --> 00:57:54.059
he could have been helping them all along. And

00:57:54.059 --> 00:57:56.880
I think this is something I saw everywhere in

00:57:56.880 --> 00:57:58.840
the world that's gone beyond the rule on drugs,

00:57:58.920 --> 00:58:05.179
from Uruguay to Vancouver to Switzerland to Portugal.

00:58:05.559 --> 00:58:08.599
There's always a pattern. Before it happens,

00:58:08.719 --> 00:58:12.519
it's incredibly controversial. And people think

00:58:12.519 --> 00:58:15.599
it's madness. And then they see it in practice.

00:58:15.699 --> 00:58:16.880
And it's not a magic bullet. They still have

00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:19.099
problems in all those places. But the problems

00:58:19.099 --> 00:58:22.380
were reduced so significantly that quite quickly,

00:58:22.420 --> 00:58:25.940
the things that were regarded as crazy become

00:58:25.940 --> 00:58:28.639
seen as just common sense. And the things that

00:58:28.639 --> 00:58:32.860
were... The old system of prohibition actually

00:58:32.860 --> 00:58:35.179
begins to be seen as what it should be seen as,

00:58:35.199 --> 00:58:38.329
which is the radical... crazy option, the one

00:58:38.329 --> 00:58:42.730
that doesn't work. Exactly. And I think that

00:58:42.730 --> 00:58:46.389
one of the big, big things that Zhao was talking

00:58:46.389 --> 00:58:49.650
about was that their big surge came after a lot

00:58:49.650 --> 00:58:51.369
of their soldiers came home that were fighting

00:58:51.369 --> 00:58:54.409
in one of the African nations. So for all the

00:58:54.409 --> 00:58:56.369
first responders, police officers, military listening,

00:58:56.590 --> 00:59:00.010
you go send these young men into a place where

00:59:00.010 --> 00:59:02.809
they're probably going to see and do some things

00:59:02.809 --> 00:59:04.369
that are going to create some sort of mental

00:59:04.369 --> 00:59:07.389
trauma. They're leaning on the addiction. Now

00:59:07.389 --> 00:59:10.369
they're coming back. So again, now these people

00:59:10.369 --> 00:59:12.409
that fought for their country are now being arrested

00:59:12.409 --> 00:59:16.610
and homeless and thrown in jail. Instead of looking,

00:59:16.769 --> 00:59:18.670
like we've been talking for the last hour, at

00:59:18.670 --> 00:59:22.829
this is a psychological issue. So when Zhao explained

00:59:22.829 --> 00:59:27.630
that by doing this different way of taking care

00:59:27.630 --> 00:59:30.690
of addicts, now the addict, the person who's

00:59:30.690 --> 00:59:33.489
looking to reach out, the person who wants help,

00:59:34.139 --> 00:59:36.280
can come out of the shadows because they're not

00:59:36.280 --> 00:59:38.519
afraid of being arrested. They're not going to

00:59:38.519 --> 00:59:42.179
get a criminal record that's then going to prohibit

00:59:42.179 --> 00:59:44.460
them from getting a good job and getting back

00:59:44.460 --> 00:59:47.079
on the right track. Right now, you're an addict.

00:59:47.159 --> 00:59:48.480
Not only do you have your addiction, not only

00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:50.300
are you then going to find probably exactly the

00:59:50.300 --> 00:59:52.840
same drug in many of the prisons, but once you

00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:56.340
get out, you've got that record holding you down

00:59:56.340 --> 01:00:00.059
for years and years and years. So as we mentioned

01:00:00.059 --> 01:00:04.190
earlier, which of those two systems set a human

01:00:04.190 --> 01:00:06.909
being up for success to overcome an addiction

01:00:06.909 --> 01:00:11.130
and become a thriving member of society. I often

01:00:11.130 --> 01:00:14.010
say to people, you know, because people, you

01:00:14.010 --> 01:00:15.489
know, we've all been raised under prohibition.

01:00:15.489 --> 01:00:17.090
It can be hard to get your head around some of

01:00:17.090 --> 01:00:19.170
these things. I often say to people, when will

01:00:19.170 --> 01:00:22.210
you stop smoking? Will it be the week when you

01:00:22.210 --> 01:00:24.630
lose your home and you lose your job and your

01:00:24.630 --> 01:00:27.230
wife leaves you? Probably not. You'll probably

01:00:27.230 --> 01:00:29.650
smoke more, right? Think about the joke in Airplane,

01:00:29.690 --> 01:00:31.849
you know. chose the wrong week to quit smoking,

01:00:31.909 --> 01:00:36.929
right? You'll probably actually quit smoking

01:00:36.929 --> 01:00:39.130
when things are going really well for you and

01:00:39.130 --> 01:00:40.650
you're actually, your stress levels are lower

01:00:40.650 --> 01:00:43.269
and maybe you're on a beautiful vacation or something

01:00:43.269 --> 01:00:45.849
great is going on in your life, right? Why would

01:00:45.849 --> 01:00:47.969
it be any different for other addictions? Why

01:00:47.969 --> 01:00:50.570
would driving someone into the dirt make them

01:00:50.570 --> 01:00:52.809
less likely to want to anaesthetise themselves,

01:00:53.210 --> 01:00:55.650
right? And I think you've gone to another really

01:00:55.650 --> 01:00:57.989
important thing that I think is probably relevant

01:00:57.989 --> 01:01:00.139
to your... to your listeners, which is that what

01:01:00.139 --> 01:01:03.260
they found in Portugal, and I spoke to lots of

01:01:03.260 --> 01:01:05.119
lots of people in lots of different fields who

01:01:05.119 --> 01:01:08.019
said this, is that it transformed the relationship

01:01:08.019 --> 01:01:10.679
between the authorities and people who had addiction

01:01:10.679 --> 01:01:13.840
problems. So when social workers were going looking,

01:01:14.019 --> 01:01:16.539
when doctors and paramedics were going to provide

01:01:16.539 --> 01:01:21.059
help, they were no longer part of a machine that

01:01:21.059 --> 01:01:23.019
was, you know, criminalising and stigmatising

01:01:23.019 --> 01:01:25.500
and oppressing people. Actually, the whole machinery

01:01:25.500 --> 01:01:28.730
of the government was about helping people with

01:01:28.730 --> 01:01:31.650
addiction problems, not punishing them. And sometimes

01:01:31.650 --> 01:01:36.289
we say, you know, oh, you know, we need to be

01:01:36.289 --> 01:01:39.309
more compassionate. But it's very hard. I'd say

01:01:39.309 --> 01:01:41.190
it's impossible to be properly compassionate

01:01:41.190 --> 01:01:43.630
under a system of prohibition for the authorities

01:01:43.630 --> 01:01:46.030
to be. But you can't say what you're doing is

01:01:46.030 --> 01:01:47.750
a crime and we're going to punish and shame you.

01:01:48.369 --> 01:01:50.969
But we're compassionate towards you. Right. Those

01:01:50.969 --> 01:01:55.590
are incompatible things. So I think you're right.

01:01:55.650 --> 01:01:57.429
And I think about the contrast, you know, not

01:01:57.429 --> 01:02:00.750
long after I was in Portugal, I was in Washington,

01:02:00.909 --> 01:02:05.530
D .C. And I spent some time with this amazing

01:02:05.530 --> 01:02:08.010
woman called Billie Tyler. She's a street nurse.

01:02:08.130 --> 01:02:12.190
Her son had died of an overdose a few years before.

01:02:12.650 --> 01:02:15.429
And so she did just voluntary street nursing

01:02:15.429 --> 01:02:19.690
in D .C., just going and helping people with

01:02:19.690 --> 01:02:21.889
addiction problems, needle distribution and things

01:02:21.889 --> 01:02:27.219
like that. And never forget, Billy, we were outside

01:02:27.219 --> 01:02:30.480
this wooden house in Anacostia, which is one

01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:34.320
of the poorest parts of D .C. And Billy talking

01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:36.920
about how in this house there were people who,

01:02:37.039 --> 01:02:41.739
they had a necrotic tissue around their wounds

01:02:41.739 --> 01:02:45.000
where they'd been injecting and gone wrong. And

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:48.199
these people were treated so badly in the hospitals

01:02:48.199 --> 01:02:51.460
that they had... what they were doing to deal

01:02:51.460 --> 01:02:53.440
with the necrotic tissue is they had got maggots

01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:56.199
out of the garbage and they had put the maggots

01:02:56.199 --> 01:02:58.840
into their wings because maggots will eat your

01:02:58.840 --> 01:03:02.980
necrotic tissue. And I remember sitting there

01:03:02.980 --> 01:03:05.739
with her and we could, I can't remember if we

01:03:05.739 --> 01:03:07.900
could see it from that spot, but very close by,

01:03:08.099 --> 01:03:11.599
you can see the Senate building, right? And I

01:03:11.599 --> 01:03:14.960
just thought, we are at the capital of the richest

01:03:14.960 --> 01:03:18.539
society there has ever been, right? We're at

01:03:18.539 --> 01:03:20.760
the very heart of it. We can see the Senate.

01:03:21.159 --> 01:03:24.280
You know, the White House is not far away. And

01:03:24.280 --> 01:03:26.639
people are living in wooden houses and putting

01:03:26.639 --> 01:03:31.340
maggots into their wounds. This is a crazy situation,

01:03:31.699 --> 01:03:38.239
right? And it's a sign of how dysfunctional the

01:03:38.239 --> 01:03:43.159
drug war is, that it puts people in this position.

01:03:43.340 --> 01:03:45.460
And we don't have to live like this, right? It

01:03:45.460 --> 01:03:48.380
was so maddening to me going around the US. for

01:03:48.380 --> 01:03:53.320
chasing the screen. And, you know, again, I think

01:03:53.320 --> 01:03:55.659
it was after I went, I could be wrong about this,

01:03:55.719 --> 01:03:58.300
but I think it was after I went to Portugal that

01:03:58.300 --> 01:04:00.739
I went to Arizona. It might have been before.

01:04:02.079 --> 01:04:06.139
In Arizona, in Maricopa County, I went out with

01:04:06.139 --> 01:04:07.679
a group of women who were made to go out on a

01:04:07.679 --> 01:04:10.760
chain gang wearing T -shirts saying I was a drug

01:04:10.760 --> 01:04:12.480
addict while members of the public mocked them

01:04:12.480 --> 01:04:17.289
and jeered at them. This was all overseen by

01:04:17.289 --> 01:04:20.070
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who people will remember,

01:04:20.309 --> 01:04:22.889
he was actually a personal disciple of Harry

01:04:22.889 --> 01:04:24.909
Anslinger. His face lit up when I mentioned Harry

01:04:24.909 --> 01:04:30.090
Anslinger. He knew Anslinger well. And Arpaio

01:04:30.090 --> 01:04:32.769
was himself later revealed to be a criminal.

01:04:32.809 --> 01:04:34.630
He was illegally racially profiling people, and

01:04:34.630 --> 01:04:37.630
President Trump pardoned him. But I remember

01:04:37.630 --> 01:04:43.309
going out with these women, and you talked to

01:04:43.309 --> 01:04:46.179
them about their lives, and they were... like

01:04:46.179 --> 01:04:48.440
Billie Holiday, just tales of horrendous abuse.

01:04:49.579 --> 01:04:51.420
And just thinking, God, if you were in Portugal,

01:04:51.659 --> 01:04:55.840
they'd be giving you loans to set up a small

01:04:55.840 --> 01:04:58.860
business. And here you are, you're on a chain

01:04:58.860 --> 01:05:04.179
gang being made to dig graves while people honk

01:05:04.179 --> 01:05:10.699
and laugh at you. It's so mad. And I think it's

01:05:10.699 --> 01:05:13.400
not hard for people to see why those women...

01:05:13.610 --> 01:05:15.409
It's not just that the drug war doesn't work,

01:05:15.610 --> 01:05:22.289
right? It's that those women are even more broken

01:05:22.289 --> 01:05:25.230
and even more humiliated and even more likely

01:05:25.230 --> 01:05:27.369
to become addicted. And we know this, right?

01:05:27.449 --> 01:05:30.469
We know the open society foundations have done

01:05:30.469 --> 01:05:32.670
good research on this. You know, I went to Vietnam

01:05:32.670 --> 01:05:35.690
where they make people, you know, people with

01:05:35.690 --> 01:05:38.570
addiction problems forced to go into basically

01:05:38.570 --> 01:05:42.110
kind of gulags, forced labor camps. They're screamed

01:05:42.110 --> 01:05:45.210
at and made to just lift rocks all day. And what

01:05:45.210 --> 01:05:47.690
happens? 99 % of them relapse within a couple

01:05:47.690 --> 01:05:50.809
of weeks. I mean, for obvious reasons, right?

01:05:52.449 --> 01:05:56.409
So at some point, we're going to have to stop

01:05:56.409 --> 01:05:59.010
copying the places that have failed, disastrously

01:05:59.010 --> 01:06:01.590
failed, and start copying the places that have

01:06:01.590 --> 01:06:03.829
succeeded. It's not a coincidence that the United

01:06:03.829 --> 01:06:07.690
States has had the worst drug war. Not the worst,

01:06:07.769 --> 01:06:10.010
one of the most intense drug wars in the world.

01:06:10.619 --> 01:06:12.599
and now has one of the worst addiction crises

01:06:12.599 --> 01:06:15.139
in the world, right? That's not such an accident,

01:06:15.300 --> 01:06:17.960
right? It's partly, not entirely, there's lots

01:06:17.960 --> 01:06:20.599
of other things going on, but it's partly because

01:06:20.599 --> 01:06:26.239
of this failed policy. At some point, we have

01:06:26.239 --> 01:06:28.000
to start copying the places that succeeded. We

01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:29.599
have to start copying Portugal and Switzerland.

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:33.199
And the one thing you can say in defence of the

01:06:33.199 --> 01:06:36.019
American drug war is, my God, the United States

01:06:36.019 --> 01:06:38.800
government gave it a fair shot. The US has fought

01:06:38.800 --> 01:06:41.579
the drug war for 100 years. They've spent a trillion

01:06:41.579 --> 01:06:44.579
dollars. A conservative estimate, they've killed

01:06:44.579 --> 01:06:46.179
hundreds of thousands of their own citizens.

01:06:46.699 --> 01:06:48.719
As you pointed out, rightly, they've imprisoned

01:06:48.719 --> 01:06:50.900
millions of their own citizens. In fact, they've

01:06:50.900 --> 01:06:52.760
imprisoned a higher proportion of their population

01:06:52.760 --> 01:06:57.500
than Stalin or Chairman Mao ever did. And at

01:06:57.500 --> 01:06:59.599
the end of all, they've destroyed whole countries

01:06:59.599 --> 01:07:04.860
like Colombia and El Salvador and Mexico. And

01:07:04.860 --> 01:07:08.599
at the end of all that, In the US, we can't even

01:07:08.599 --> 01:07:11.579
keep drugs out of our prisons where we pay someone

01:07:11.579 --> 01:07:13.800
to walk around the wall perimeter the whole time.

01:07:14.420 --> 01:07:16.199
So good luck with the idea you're ever going

01:07:16.199 --> 01:07:17.599
to keep them out of the United States. We've

01:07:17.599 --> 01:07:21.179
got to give up on this utopian absurdity that

01:07:21.179 --> 01:07:22.960
you can get rid of drugs. There's never been

01:07:22.960 --> 01:07:25.280
a drug -free society. There never will be a drug

01:07:25.280 --> 01:07:28.820
-free society for as long as humans exist. And

01:07:28.820 --> 01:07:32.559
instead, actually, you know, live in the real

01:07:32.559 --> 01:07:35.309
world. Yeah, well, a good point that you make,

01:07:35.309 --> 01:07:38.090
and it's such a simple comparison, but it's so

01:07:38.090 --> 01:07:42.130
true. When alcohol was in prohibition, there

01:07:42.130 --> 01:07:45.170
were gangs murdering each other. And as you mentioned,

01:07:45.349 --> 01:07:46.869
and I laugh about it, but it's so true. I've

01:07:46.869 --> 01:07:50.190
never seen Coors and Miller Lite in a big gang

01:07:50.190 --> 01:07:53.210
warfare in the middle of New York. So when you

01:07:53.210 --> 01:07:56.969
cut the head off the snake, say you legalize

01:07:56.969 --> 01:07:59.969
or decriminalize, depending on which framework

01:07:59.969 --> 01:08:04.349
they use. The very people that prey on the weak,

01:08:04.449 --> 01:08:07.409
the drug dealers, the drug smugglers, these horrendous

01:08:07.409 --> 01:08:10.289
gangs that have come out of this, supply and

01:08:10.289 --> 01:08:12.630
demand is the most basic economics. The same

01:08:12.630 --> 01:08:14.329
way as you've done with marijuana in Colorado

01:08:14.329 --> 01:08:17.130
and some of the other places. I wonder now how

01:08:17.130 --> 01:08:21.069
many people succeed selling weed illegally in

01:08:21.069 --> 01:08:23.130
those states when you can just go safely, hold

01:08:23.130 --> 01:08:25.069
your head up high, go into a dispensary, get

01:08:25.069 --> 01:08:28.869
what you need and walk out. So understanding,

01:08:29.130 --> 01:08:31.930
seeing the fringe society, seeing the deaths,

01:08:31.989 --> 01:08:34.130
the murders, the overdoses, all this that so

01:08:34.130 --> 01:08:36.970
many people listening do, you have to reverse

01:08:36.970 --> 01:08:40.130
engineer. If you want the crime to stop, you

01:08:40.130 --> 01:08:42.939
have to... Stop empowering the criminals and

01:08:42.939 --> 01:08:46.100
the criminals currency are the drugs. You take

01:08:46.100 --> 01:08:48.479
that over, you make it legal and obviously then

01:08:48.479 --> 01:08:50.340
filter all that money, as you said, that we were

01:08:50.340 --> 01:08:53.180
spending on the quote unquote drug war and put

01:08:53.180 --> 01:08:55.779
it into mental health counseling, job creation,

01:08:56.000 --> 01:09:00.829
safe injection sites. You take all the power

01:09:00.829 --> 01:09:04.350
away. I can't imagine what the Mexican border

01:09:04.350 --> 01:09:07.250
would look like if we decriminalized drugs. You

01:09:07.250 --> 01:09:09.069
probably wouldn't even have the immigration problem

01:09:09.069 --> 01:09:11.390
that you have because people wouldn't be flooding

01:09:11.390 --> 01:09:12.949
out of that country because they're fearing for

01:09:12.949 --> 01:09:15.510
their lives. I think it's important to see between

01:09:15.510 --> 01:09:19.210
decriminalization and legalization. So decriminalization

01:09:19.210 --> 01:09:22.710
is where you stop punishing drug users, but they

01:09:22.710 --> 01:09:24.949
still have to go to armed criminal gangs to get

01:09:24.949 --> 01:09:27.939
their drugs. Legalization is where you open up

01:09:27.939 --> 01:09:30.000
some legal route for them to get their drugs.

01:09:30.100 --> 01:09:31.880
And that's different for different drugs. No

01:09:31.880 --> 01:09:34.220
one is suggesting there should be a heroin island

01:09:34.220 --> 01:09:36.880
in CVS or anything. But there can be legal routes

01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:38.840
to heroin that are not that, like as Switzerland

01:09:38.840 --> 01:09:40.760
did. We can talk about that if you want. But

01:09:40.760 --> 01:09:42.859
you're right. I think you've gone to what I think

01:09:42.859 --> 01:09:46.420
is the biggest moral issue around the drug war.

01:09:48.720 --> 01:09:51.159
You know, I think as you can tell, what we do

01:09:51.159 --> 01:09:52.659
to people with addiction problems is very close

01:09:52.659 --> 01:09:55.220
to my heart. That's not actually the worst thing

01:09:55.220 --> 01:09:58.300
we do. The worst thing we do is what you're talking

01:09:58.300 --> 01:10:01.460
about, which is the violence caused by prohibition.

01:10:01.720 --> 01:10:03.399
And if you think about that, if you want to understand

01:10:03.399 --> 01:10:06.159
that, just do a very simple thought experiment.

01:10:06.640 --> 01:10:10.720
Anyone listening, go and try to steal a bottle

01:10:10.720 --> 01:10:13.119
of vodka, right? Just go and try to steal one.

01:10:14.159 --> 01:10:16.560
The store that sells the vodka, if they catch

01:10:16.560 --> 01:10:20.079
you, they won't shoot you, right? They'll call

01:10:20.079 --> 01:10:22.000
the cops. The cops will come and take you away.

01:10:23.609 --> 01:10:26.029
So that store doesn't need to be violent. It

01:10:26.029 --> 01:10:28.170
doesn't need to be intimidating. It's got the

01:10:28.170 --> 01:10:31.329
power of the law to uphold its property rights.

01:10:31.489 --> 01:10:35.310
Okay. Now imagine you don't want to steal a bag

01:10:35.310 --> 01:10:37.149
of vodka. Let's imagine you want to steal a bottle

01:10:37.149 --> 01:10:39.810
of vodka. I'll say it again. Now imagine you

01:10:39.810 --> 01:10:42.430
don't steal a bottle of vodka. Imagine you go

01:10:42.430 --> 01:10:45.010
and steal a bag of cocaine or a bag of heroin

01:10:45.010 --> 01:10:48.810
or a bag of meth, right? Obviously, the person

01:10:48.810 --> 01:10:50.369
who sells that in there will be someone in your

01:10:50.369 --> 01:10:53.229
neighborhood selling it. can't call the cops,

01:10:53.449 --> 01:10:56.350
right? The cops would come and arrest them. They've

01:10:56.350 --> 01:10:58.750
got to fight you. They don't want to have a fight

01:10:58.750 --> 01:11:01.529
every day, right? So as the many drug dealers

01:11:01.529 --> 01:11:03.229
I spent time with for Chasing the Scream explained

01:11:03.229 --> 01:11:05.989
to me, you've got to establish a reputation for

01:11:05.989 --> 01:11:08.789
being so frightening that no one will be foolish

01:11:08.789 --> 01:11:11.949
enough to pick a fight with you, right? So, you

01:11:11.949 --> 01:11:16.109
know, you establish your place in the neighborhood.

01:11:16.720 --> 01:11:19.579
through intimidation, through fear, through theatrical

01:11:19.579 --> 01:11:22.939
acts of violence. As the writer Charles Bowden

01:11:22.939 --> 01:11:27.520
put it, the war on drugs creates a war for drugs,

01:11:27.760 --> 01:11:31.119
right? Everyone listening to your podcast knows

01:11:31.119 --> 01:11:34.560
who Al Capone was. I bet no one listening knows

01:11:34.560 --> 01:11:36.539
the name of the head of Budweiser, right, or

01:11:36.539 --> 01:11:40.020
the head of Smirnoff. Why is that? There's a

01:11:40.020 --> 01:11:44.140
professor at Harvard called Geoffrey Myron. who

01:11:44.140 --> 01:11:46.479
has an amazing graph of the murder rate in the

01:11:46.479 --> 01:11:49.399
20th century in the United States, massively

01:11:49.399 --> 01:11:52.500
shoots up when alcohol is banned and drops like

01:11:52.500 --> 01:11:55.640
a stone after alcohol is legalized again, right?

01:11:55.739 --> 01:11:57.760
Just like you said, the head of Budweiser doesn't

01:11:57.760 --> 01:11:59.460
go and shoot the head of cause in the face, right?

01:11:59.680 --> 01:12:03.199
But drug gang, alcohol gangs did fight and did

01:12:03.199 --> 01:12:06.739
kill people to extraordinarily high level when

01:12:06.739 --> 01:12:09.060
alcohol was banned. What changed? Not the drug.

01:12:09.500 --> 01:12:11.439
Alcohol is the same thing it was before and the

01:12:11.439 --> 01:12:14.470
same thing after. What changed is the system

01:12:14.470 --> 01:12:18.090
of legal regulation around the drug. And you're

01:12:18.090 --> 01:12:18.970
absolutely right about it. If you think about

01:12:18.970 --> 01:12:21.229
places like Mexico, I mean, I spent a lot of

01:12:21.229 --> 01:12:23.829
time in northern Mexico, in El Salvador, in Colombia,

01:12:24.010 --> 01:12:28.029
that the scale of the death there and the insane

01:12:28.029 --> 01:12:31.569
violence, you know, I spent time with a hitman

01:12:31.569 --> 01:12:33.710
for the deadliest Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas,

01:12:33.930 --> 01:12:37.609
a guy called Rosario Reta, who, between the ages

01:12:37.609 --> 01:12:39.930
of 14 and 17, had butchered and beheaded about

01:12:39.930 --> 01:12:42.960
70 people. I remember a funny experience when

01:12:42.960 --> 01:12:45.479
I went to interview him. He's in prison now in

01:12:45.479 --> 01:12:48.920
Tyler County in Texas. And on the way in, the

01:12:48.920 --> 01:12:51.659
guard said to me, you know, obviously we can't

01:12:51.659 --> 01:12:54.000
leave you alone with him because he's like beheaded

01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:56.100
70 people. I was like, oh, good. Stick around.

01:12:58.159 --> 01:12:59.880
Ten minutes into talking to him, I turned around

01:12:59.880 --> 01:13:01.159
and realised they'd fucking left me with him.

01:13:01.479 --> 01:13:06.859
But anyway, the... Now, Rosario would have been

01:13:06.859 --> 01:13:09.340
a troubled person in any situation, but there

01:13:09.340 --> 01:13:11.640
is no one who would have given him the means

01:13:11.640 --> 01:13:14.539
to butcher and behead 70 people and would have

01:13:14.539 --> 01:13:16.680
been able to take over the police in their neighborhood

01:13:16.680 --> 01:13:19.199
and mean that the police turned a blind eye because

01:13:19.199 --> 01:13:20.880
the police were effectively controlled by the

01:13:20.880 --> 01:13:23.159
drug gangs in lots of parts of northern Mexico

01:13:23.159 --> 01:13:26.479
if drugs weren't prohibited, right? Pablo Escobar's

01:13:26.479 --> 01:13:28.960
son, Sebastian Marroquin, has become a friend

01:13:28.960 --> 01:13:32.140
of mine, and he said to me, you know, the only

01:13:32.140 --> 01:13:35.060
thing my father ever truly feared... was the

01:13:35.060 --> 01:13:39.199
legalization of drugs. If drugs were legal, my

01:13:39.199 --> 01:13:41.140
dad would have been a used car salesman and you

01:13:41.140 --> 01:13:43.840
would have never heard his name. And that's true.

01:13:46.220 --> 01:13:50.739
Yeah, it's so simple. That's what's so hard.

01:13:50.859 --> 01:13:52.819
So many discussions I have with people like yourself

01:13:52.819 --> 01:13:55.699
and, you know, just great. men and women in their

01:13:55.699 --> 01:13:58.939
fields is the answer to for example you know

01:13:58.939 --> 01:14:01.720
good good overall health you've got good nutrition

01:14:01.720 --> 01:14:04.000
you've got moving a lot obviously you've got

01:14:04.000 --> 01:14:06.359
a dream addressing mental health you know uh

01:14:06.359 --> 01:14:10.359
trauma but that's it you know it the actual true

01:14:10.359 --> 01:14:14.619
solutions are so simple and where it gets screwed

01:14:14.619 --> 01:14:16.539
up is when people want to start making money

01:14:16.539 --> 01:14:19.789
out of you know item x so now all of a sudden

01:14:19.789 --> 01:14:21.750
oh you don't know how to exercise but if you

01:14:21.750 --> 01:14:24.909
get my exercise machine and my 12 dvd set i'll

01:14:24.909 --> 01:14:26.670
show you how to actually exercise oh you don't

01:14:26.670 --> 01:14:28.529
need to you don't need to worry about fresh fruit

01:14:28.529 --> 01:14:30.489
and vegetables buy my weight watchers prepared

01:14:30.489 --> 01:14:33.470
meals and and i'll feed you for you know what

01:14:33.470 --> 01:14:35.189
i mean and that's the problem i think with this

01:14:35.189 --> 01:14:37.890
drugs is people have just been the smoke and

01:14:37.890 --> 01:14:41.050
mirror to the point where the root cause it's

01:14:41.050 --> 01:14:44.260
so freaking simple seems ridiculous now the same

01:14:44.260 --> 01:14:46.760
way as people belittled anyone that mentioned

01:14:46.760 --> 01:14:49.420
the word organic 20 years ago which organic means

01:14:49.420 --> 01:14:51.939
don't spray my fucking food with chemicals you

01:14:51.939 --> 01:14:55.199
know so the brainwashing is on on us the citizens

01:14:55.199 --> 01:14:59.180
and and the more you know i think you're right

01:14:59.180 --> 01:15:03.779
i think there's some you know there's some complexity

01:15:03.779 --> 01:15:07.239
in how you think about legalization because we

01:15:07.239 --> 01:15:10.760
need to move to a legal regulated ways of accessing

01:15:10.760 --> 01:15:12.869
these drugs But that does mean different things

01:15:12.869 --> 01:15:15.890
for different drugs. In the same way that, you

01:15:15.890 --> 01:15:19.569
know, in California, where you are, I'm sure

01:15:19.569 --> 01:15:23.289
it is legal to own a dog, a monkey and a lion.

01:15:24.040 --> 01:15:26.500
But I'm sure the rules are different, right?

01:15:26.619 --> 01:15:28.859
So for a dog, you just go into a store. For a

01:15:28.859 --> 01:15:31.539
monkey, I suspect you need a license. And for

01:15:31.539 --> 01:15:34.300
a lion, I'm sure they come and like, you know,

01:15:34.380 --> 01:15:36.960
like they should have done with the Tiger King

01:15:36.960 --> 01:15:38.659
guy in Oklahoma. I'm sure they come and like

01:15:38.659 --> 01:15:40.859
inspect your house and make sure you're not a

01:15:40.859 --> 01:15:43.079
crazy person, right? You can't just have a tiger

01:15:43.079 --> 01:15:45.800
anywhere, a lion anywhere. In the same way, when

01:15:45.800 --> 01:15:48.420
we say that drugs should be legal, of course,

01:15:48.420 --> 01:15:51.000
we don't mean... all drugs should be available

01:15:51.000 --> 01:15:54.140
in the way that alcohol is right and now i think

01:15:54.140 --> 01:15:55.939
there are lots of drugs that should be i think

01:15:55.939 --> 01:15:57.840
cannabis should be i think we've been moved to

01:15:57.840 --> 01:16:00.560
a license but i prefer a non -profit model but

01:16:00.560 --> 01:16:03.939
okay the model we have is a lot better than prohibition

01:16:03.939 --> 01:16:06.840
model that's emerging is even though it's a commercial

01:16:06.840 --> 01:16:10.180
model is a lot better than prohibition um but

01:16:10.180 --> 01:16:12.180
with something like so and i think we should

01:16:12.180 --> 01:16:13.979
experiment with that for things like ecstasy

01:16:13.979 --> 01:16:17.939
and so on but um That would not be a good model

01:16:17.939 --> 01:16:20.579
for heroin, for example. I don't know many. I

01:16:20.579 --> 01:16:22.260
mean, there are some very hardcore libertarians

01:16:22.260 --> 01:16:25.539
who would just have open cell heroin, but I don't

01:16:25.539 --> 01:16:27.420
know many people, even in the drug reform world,

01:16:27.479 --> 01:16:28.899
who are in favour of that. So you think, well,

01:16:28.899 --> 01:16:31.159
what's the legal route we can allow? And this

01:16:31.159 --> 01:16:34.359
is not a theoretical question. So as we mentioned,

01:16:34.420 --> 01:16:37.760
my dad's from Switzerland. I spent a lot of time

01:16:37.760 --> 01:16:40.399
in Switzerland investigating this because Switzerland

01:16:40.399 --> 01:16:43.020
legalised heroin for people with addiction problems.

01:16:43.520 --> 01:16:45.359
And it's a model that's really worth thinking

01:16:45.359 --> 01:16:47.989
about. So at the same time that Portugal was

01:16:47.989 --> 01:16:51.630
having its catastrophic drugs crisis, Switzerland

01:16:51.630 --> 01:16:56.770
had a really bad drug problem in the late 90s.

01:16:57.550 --> 01:17:01.930
And very high levels of heroin use and overdose.

01:17:01.989 --> 01:17:03.670
And they tried all sorts of things. And it was

01:17:03.670 --> 01:17:06.090
just a nightmare. And, you know, people might

01:17:06.090 --> 01:17:08.630
remember famous scenes in the 90s of like Swiss

01:17:08.630 --> 01:17:11.850
parks full of like people injecting each other

01:17:11.850 --> 01:17:14.289
in the neck and just really, really heart rending

01:17:14.289 --> 01:17:19.819
scenes. And then, so Swiss people tried all sorts

01:17:19.819 --> 01:17:24.779
of forms of punishment. And then they got their

01:17:24.779 --> 01:17:27.279
first female president, a really incredible woman

01:17:27.279 --> 01:17:29.739
named Ruth Dreyfus. It's one of my favorite.

01:17:29.800 --> 01:17:31.460
She's my candidate for president of the world.

01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:35.359
And Ruth looked at the science, and she'd been

01:17:35.359 --> 01:17:36.920
health minister before, so she knew a lot about

01:17:36.920 --> 01:17:43.119
this. And Ruth explained to Swiss people, when

01:17:43.119 --> 01:17:46.409
you hear the word legalization, What you picture

01:17:46.409 --> 01:17:51.350
is like anarchy and chaos. What we have now,

01:17:51.430 --> 01:17:54.430
she said, is anarchy and chaos. That's what prohibition

01:17:54.430 --> 01:18:00.989
is. Prohibition means unknown dealers selling

01:18:00.989 --> 01:18:05.289
unknown chemicals to unknown users, all in the

01:18:05.289 --> 01:18:07.670
dark, all filled with violence and disease and

01:18:07.670 --> 01:18:10.710
chaos. Legalization, she said, is the way we

01:18:10.710 --> 01:18:16.029
restore order to this chaos. So like I say, obviously

01:18:16.029 --> 01:18:18.050
it's not, she wasn't proposing that you just

01:18:18.050 --> 01:18:23.369
go and openly buy heroin from a store in a supermarket

01:18:23.369 --> 01:18:25.609
or anything. The way it works is if you've got

01:18:25.609 --> 01:18:28.329
a heroin problem, there's all sorts of options

01:18:28.329 --> 01:18:30.590
for you. But one of them is that you can be assigned

01:18:30.590 --> 01:18:32.489
to a clinic. I spent a lot of time in the one

01:18:32.489 --> 01:18:36.850
in Geneva. You go to that clinic, you go there

01:18:36.850 --> 01:18:38.189
at seven o 'clock in the morning because Swiss

01:18:38.189 --> 01:18:40.050
people believe in doing things insanely early.

01:18:40.390 --> 01:18:43.680
And you turn up. You're given your heroin. It's

01:18:43.680 --> 01:18:45.939
medically pure heroin. They don't charge you

01:18:45.939 --> 01:18:48.659
anything for it. You can't take it out with you,

01:18:48.739 --> 01:18:51.439
partly because they don't want you to resell

01:18:51.439 --> 01:18:54.159
it on the streets and partly because they want

01:18:54.159 --> 01:18:56.899
to check you're okay when you use it. You use

01:18:56.899 --> 01:18:58.939
it there. You inject yourself with the needle

01:18:58.939 --> 01:19:00.979
they give you, or a nurse can inject you if you

01:19:00.979 --> 01:19:03.279
want. One of the interesting things is they will

01:19:03.279 --> 01:19:05.539
give you any dose you want, apart from one that

01:19:05.539 --> 01:19:08.239
would kill you. There is never any pressure to

01:19:08.239 --> 01:19:11.380
cut back. And then you leave and you go to your

01:19:11.380 --> 01:19:14.510
job. Because you're given loads of support and

01:19:14.510 --> 01:19:16.890
help to get housing, you're given a lot of therapy,

01:19:17.090 --> 01:19:20.069
and you're given a lot of support to find a job.

01:19:20.770 --> 01:19:26.609
And by the time I went to Switzerland, this program

01:19:26.609 --> 01:19:32.090
had been in place for 14 years. And in that time,

01:19:32.189 --> 01:19:34.250
according to Professor Ambrose Uchtenhagen, who's

01:19:34.250 --> 01:19:38.170
the leading expert on this, there have been zero

01:19:38.170 --> 01:19:42.069
heroin overdose deaths. on the legal programme.

01:19:42.250 --> 01:19:46.029
That's zero, that's nobody. That's more people

01:19:46.029 --> 01:19:47.930
have died in the United States of heroin overdoses

01:19:47.930 --> 01:19:50.449
by significant amounts since I started talking

01:19:50.449 --> 01:19:53.489
to you than have died in all those years, at

01:19:53.489 --> 01:19:58.250
that time 14 years. There had been an enormous

01:19:58.250 --> 01:20:02.229
fall in street crime. There was some heroin use

01:20:02.229 --> 01:20:05.109
outside the legal programme, but that massively

01:20:05.109 --> 01:20:07.449
fell because who wants to buy expensive, shitty

01:20:07.449 --> 01:20:09.800
street heroin when you can get... free, medically

01:20:09.800 --> 01:20:13.699
pure heroin from the government. But to me, the

01:20:13.699 --> 01:20:17.880
most surprising thing about this, well, there

01:20:17.880 --> 01:20:19.520
were loads of surprising things. Ruth, the former

01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:21.880
president, lives opposite this clinic. I think

01:20:21.880 --> 01:20:26.239
that tells you something. There's so many interesting

01:20:26.239 --> 01:20:28.260
things. I mean, and Switzerland had a referendum

01:20:28.260 --> 01:20:31.539
on this. Switzerland is a very conservative country.

01:20:31.939 --> 01:20:34.520
I mean, my Swiss relatives make Donald Trump

01:20:34.520 --> 01:20:37.789
look like AOC. And yet... 70 % of Swiss people

01:20:37.789 --> 01:20:40.010
voted to keep heroin legal. Not because they're

01:20:40.010 --> 01:20:41.310
so compassionate, they're not. It's just that

01:20:41.310 --> 01:20:44.590
it's so much cheaper and it massively reduces

01:20:44.590 --> 01:20:48.390
crime, right? But to me, the most interesting

01:20:48.390 --> 01:20:51.250
thing, it's so embarrassing to say because it

01:20:51.250 --> 01:20:54.210
shows how little I understood the problem, was

01:20:54.210 --> 01:20:57.649
exactly that thing about they'll give you any

01:20:57.649 --> 01:20:59.189
dose you want, right? Well, they'll give you

01:20:59.189 --> 01:21:01.329
one that will kill you, but any dose. And there's

01:21:01.329 --> 01:21:05.029
never any pressure to cut back. And yet, when

01:21:05.029 --> 01:21:07.920
I went there, There was almost nobody who'd been

01:21:07.920 --> 01:21:10.020
on the program, who was still in the prescription

01:21:10.020 --> 01:21:13.260
program, who'd been on it from the start. And

01:21:13.260 --> 01:21:18.300
I remember saying to Rita Mangi, the psychiatrist

01:21:18.300 --> 01:21:22.640
who ran the program, well, how can that be? Because

01:21:22.640 --> 01:21:24.800
we're told these drugs take you over, you need

01:21:24.800 --> 01:21:28.460
more and more of them. If you had a free infinite

01:21:28.460 --> 01:21:32.100
supply, why would you ever stop? And she looked

01:21:32.100 --> 01:21:34.439
at me like I was stupid and she said, well, we

01:21:34.439 --> 01:21:38.079
help them. And as their lives get better, they

01:21:38.079 --> 01:21:40.479
don't want to be anesthetized so much, which

01:21:40.479 --> 01:21:43.319
is kind of painfully obvious once it's explained

01:21:43.319 --> 01:21:49.899
to you. But, you know, so, yeah, that's a model

01:21:49.899 --> 01:21:53.680
of legalization that's not open sale, you know,

01:21:53.699 --> 01:21:56.859
regulated open sale. And I think what we need

01:21:56.859 --> 01:21:58.960
to do, we basically had an experiment for 100

01:21:58.960 --> 01:22:01.939
years in the entire world. having one option,

01:22:02.020 --> 01:22:04.539
which is ban everything, transfer it to criminal

01:22:04.539 --> 01:22:08.539
gangs, imprison the users and addicts. Now we

01:22:08.539 --> 01:22:10.000
need to have experiments with the alternatives.

01:22:10.180 --> 01:22:11.960
And maybe some of the experiments won't work,

01:22:12.060 --> 01:22:14.760
right? We'll have to wait and see. But we should

01:22:14.760 --> 01:22:17.300
have experiments with all sorts of alternatives,

01:22:17.420 --> 01:22:20.960
different models of legal regulation, legal regulated

01:22:20.960 --> 01:22:24.279
use. So for some people, that'll be, you know,

01:22:24.300 --> 01:22:26.359
not -for -profit cannabis clubs like in Spain.

01:22:27.510 --> 01:22:29.189
Some places that will be commercial cannabis

01:22:29.189 --> 01:22:32.229
sales. Some places that will be licensed ecstasy

01:22:32.229 --> 01:22:34.729
sales. Some places that will be prescription

01:22:34.729 --> 01:22:39.189
heroin. Some people in Australia want to experiment

01:22:39.189 --> 01:22:42.449
with a prescription form of meth. We need all

01:22:42.449 --> 01:22:44.729
sorts of different experiments and then we'll

01:22:44.729 --> 01:22:46.609
see. Some of them will work, some of them won't.

01:22:46.609 --> 01:22:48.029
It's hard to imagine it will be worse than what

01:22:48.029 --> 01:22:51.069
we have now. But if it is, we'll go back. So

01:22:51.069 --> 01:22:55.630
far, everywhere that has experimented with the

01:22:55.630 --> 01:22:58.619
alternatives, has found that it's been an improvement

01:22:58.619 --> 01:23:00.399
and doesn't want to go back which is not to say

01:23:00.399 --> 01:23:04.060
it's perfect it's not right but it's a really

01:23:04.060 --> 01:23:07.479
significant improvement yeah well then that's

01:23:07.479 --> 01:23:09.020
the thing is that other countries have done that

01:23:09.020 --> 01:23:11.399
experiment for the rest of the world you know

01:23:11.399 --> 01:23:13.960
so it's it's it's happened and people are you

01:23:13.960 --> 01:23:16.020
know the cultures aren't the same well no it's

01:23:16.020 --> 01:23:19.159
not apples to apples exactly but like you said

01:23:19.159 --> 01:23:20.800
you know it's going to be an improvement and

01:23:20.800 --> 01:23:22.380
the problem is everyone thinks like you know

01:23:22.970 --> 01:23:24.869
Black and white are the only two solutions. Well,

01:23:24.970 --> 01:23:27.449
say you shift that needle three quarters of the

01:23:27.449 --> 01:23:30.729
way the other way. That is a huge win. In statistics,

01:23:30.930 --> 01:23:34.630
that's, you know, in political races, that's

01:23:34.630 --> 01:23:37.390
a landslide. But you don't want to try it because

01:23:37.390 --> 01:23:39.869
you think that you're, you know, the people in

01:23:39.869 --> 01:23:42.170
America are so, so different than the Swiss people

01:23:42.170 --> 01:23:44.090
or the Portuguese people. We're all just people

01:23:44.090 --> 01:23:46.189
fundamentally. And yes, there are different cultural

01:23:46.189 --> 01:23:48.909
things. And we have, you know, such a high level

01:23:48.909 --> 01:23:53.319
of crime. illegal, illicit drug use here at the

01:23:53.319 --> 01:23:56.979
moment, that, of course, the slope might be a

01:23:56.979 --> 01:23:58.840
little less steep than some of these smaller

01:23:58.840 --> 01:24:02.680
countries. But the other way, as you said, hasn't

01:24:02.680 --> 01:24:05.479
worked. And right now, it's costing us a fortune.

01:24:05.979 --> 01:24:09.260
Our first responders are dying. Our citizens

01:24:09.260 --> 01:24:12.720
are dying. The prisons are expanding and expanding

01:24:12.720 --> 01:24:15.539
and expanding. What have we got to lose? Absolutely

01:24:15.539 --> 01:24:18.600
nothing. I think you're right. I would also say...

01:24:18.829 --> 01:24:20.930
The US is in a much more advantageous place to

01:24:20.930 --> 01:24:23.310
do this than Portugal. Portugal had a worse drug

01:24:23.310 --> 01:24:25.029
problem than the United States has at the moment

01:24:25.029 --> 01:24:27.710
when it did this. And Portugal is a much poorer

01:24:27.710 --> 01:24:30.329
country than the United States, much poorer.

01:24:30.550 --> 01:24:32.630
You know, Portugal would be almost the poorest

01:24:32.630 --> 01:24:35.949
state in the Union. So, you know, it's not like

01:24:35.949 --> 01:24:38.630
Portugal, I mean, Switzerland is a very wealthy

01:24:38.630 --> 01:24:41.529
and prosperous society, but Portugal isn't, Uruguay

01:24:41.529 --> 01:24:43.949
isn't, you know, there's plenty of places that

01:24:43.949 --> 01:24:47.079
have... transitioned away from the drug war that

01:24:47.079 --> 01:24:50.479
had less resources than the United States. And

01:24:50.479 --> 01:24:54.659
bigger problems. So this idea that the US couldn't

01:24:54.659 --> 01:24:58.079
do it for cultural reasons is bullshit. And by

01:24:58.079 --> 01:25:00.640
the way, the US used to do it relatively recently.

01:25:01.060 --> 01:25:03.899
Most of the existence of the United States, most

01:25:03.899 --> 01:25:06.199
of the drugs that are currently banned were legal,

01:25:06.359 --> 01:25:10.720
right? And they didn't have worse problems than

01:25:10.720 --> 01:25:11.920
they had now. In fact, they had significantly

01:25:11.920 --> 01:25:14.060
smaller problems than they have now. That's not...

01:25:14.279 --> 01:25:16.159
Only because of the drug war, obviously, there's

01:25:16.159 --> 01:25:17.539
all sorts of other changes that have happened.

01:25:17.619 --> 01:25:20.079
But I think you're right that the need for it

01:25:20.079 --> 01:25:23.159
now is greater than it has, or the need for a

01:25:23.159 --> 01:25:24.760
changed drug policy is greater than it's ever

01:25:24.760 --> 01:25:27.579
been. Yeah, well, you mentioned the opioid crisis.

01:25:27.659 --> 01:25:31.119
I had Sam Quinones, who wrote Dreamland, and,

01:25:31.180 --> 01:25:34.140
you know, kind of focusing on the pill mills,

01:25:34.140 --> 01:25:36.520
which my state here, I'm actually in Florida

01:25:36.520 --> 01:25:39.590
now. The Broward County area of South Florida

01:25:39.590 --> 01:25:42.310
was the absolute hub for a lot of those pill

01:25:42.310 --> 01:25:44.489
mills. So you had all these Americans, these,

01:25:44.590 --> 01:25:46.930
you know, like not people living on the street,

01:25:46.970 --> 01:25:50.010
not gangbangers, but actually working people

01:25:50.010 --> 01:25:52.189
that were now getting addicted. Then the pill

01:25:52.189 --> 01:25:54.130
mills were closed down. Now they're turning to

01:25:54.130 --> 01:25:56.350
black tar heroin, which I know that route was

01:25:56.350 --> 01:25:58.949
certainly what killed some of my friends that

01:25:58.949 --> 01:26:02.289
I lost. Tell me about your perspective on the

01:26:02.289 --> 01:26:05.279
opioid crisis. So I like Sam Quinones. I think

01:26:05.279 --> 01:26:07.140
he's a good writer. But I think what he wrote

01:26:07.140 --> 01:26:13.060
about this is missing a really big part of the

01:26:13.060 --> 01:26:15.899
picture. And I'm quite worried about the story

01:26:15.899 --> 01:26:17.859
people have been told about the opioid crisis.

01:26:18.579 --> 01:26:20.720
Because if you have a story that's too simplistic,

01:26:20.859 --> 01:26:23.739
you seek solutions that are too simplistic. So

01:26:23.739 --> 01:26:25.680
I think it's worth stepping back a bit. We were

01:26:25.680 --> 01:26:30.689
talking before about chemical hooks. Chemical

01:26:30.689 --> 01:26:32.649
hooks are real. They're just a small part of

01:26:32.649 --> 01:26:35.949
addiction. There's lots of reasons scientists

01:26:35.949 --> 01:26:37.529
have shown this, but I'll give you just an example

01:26:37.529 --> 01:26:39.930
that everyone will get. So there's an experiment

01:26:39.930 --> 01:26:42.789
in chemical hooks that actually some of your

01:26:42.789 --> 01:26:45.369
listeners will be taking part in right now. So

01:26:45.369 --> 01:26:48.310
people know, scientists know, it's been proven

01:26:48.310 --> 01:26:52.909
that if you smoke a lot, the chemical hook that

01:26:52.909 --> 01:26:54.869
you become addicted to and physically crave is

01:26:54.869 --> 01:26:58.300
nicotine. I think about this a lot because my

01:26:58.300 --> 01:27:00.600
mother smokes 70 cigarettes a day. There's a

01:27:00.600 --> 01:27:02.600
photograph of me and her when I'm six months

01:27:02.600 --> 01:27:06.699
old where she's breastfeeding me, smoking and

01:27:06.699 --> 01:27:12.239
resting the ashtray on my stomach. When I found

01:27:12.239 --> 01:27:14.939
this photo about a couple of years ago, I showed

01:27:14.939 --> 01:27:16.239
it to her. I thought she'd be really guilty.

01:27:16.340 --> 01:27:18.699
She said, you are a fucking difficult baby. I

01:27:18.699 --> 01:27:22.979
needed that cigarette. No wonder you live with

01:27:22.979 --> 01:27:27.100
your grandma. So the chemical hook that my mother

01:27:27.100 --> 01:27:28.800
would crave if she ever stopped smoking, but

01:27:28.800 --> 01:27:33.859
she never would, would be nicotine, right? So

01:27:33.859 --> 01:27:36.920
in the late 1980s, nicotine patches were invented.

01:27:37.399 --> 01:27:40.560
And there's this huge wave of optimism because

01:27:40.560 --> 01:27:43.520
they thought addiction to cigarettes is addiction

01:27:43.520 --> 01:27:46.420
to the chemical hook nicotine. Well, nicotine

01:27:46.420 --> 01:27:48.659
patches give you all of the nicotine that you

01:27:48.659 --> 01:27:52.180
physically crave with none of this awful carcinogenic

01:27:52.180 --> 01:27:55.380
smoke. Great, people are going to stop smoking.

01:27:55.600 --> 01:27:58.159
And nicotine patches became commercially available.

01:27:58.359 --> 01:28:00.939
And what happened? Some people did stop smoking.

01:28:01.140 --> 01:28:04.659
The US Surgeon General's report, a major investigation

01:28:04.659 --> 01:28:08.720
into nicotine patches, found that 17 % of people,

01:28:08.840 --> 01:28:13.180
one 7%, 17 % of highly motivated smokers, given

01:28:13.180 --> 01:28:17.199
nicotine patches, stop. That ain't nothing, right?

01:28:17.279 --> 01:28:20.380
17 % of people is a lot of people. You map that

01:28:20.380 --> 01:28:23.909
across the US population. That saved a very large

01:28:23.909 --> 01:28:27.789
number of people's lives. But 17 % is an enormous

01:28:27.789 --> 01:28:31.609
way from 100%. Something else is going on for

01:28:31.609 --> 01:28:35.949
that other 83 % that isn't just a craving for

01:28:35.949 --> 01:28:38.210
the chemical hook, right? And let's remind people

01:28:38.210 --> 01:28:40.130
there's a broad agreement that nicotine is the

01:28:40.130 --> 01:28:42.310
most powerful chemical hook out there, right?

01:28:42.710 --> 01:28:49.640
So now let's think about opioid addiction. dominant

01:28:49.640 --> 01:28:51.840
story that has been told to people about the

01:28:51.840 --> 01:28:54.800
opioid crisis is this. It's not totally wrong.

01:28:55.239 --> 01:29:00.439
It's just way too limited. Basically, a group

01:29:00.439 --> 01:29:02.819
of evil drug dealers came along, who in this

01:29:02.819 --> 01:29:04.939
case happened to be the Sackler family and the

01:29:04.939 --> 01:29:08.220
other big pharma companies. And they gave people

01:29:08.220 --> 01:29:11.539
this uniquely powerful drug, and it took them

01:29:11.539 --> 01:29:13.939
over, and they had this desperate craving for

01:29:13.939 --> 01:29:16.420
the chemical hooks. And that's what their addiction

01:29:16.420 --> 01:29:19.640
is. Right. That it came from exposure to the

01:29:19.640 --> 01:29:24.560
chemical hooks. Now, the chemical hooks in prescription

01:29:24.560 --> 01:29:27.859
opioids are real and you will experience physical

01:29:27.859 --> 01:29:29.659
withdrawal if you use them for a while and stop.

01:29:29.819 --> 01:29:32.640
And that's not to be underestimated. It's a real

01:29:32.640 --> 01:29:36.520
phenomenon. But it's way too simplistic. Firstly,

01:29:36.560 --> 01:29:38.600
the vast majority of people who use prescription

01:29:38.600 --> 01:29:42.279
opioids do not become addicted. And crucially,

01:29:42.460 --> 01:29:46.880
where are the addictions happening? Right. People

01:29:46.880 --> 01:29:50.579
on the faculty of Harvard are much more likely

01:29:50.579 --> 01:29:54.520
to be able to, well, as a fact, have much easier

01:29:54.520 --> 01:29:59.000
access to prescription opioids than any other

01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:02.020
part of the population because they have extremely

01:30:02.020 --> 01:30:05.399
good health care, right? Extremely good health

01:30:05.399 --> 01:30:09.180
plans. Addiction to prescription opioids is very

01:30:09.180 --> 01:30:11.380
low on the faculty of Harvard. Might be some,

01:30:11.460 --> 01:30:16.430
but it's very low. People in West Virginia. have

01:30:16.430 --> 01:30:19.050
very poor medical coverage compared to the rest

01:30:19.050 --> 01:30:21.149
of the country, certainly compared to the faculty

01:30:21.149 --> 01:30:23.529
at Harvard, and they have amongst the highest

01:30:23.529 --> 01:30:27.869
levels of opioid addiction in the country, indeed

01:30:27.869 --> 01:30:31.250
in the world, right? If it was just about ease

01:30:31.250 --> 01:30:33.949
of access and exposure, that would make no sense.

01:30:34.130 --> 01:30:36.210
So what's going on in West Virginia that's not

01:30:36.210 --> 01:30:39.300
going on in the faculty of Harvard, right? You

01:30:39.300 --> 01:30:40.920
don't have to spend long in West Virginia or

01:30:40.920 --> 01:30:43.479
Monadnock in New Hampshire, one of the other

01:30:43.479 --> 01:30:45.359
epicenters of the opioid crisis where I spent

01:30:45.359 --> 01:30:48.180
some time to see the answer, right? Through no

01:30:48.180 --> 01:30:50.220
thought of their own, the people of Monadnock,

01:30:50.220 --> 01:30:52.600
the people of West Virginia have been stripped

01:30:52.600 --> 01:30:55.359
of the things that make life worth living, right?

01:30:55.479 --> 01:30:58.880
Just like everyone has physical needs. for food,

01:30:59.000 --> 01:31:01.600
for water, for shelter. Everyone has psychological

01:31:01.600 --> 01:31:04.640
needs. You need to have meaningful work. You

01:31:04.640 --> 01:31:06.979
need to have a secure future. You need to have

01:31:06.979 --> 01:31:08.800
community. You need to feel that other people

01:31:08.800 --> 01:31:11.739
see you and value you. And the people of West

01:31:11.739 --> 01:31:14.060
Virginia have been humiliated and stripped of

01:31:14.060 --> 01:31:15.760
the things that gave them status and meaning,

01:31:15.939 --> 01:31:19.119
right? The industries that they worked in, the

01:31:19.119 --> 01:31:22.359
whole society they knew has been pulled away

01:31:22.359 --> 01:31:26.260
from them. You know, there's a very good study

01:31:26.260 --> 01:31:28.979
that showed when a factory closes down, opioid

01:31:28.979 --> 01:31:31.859
addictions double in the period after. And if

01:31:31.859 --> 01:31:33.520
that was just due to the chemical hooks in the

01:31:33.520 --> 01:31:35.880
drug, that would make no sense. But when we understand

01:31:35.880 --> 01:31:38.100
the lesson of Rat Park, it makes perfect sense.

01:31:38.600 --> 01:31:40.680
The people who've done the best research on this

01:31:40.680 --> 01:31:44.159
are professors Angus Dayton and Anne Kay, so

01:31:44.159 --> 01:31:46.460
you should totally interview, who call these

01:31:46.460 --> 01:31:50.579
deaths of despair, right? Opioid overdose deaths

01:31:50.579 --> 01:31:53.399
are at their highest, where non -opioid -based

01:31:53.399 --> 01:31:56.340
suicides are highest, where chemical antidepressant

01:31:56.340 --> 01:31:58.720
prescriptions are highest. Why would that be,

01:31:58.840 --> 01:32:00.880
right? Why would that be an extraordinary coincidence

01:32:00.880 --> 01:32:03.960
if those things had no bearing on this, right?

01:32:04.359 --> 01:32:07.020
If you strip people of the things that make life

01:32:07.020 --> 01:32:10.380
worth living, lots of them will seek to anaesthetise

01:32:10.380 --> 01:32:12.859
themselves. If you want to understand why people

01:32:12.859 --> 01:32:15.840
are... If you want to understand why people are

01:32:15.840 --> 01:32:18.539
taking so many painkillers, you've got to understand

01:32:18.539 --> 01:32:22.939
why they're in so much pain. And to tell a simplistic

01:32:22.939 --> 01:32:26.020
story, go right back to where we started with

01:32:26.020 --> 01:32:29.560
the obesity, right? The sexually abused people

01:32:29.560 --> 01:32:34.180
who... who become obese to protect themselves,

01:32:34.539 --> 01:32:38.220
right? Dr. Felitti, who did that experiment,

01:32:38.340 --> 01:32:41.920
said to me, he realized it's like there's a fire

01:32:41.920 --> 01:32:44.079
inside these people and we've been focusing on

01:32:44.079 --> 01:32:47.180
the smoke. And I think that analogy works quite

01:32:47.180 --> 01:32:50.380
well for the opioid crisis, right? Now, that

01:32:50.380 --> 01:32:54.159
is not to dispute that big pharmaceutical companies

01:32:54.159 --> 01:32:57.020
behaved appallingly. They lied about these drugs.

01:32:57.180 --> 01:33:00.760
They massively understood what they ate. lied

01:33:00.760 --> 01:33:04.319
about the risks, which are very real. They created

01:33:04.319 --> 01:33:08.819
enormous commercial incentives for doctors to

01:33:08.819 --> 01:33:13.000
over -prescribe these drugs. I despise the Sackler

01:33:13.000 --> 01:33:15.739
family and the companies that did this. I hope

01:33:15.739 --> 01:33:17.560
they lose their fortunes and die in prison. There's

01:33:17.560 --> 01:33:20.300
not a moment of apology for these people from

01:33:20.300 --> 01:33:25.670
me. But... To say that they are the sole or primary

01:33:25.670 --> 01:33:28.930
reason for the opioid crisis is as fatuous as

01:33:28.930 --> 01:33:32.270
Nancy Reagan blaming the crack epidemic on crack

01:33:32.270 --> 01:33:36.029
dealers. It's way too simplistic a way of thinking

01:33:36.029 --> 01:33:40.170
about what's going on. You know, this is a difficult

01:33:40.170 --> 01:33:42.869
thing to say, and I don't want to be misunderstood,

01:33:43.430 --> 01:33:46.750
but Marianne Faithfull, the great British singer,

01:33:47.069 --> 01:33:50.069
who went, annoyingly, she's most famous for having

01:33:50.069 --> 01:33:51.569
gone out with Mick Jagger, but I think she's...

01:33:52.150 --> 01:33:55.510
Much better than Mick Jagger. She had a heroin

01:33:55.510 --> 01:33:57.210
addiction in the late 60s. She was homeless.

01:33:57.430 --> 01:34:01.050
She had heroin addiction. And in her memoir,

01:34:01.170 --> 01:34:06.189
she says something like, heroin saved my life

01:34:06.189 --> 01:34:08.829
because at that point, if it hadn't been for

01:34:08.829 --> 01:34:12.189
heroin, I would have killed myself, right? It's

01:34:12.189 --> 01:34:14.090
a very challenging thing to say. Marianne Faithfull

01:34:14.090 --> 01:34:16.430
is not saying heroin is a good solution to despair,

01:34:16.670 --> 01:34:23.329
right? No one thinks that. The truth is these

01:34:23.329 --> 01:34:25.770
opioids, people are turning to them because they're

01:34:25.770 --> 01:34:37.069
in profound pain, deep, deep pain. And we've

01:34:37.069 --> 01:34:40.369
got to understand that pain and deal with that

01:34:40.369 --> 01:34:44.390
pain, the underlying causes of that pain. And

01:34:44.390 --> 01:34:47.289
if we just pathologize the behavior, it would

01:34:47.289 --> 01:34:50.239
be like thinking. I mean, this is this analogy

01:34:50.239 --> 01:34:52.960
is going too far, but it would be somewhere in

01:34:52.960 --> 01:34:54.760
the direction of thinking that if someone's got

01:34:54.760 --> 01:34:57.100
an obsessive compulsive disorder with turning

01:34:57.100 --> 01:34:59.079
light switches on and off, the main problem is

01:34:59.079 --> 01:35:01.180
with the light switch. It's a misunderstanding

01:35:01.180 --> 01:35:04.039
of the origin of the problem. The origin of the

01:35:04.039 --> 01:35:06.199
problem is the despair. But what we've done is

01:35:06.199 --> 01:35:08.359
we tell such a stigmatized story about depression.

01:35:09.119 --> 01:35:12.020
I've heard so many people do this that we, you

01:35:12.020 --> 01:35:14.279
know, it's like saying, oh, I got accidentally

01:35:14.279 --> 01:35:17.810
hooked. It's a socially acceptable story to tell

01:35:17.810 --> 01:35:20.909
about your addiction. Saying I was in a lot of

01:35:20.909 --> 01:35:24.449
pain and so I chose to anaesthetise my pain with

01:35:24.449 --> 01:35:27.510
the best thing I can find is not a socially acceptable

01:35:27.510 --> 01:35:29.630
story, right? Then you're an addict, you put

01:35:29.630 --> 01:35:31.210
it on yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

01:35:31.210 --> 01:35:34.449
all the ugly things that people say. We've got

01:35:34.449 --> 01:35:36.090
to have a much more sophisticated understanding

01:35:36.090 --> 01:35:38.989
of this problem because if you tell the story,

01:35:39.130 --> 01:35:40.789
and I don't want to be unfair to Sam Kanones

01:35:40.789 --> 01:35:42.630
because there's a bit more complexity in his

01:35:42.630 --> 01:35:45.760
story than that, but if you tell the story, It's

01:35:45.760 --> 01:35:47.939
just the evil drug dealers. It's just the pharmaceutical

01:35:47.939 --> 01:35:50.180
companies. Well, then the logical solution is

01:35:50.180 --> 01:35:52.859
let's shut down what these evil drug companies

01:35:52.859 --> 01:35:55.359
have done. Well, what happens when we do that?

01:35:55.460 --> 01:35:57.899
We know what happens. I interviewed a guy called

01:35:57.899 --> 01:36:03.119
Dr. Hal Voss, who's a doctor in Oklahoma. What

01:36:03.119 --> 01:36:05.659
happens if I've got an addiction to OxyContin

01:36:05.659 --> 01:36:07.279
because my life is terrible, I'm in profound

01:36:07.279 --> 01:36:10.220
psychological distress, and then my doctor cuts

01:36:10.220 --> 01:36:12.380
me off because he figures that it's because I've

01:36:12.380 --> 01:36:14.899
got an addiction problem? What happens to me?

01:36:15.300 --> 01:36:17.380
My life doesn't suddenly get better, right? Because

01:36:17.380 --> 01:36:19.859
the drug was my way of trying to treat the problem.

01:36:19.920 --> 01:36:22.479
Not a good way, to be sure, but it was my way

01:36:22.479 --> 01:36:25.979
of trying to treat the problem. Either I just

01:36:25.979 --> 01:36:29.420
then face my agony without any anesthetics, which

01:36:29.420 --> 01:36:32.680
is horrendous, or more likely I seek out the

01:36:32.680 --> 01:36:34.720
only anesthetic I can buy, which is on the street,

01:36:34.739 --> 01:36:37.380
because street oxy is very expensive, at least

01:36:37.380 --> 01:36:39.520
as I can explain if you want. Mostly I'll go

01:36:39.520 --> 01:36:42.529
and buy street heroin. Right? Which is significantly

01:36:42.529 --> 01:36:44.489
more dangerous than OxyContin. Not that there

01:36:44.489 --> 01:36:46.050
aren't dangers of OxyContin, because there are.

01:36:47.909 --> 01:36:51.689
So a solution that tells people the problem was

01:36:51.689 --> 01:36:57.770
just the provision of these drugs will lead to,

01:36:57.789 --> 01:37:00.409
logically, a solution, well, let's take the drugs

01:37:00.409 --> 01:37:04.189
away. But there is some argument for being cautious

01:37:04.189 --> 01:37:06.510
about the initial prescription. I'm in favour

01:37:06.510 --> 01:37:08.789
of that. These drugs were overprescribed. By

01:37:08.789 --> 01:37:10.960
the way... Almost all drugs are prescribed in

01:37:10.960 --> 01:37:12.260
the United States, but that's a separate debate.

01:37:13.359 --> 01:37:19.479
But that's not the answer. The answer is Portugal.

01:37:19.600 --> 01:37:22.500
The answer is Switzerland. The answer is help

01:37:22.500 --> 01:37:25.380
people, right? Help them to turn their lives

01:37:25.380 --> 01:37:27.779
around. Just taking away the drug but giving

01:37:27.779 --> 01:37:30.680
them no help to turn their lives around is going

01:37:30.680 --> 01:37:32.699
to produce a lot of suicide, a lot of despair,

01:37:32.819 --> 01:37:34.659
and a lot of heroin, transition to heroin addiction.

01:37:36.440 --> 01:37:39.500
Yeah. And I think the analogy to kind of compare

01:37:39.500 --> 01:37:41.960
that to is alcohol. Obviously, alcohol is legal,

01:37:42.079 --> 01:37:44.800
which is great. But the average person listening,

01:37:44.939 --> 01:37:47.880
how many times do you lean on having a drink?

01:37:47.920 --> 01:37:50.220
You had a rough day, whatever it is, but you

01:37:50.220 --> 01:37:52.399
can easily access it. There's no stigma around

01:37:52.399 --> 01:37:55.279
it. You blow off steam with your whiskey or whatever

01:37:55.279 --> 01:37:57.520
it is you do, but then you go about your day.

01:37:57.680 --> 01:37:59.439
And the other thing with alcohol is it's almost

01:37:59.439 --> 01:38:01.340
impossible to kill yourself unless you drown

01:38:01.340 --> 01:38:03.479
on your own vomit because you pass out before

01:38:03.479 --> 01:38:07.560
you can consume too much. That, again, is also

01:38:07.560 --> 01:38:10.380
an underlying mental health thing. I think one

01:38:10.380 --> 01:38:13.239
of the biggest elephants in the room in first

01:38:13.239 --> 01:38:16.659
responders is alcoholism because it's accepted.

01:38:16.920 --> 01:38:19.579
When we go to funerals, we drink. When we go

01:38:19.579 --> 01:38:22.819
to celebrations, we drink. It's kind of like

01:38:22.819 --> 01:38:29.420
a crafty... unhealthy coping mechanism because

01:38:29.420 --> 01:38:31.899
we've allowed it. We've applauded it. But then

01:38:31.899 --> 01:38:33.739
there are also men and women that behind that

01:38:33.739 --> 01:38:36.319
seemingly social drinking are people that are

01:38:36.319 --> 01:38:39.000
really, really hurting. And one of my close friends

01:38:39.000 --> 01:38:43.159
who is a firefighter here in Central Florida,

01:38:43.279 --> 01:38:48.939
the last time I saw him, he was absolutely in

01:38:48.939 --> 01:38:51.319
crisis. He was about to go to a rehab facility

01:38:51.319 --> 01:38:52.979
for the third time. And he looked me in the eyes

01:38:52.979 --> 01:38:55.359
and said, James, if this doesn't work. It's over,

01:38:55.479 --> 01:38:57.699
meaning he was going to take his own life. And

01:38:57.699 --> 01:38:59.640
that wasn't opiates. That wasn't any of the illegal

01:38:59.640 --> 01:39:02.060
street drugs. That was alcohol. Now, thank God,

01:39:02.060 --> 01:39:05.500
the mental trauma that he had gone through, he

01:39:05.500 --> 01:39:08.579
found the right combination of a good tribe within

01:39:08.579 --> 01:39:11.279
this facility, good counselors that connected

01:39:11.279 --> 01:39:14.060
with him. And now he's over a year sober running

01:39:14.060 --> 01:39:19.880
a CrossFit facility for people that are either

01:39:19.880 --> 01:39:22.729
in addiction or recovering from addiction. So

01:39:22.729 --> 01:39:25.869
it's very well to point our fingers at addicts

01:39:25.869 --> 01:39:28.090
of illicit drugs, but you also need to look in

01:39:28.090 --> 01:39:30.869
the mirror and ask yourself, well, do you use

01:39:30.869 --> 01:39:33.510
alcohol as a coping mechanism? Is that the alcohol

01:39:33.510 --> 01:39:36.529
or is it because you've seen some horrible things?

01:39:36.609 --> 01:39:37.989
You went through some things when you're younger.

01:39:38.029 --> 01:39:40.569
You're going through a divorce. You're overworked.

01:39:40.729 --> 01:39:43.869
And then flip it around to look at the effects

01:39:43.869 --> 01:39:46.449
of your life on your own mental health and what

01:39:46.449 --> 01:39:50.100
do you lean on to cope with that? Totally. But

01:39:50.100 --> 01:39:51.659
I think what you're saying is totally true and

01:39:51.659 --> 01:39:54.760
completely great. Johan, you've been so generous

01:39:54.760 --> 01:39:56.640
with your time, but I want to shift to some closing

01:39:56.640 --> 01:39:58.100
questions. I know it's getting very late there

01:39:58.100 --> 01:40:00.680
in the UK now. Let's talk about the book. So

01:40:00.680 --> 01:40:03.739
the first book on addiction is Chasing the Scream.

01:40:03.840 --> 01:40:06.880
The more recent one, Lost Connections. Tell people

01:40:06.880 --> 01:40:10.439
where they can find those and if you want a little

01:40:10.439 --> 01:40:13.600
background behind each one as well. Yeah, if

01:40:13.600 --> 01:40:21.560
you go to www .johann. H -A -R -I dot com. That's

01:40:21.560 --> 01:40:23.899
me, Johan Hari dot com. You can see about both

01:40:23.899 --> 01:40:25.600
my books. So Lost Connections is about what's

01:40:25.600 --> 01:40:28.039
causing our epidemic of depression and anxiety

01:40:28.039 --> 01:40:31.039
and what we can do about it. And Chasing the

01:40:31.039 --> 01:40:32.819
Scream is the book we've mostly been talking

01:40:32.819 --> 01:40:36.539
about, which is about addiction and the drug

01:40:36.539 --> 01:40:40.140
war. And if you, since people have quite a lot

01:40:40.140 --> 01:40:44.920
of time at the moment, shut at home. On the websites

01:40:44.920 --> 01:40:47.279
for both of those books, you can hear interviews

01:40:47.279 --> 01:40:48.920
for free with loads of the people we've been

01:40:48.920 --> 01:40:51.300
talking about. You can take quizzes to see how

01:40:51.300 --> 01:40:53.479
much you know about addiction, depression and

01:40:53.479 --> 01:40:56.960
the drug war. And you can see where to get the

01:40:56.960 --> 01:41:01.159
audio book, e -book or physical book. It's funny,

01:41:01.300 --> 01:41:04.439
I was on a podcast a while back and at the end

01:41:04.439 --> 01:41:06.159
they said, you know, what's your social media?

01:41:06.199 --> 01:41:07.539
And I should say, anyone who wants to find my

01:41:07.539 --> 01:41:09.159
social media, you can see where to on that website.

01:41:09.399 --> 01:41:10.899
But they said, you know, what's your social media?

01:41:11.500 --> 01:41:13.079
What's your Facebook? And I gave it. And they

01:41:13.079 --> 01:41:15.479
said, what's your Twitter? And I gave it. And

01:41:15.479 --> 01:41:17.600
they said, what's your Snapchat and TikTok? And

01:41:17.600 --> 01:41:22.199
I was like, I am a 41 -year -old man. Only 41

01:41:22.199 --> 01:41:25.279
-year -old men on TikTok must certainly be pedophiles,

01:41:25.279 --> 01:41:27.960
right? I'm like, what do you take me for? No,

01:41:28.180 --> 01:41:31.079
I don't have them. Anyway, yeah, so that's where

01:41:31.079 --> 01:41:32.520
you can find information about all those things.

01:41:32.859 --> 01:41:35.359
Brilliant. Yeah, I think for me, Instagram is

01:41:35.359 --> 01:41:36.460
the only one I've had much luck with. I know

01:41:36.460 --> 01:41:40.859
Twitter, is that your main handle for you? Yeah,

01:41:40.920 --> 01:41:43.039
although I take long breaks because it's such

01:41:43.039 --> 01:41:48.560
a poison. Yeah, well, it's funny. That's the

01:41:48.560 --> 01:41:49.960
one thing people don't think about with addiction,

01:41:50.100 --> 01:41:52.140
but I think social media is definitely up there

01:41:52.140 --> 01:41:56.500
with alcohol and opiates. Yeah, totally. Right,

01:41:56.539 --> 01:42:00.420
well then, so the... Last question I have for

01:42:00.420 --> 01:42:01.800
you because I want to let you go and we found

01:42:01.800 --> 01:42:04.819
out where people can find you. What do you do

01:42:04.819 --> 01:42:06.500
to decompress? You're doing a lot of writing.

01:42:06.520 --> 01:42:07.899
Obviously, you're doing a lot of speaking as

01:42:07.899 --> 01:42:09.840
well with interviews. But when you want to blow

01:42:09.840 --> 01:42:13.800
off steam, what's your outlets? I'm very bad

01:42:13.800 --> 01:42:15.600
at relaxing. I always have been because I grew

01:42:15.600 --> 01:42:17.319
up in quite a violent and chaotic environment.

01:42:17.779 --> 01:42:20.000
The way I dealt with that, even from when I was

01:42:20.000 --> 01:42:24.859
quite a young child, is I would read and write

01:42:24.859 --> 01:42:28.020
all the time or watch television. I love television

01:42:28.020 --> 01:42:33.350
even now. So I'm quite bad at decompressing.

01:42:34.170 --> 01:42:36.989
Until COVID -19 happened, I was in a really nice,

01:42:37.050 --> 01:42:39.569
blooming romance. I haven't been able to see

01:42:39.569 --> 01:42:46.310
him since all this began. So that helps. I don't

01:42:46.310 --> 01:42:47.829
have a huge division between the things that

01:42:47.829 --> 01:42:52.439
I like doing and the things that relax me. Watch

01:42:52.439 --> 01:42:54.899
lots of movies. I watch lots of television. I

01:42:54.899 --> 01:42:57.319
read loads of novels. I read loads of books.

01:42:57.840 --> 01:43:00.479
But then those are sort of half work related

01:43:00.479 --> 01:43:03.479
anyway. So if people want a tip, I'm watching,

01:43:03.600 --> 01:43:06.340
actually, thanks for having me relax in the last

01:43:06.340 --> 01:43:08.520
couple of weeks. I'm watching an absolutely brilliant

01:43:08.520 --> 01:43:10.880
British TV show that I never, for some reason

01:43:10.880 --> 01:43:13.279
I missed the first time it was on. It's called

01:43:13.279 --> 01:43:15.180
Ashes to Ashes. Have you ever seen it, James?

01:43:15.380 --> 01:43:18.819
I haven't, no. Ashes to Ashes, especially I think

01:43:18.819 --> 01:43:21.109
people in your profession would like it. Ashes

01:43:21.109 --> 01:43:24.109
to Ashes is a really funny, brilliant TV show.

01:43:24.149 --> 01:43:28.250
So it's about a hostage negotiator in 1998 in

01:43:28.250 --> 01:43:35.250
Britain who is shot and she wakes up in an 80s

01:43:35.250 --> 01:43:39.050
cop show, which is a character in an 80s cop

01:43:39.050 --> 01:43:41.989
show, like a kind of like quiet, sexist 80s cop

01:43:41.989 --> 01:43:46.770
show. And she realises that this is what her,

01:43:46.829 --> 01:43:48.289
she begins to think this is what her subconscious

01:43:48.289 --> 01:43:51.250
mind is creating as she's lying there bleeding

01:43:51.250 --> 01:43:55.050
and she's got to fight within this 80s cop show

01:43:55.050 --> 01:43:59.630
to stay alive. And it's really original. It's

01:43:59.630 --> 01:44:01.989
not like profound or anything, but it's just

01:44:01.989 --> 01:44:07.409
really a funny, pleasurable, just X, I'm sure

01:44:07.409 --> 01:44:09.109
it's on Amazon Prime and places like iTunes.

01:44:11.230 --> 01:44:13.369
For someone like, I think you're about the same

01:44:13.369 --> 01:44:15.869
age as me, aren't you? I'm 41. Yeah, I'm older.

01:44:15.989 --> 01:44:18.409
I'm 46. Ah, well, you're a little good for it.

01:44:18.630 --> 01:44:21.890
I'm 41, so for people who grew up in the 80s,

01:44:21.890 --> 01:44:25.350
it's a real nostalgia kick as well. So I really

01:44:25.350 --> 01:44:28.189
recommend that TV series. It's absolutely brilliant.

01:44:28.409 --> 01:44:30.850
And the central actress, Keely Hawes, who's in

01:44:30.850 --> 01:44:35.550
the British shows The Bodyguard and Line of Duty,

01:44:35.729 --> 01:44:39.210
she is completely brilliant in that show. Brilliant.

01:44:39.229 --> 01:44:41.510
Actually, I did watch The Bodyguard. We did have

01:44:41.510 --> 01:44:43.430
access to that over here. That was a good show.

01:44:43.449 --> 01:44:45.369
I'm just ashamed they cancelled it. She's the

01:44:45.369 --> 01:44:50.050
politician in that show. She's the kind of politician

01:44:50.050 --> 01:44:51.609
who gets... Oh, I'm about to give a spoiler alert.

01:44:52.649 --> 01:44:55.130
She's the one who's protecting. Yeah, exactly.

01:44:55.189 --> 01:44:57.550
She's the one who the hot guy from Game of Thrones

01:44:57.550 --> 01:45:01.489
is protecting. Exactly. Yeah, she's in that.

01:45:01.529 --> 01:45:04.250
She's so good in this. She's so good. I love

01:45:04.250 --> 01:45:06.310
that show. Brilliant. Well, I have to put that

01:45:06.310 --> 01:45:08.130
on the list then. Thank you. All right. Well,

01:45:08.170 --> 01:45:11.930
I'm going to let you go. I sincerely appreciate

01:45:11.930 --> 01:45:14.189
you taking the time. When I read the books and

01:45:14.189 --> 01:45:16.949
then started listening to you on podcasts, you

01:45:16.949 --> 01:45:18.649
know, especially when I realized that we both

01:45:18.649 --> 01:45:22.670
met João, the stars aligned. I'm like, this...

01:45:23.000 --> 01:45:25.539
This information has to get out to people in

01:45:25.539 --> 01:45:27.899
general, but especially the people on the streets,

01:45:28.000 --> 01:45:29.699
the firefighters, the medics, the police officers,

01:45:29.760 --> 01:45:32.439
to get us to start questioning what we're doing.

01:45:32.619 --> 01:45:34.680
And I would love to get with you again. There's

01:45:34.680 --> 01:45:36.380
so much more that we haven't even touched on.

01:45:36.779 --> 01:45:39.300
I would love to say to your listeners as well,

01:45:39.359 --> 01:45:43.380
I know at the moment it must be quite frustrating

01:45:43.380 --> 01:45:47.560
in a way to have people say to you at a time

01:45:47.560 --> 01:45:49.399
when you're not being given the protective equipment

01:45:49.399 --> 01:45:52.350
that you need and deserve. there must be something

01:45:52.350 --> 01:45:54.630
i think quite maddening about having people say

01:45:54.630 --> 01:46:00.270
you know we so admire your courage and the bravery

01:46:00.270 --> 01:46:03.390
of what you're doing because i can imagine my

01:46:03.390 --> 01:46:05.770
response would be right thanks for the thanks

01:46:05.770 --> 01:46:07.310
for the admiration but give me the protective

01:46:07.310 --> 01:46:11.909
equipment right but i i just want everyone listening

01:46:11.909 --> 01:46:14.369
to know like it takes a very special kind of

01:46:14.369 --> 01:46:20.090
person to run towards danger to risk your body

01:46:20.090 --> 01:46:23.170
and your life and your health to protect other

01:46:23.170 --> 01:46:26.029
people and especially in the middle of this terrible

01:46:26.029 --> 01:46:29.550
crisis you know our governments might be failing

01:46:29.550 --> 01:46:33.930
you but ordinary people are cheering you on and

01:46:33.930 --> 01:46:36.810
are in real I mean my mother was a nurse my sister

01:46:36.810 --> 01:46:41.149
was a nurse ordinary people are in such awe of

01:46:41.149 --> 01:46:46.180
what you're doing and and the the bravery of

01:46:46.180 --> 01:46:49.680
you guys carrying on in in circumstances like

01:46:49.680 --> 01:46:53.579
this so just i'm just and i know i speak for

01:46:53.579 --> 01:46:56.439
almost everyone when i just say i'm really really

01:46:56.439 --> 01:46:58.699
grateful for what you're for what you're doing

01:46:58.699 --> 01:47:01.819
and thank you well thank you i think this is

01:47:01.819 --> 01:47:04.399
a great time for us to to look at the nation's

01:47:04.399 --> 01:47:06.260
health and i think the mental health needs to

01:47:06.260 --> 01:47:09.310
be in that that whole discussion that we're talking

01:47:09.310 --> 01:47:13.170
about. And the way you make a nation safer, whether

01:47:13.170 --> 01:47:15.550
it's drug addiction or whether it's a virus that

01:47:15.550 --> 01:47:18.670
comes around, is having resilient men and women.

01:47:18.710 --> 01:47:21.789
And the more that we support groups like the

01:47:21.789 --> 01:47:25.310
NHS again and fund these facilities and obviously

01:47:25.310 --> 01:47:28.569
the first responders. And then encourage good

01:47:28.569 --> 01:47:31.909
nutrition and good fitness and the counseling

01:47:31.909 --> 01:47:34.729
environment than the healthier men and women

01:47:34.729 --> 01:47:36.529
we're going to have in all the countries of people

01:47:36.529 --> 01:47:39.350
listening from now. And hopefully we can bring

01:47:39.350 --> 01:47:41.310
solutions to the problems. And that's absolutely

01:47:41.310 --> 01:47:43.590
what you're doing. So I thank you back again.

01:47:44.369 --> 01:47:47.989
Well, yeah, I'm doing like about one millionth

01:47:47.989 --> 01:47:49.449
of what you guys are doing. But thank you so

01:47:49.449 --> 01:47:51.069
much. And I really enjoyed this conversation.

01:47:51.250 --> 01:47:52.390
Let's do it again. Come to Vegas.