Ep. 34 - Allen St. Pierre [NORML]

>> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. >> This is synchronicity. [ Music ] >> Welcome to episode 34 of synchronicity. My guest this week is the executive director of normal, which is the national organization for reform of marijuana laws, Alan St. Pierre. We'll get to Alan, obviously, in just a second. If you hear, like, a weird, in the background, I don't know if you can hear that. I'm talking pretty closely into the mic. But if you can, it's the sound of the baby rocker with Eli, my slightly over one-month-old son, rocking back and forth, my wife Alexis, who is his primary lifeline, is out for a few hours, so I am in charge of taking care of him, so it is totally possible that a crying baby -- I'm going to try to keep this intro pretty short, is what I'm saying, because there's a baby next to me, and, you know, who wants to hear a crying baby on a podcast?

That's not a great podcast. That's not something someone would sign up for. Okay, so quick, quick stuff. Congratulations to Tisha, the book winner from last week, Synchronicity, book giveaway. A copy of Kindfulness is coming out to you, courtesy of the folks at Wisdom Publications. I spoke about Wisdom last week. Definitely check out Wisdom Pubs. They've got so many cool books and authors, and they're just really great people. Small, publishing house based out of Massachusetts. Really great people. So, congratulations. Congratulations, Tisha, on winning the book. This week's book giveaway is a book called "Demian"

by Eman Hesse, Herman Hesse, for people who don't talk weird when they pronounce his name. You know, author Siddhartha, also just one of my favorite philosophers, thinkers, mystics, all of the above. I was right, this book was recommended by an upcoming guest, Stephen Campman, who was actually Mikey Campman, a previous guest, father. That episode is, oh, stay tuned for that one. It's on Dreams, it's on, oh, it's really cool. But he recommended I check this book out to interpret it. He said there's a really cool way to interpret it through Jungian Analysis. So, I'm reading the book right now. It's really short, 100 pages.

Fiction, really awesome so far. So, that is the book giveaway. If you don't know what I'm talking about, the book giveaway for new listeners, for listeners who skip past this and never got to hear me say this, every week, literally, every single week, I send out a book, or in this case, this past week, wisdom publication sent out a book to people who are part of the synchronicity community, which is somewhat of a vague and nebulous term, hopefully trying to hash that out for everyone over the next few months, but we're gonna be doing some stuff with the community. But, if you go to syncpodcast, syncpodcast.com, joined the community, you are entered in the book giveaway contest forever.

So, you could join, never do anything, and you could win a copy of the book. So, that's any book, and maybe you want the book, maybe you don't. I'll reach out and say, I don't want the book. So, that's a deal with that. Okay, an update on a previous item too, which is the charity giveaway. I still haven't come up with a better word for that. But, basically, what we're gonna do as a community is raise some money, and then collectively send it to a place. Now, I'm trying to work through a couple logistical issues here that maybe if someone knows how to do this, that would be helpful. So, what I'm planning on doing is accepting payments for this fund via a Stripe account, which is a credit card processor over the web.

It's pretty simple, but they take a fee. So, 2.7% plus 30 cents per transaction, something like that. So, I don't think it's gonna be a big deal. What I may do, so that doesn't deter people from giving directly to the foundations, which also do that if you want to. But, I just think the power of collectively having this aggregated in one place, and then sending it at the end of the month, or a couple months, or a few months, to a certain place would be cool. And, I think it would be like a demonstration of us kind of collectively pooling our generosity and gratefulness and appreciation towards a place.

So, that's the plan with the charity giveaway. So, I wanna talk about the three areas that I've kind of narrowed it down to with a lot of your help from the people who have written in. If you wanna write to me, by the way, Noah, my name at sinkpodcast.com. So, feel free to do that. I'd write back, ask anyone who's written to me. I don't know how you would know who wrote to me, but you know what I'm saying. So, the three things we've narrowed it down to in terms of what we're raising money for, one is this thing called Sering's Fund, which is an orphanage that helps Nepalese children who, through the natural disasters, are orphans.

So, that's a good thing. That's one, that's one option. Second option is Farm Sanctuary. I've had a lot of people write in about animal rights and raising money for animals, and I think that's awesome, totally with it. My name's Noah, right? I gotta have some affinity for animals, right? It's like pre-built into me collectively unconscious wise. Okay, and the third thing would be a GoFundMe, right? And this is kind of the wild card. This is something that we can just find an individual or a certain thing and have that, you know, basically go towards one person who has had something going on in their life.

It's not so great. That would be pretty powerful, I think, too. So, those are the three options. What I'm going to do is in this week's email that goes out for the community is set up a quick little, either survey or informal poll, and we're just gonna pick one. So, next week we should have one, and I'll have that all set up, and I'll have the details on how to do that. Okay, donations. Donations for running the show. I know this is now the third episode where I'm actually openly asking for these, or accepting them, I should say. The show costs a little bit of money. It's a run each month, around $500.

That's for hosting of the podcast, the email list, the social media ads, just the regular maintenance. I'm gonna be hiring some people, not for sync-grinicity, but for MindPod Network, which we're trying to flesh out some cool revenue models there. So, there's stuff, it's not gonna go to me buying fancy stuff, and if it does, so what? But it's not going to, 'cause I really, I don't do that so much. But regardless, that I am accepting donations now, syncpodcast.com/donation, if you're so inclined, if not, no big deal, consider this my free gift to you. Okay, to Allen, St. Pierre. So, do we know what normal is?

Normal, like I said in the beginning, is the national organization for the reform of marijuana laws, which is really a very awesome and benevolent and great thing that's going on. I don't need to get into my whole history of marijuana. I've been a cannabis, that's like the cool way of saying it now, it's like the polite way. I've been a marijuana user, I've been smoking the weed, the devil's weed, ingesting the devil's weed for, oh man, like half my life at this point? So it's a long time, and so I'm like, relatively familiar with what marijuana is, and I've seen the evolution just in my life, which is not that long, you know, what's gone on and what's happened with marijuana, and it's pretty crazy, and that's good.

There's good things now, and there's bad things. Allen, you're not gonna find someone who is, basically normal is a bunch of lawyers who are advocates and policy people, and really trying to make sure that this isn't such a fucked up thing, because regardless of what you think of marijuana, there's a whole spectrum of topics and things we could discuss, but it's really fucked up a lot of people in this country who are sitting doing lifetime or really long sentences in federal prisons, because they have somehow been involved with marijuana. And I'm not talking about cartels and people coming, but I'm talking about like, this is a plant that if you had some within the past 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years, you could get in serious trouble for it.

And that, to me, is a big thing. So the legality of it, the decriminalization of it, is a big part of this conversation, and you're just, like I said, you're not gonna hear someone more eloquently point out what the key issues are around this now, you know, potentially, like here's the other thing, it's like a potentially booming business, right? I mean, this is not potentially, it's booming business at this point, and it's still illegal, like, you know, you can't put money in, you make from a marijuana business, even in states where it's legal, into a bank, like that's not something that you can do.

So if that's, imagine trying to run a business where you can't put money into a bank, and maybe you could use Bitcoin. Bitcoin, by the way, I have some Bitcoin check-offs. Crazy, rising up the past few weeks. It's like almost $700 Bitcoin, I don't know. I had Bitcoin, I bought it early on, really, when it was like around $130, so I just always brag about that now, I'm sorry. But Bitcoin is also another incredibly interesting thing that has nothing to do with this episode. So, sorry about that. Back to Alan. So that's who Alan is, that's what his job is. He's also, you'll hear from this conversation, just an abundantly pleasant person.

Really gracious, really humble, really focused, really dedicated, you know, I touched, I tried to eke it out of him, you know, his personal use and what he feels the benefits of the plant are, the plant, that sounded weird. But, you know, what the benefits of marijuana are, and he was pretty candid and eloquent about that as well. So just, it was really great connecting with him. The folks at normal, I told Alan this at the end, I was like, any help you need, getting any type of message out. There's a stigma that goes along with, you know, being a marijuana user, or smoking marijuana, whatever it is, that you're like a lazy stoner who's not focused.

I mean, I know people in my life, hopefully I've shattered that illusion for people, but you know, it's just, it's not a real thing that actually exists. It can be like anything, like, it can affect people in different ways, and I think that's one of the very interesting thing about it. And I am, it's gonna seem like I'm changing gears here, because I cut off, because I had someone walk in the door, as I was talking about marijuana, but don't let that throw you off. I think it's a good opportunity for maybe me to take a pause and just get to the episode, huh? How about that? I think that's pretty good.

If you wanna rate and review, and subscribe to Synchronicity on iTunes, that is awesome, I would appreciate it. But truthfully, without further ado, here is Alan St. Pierre. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thank you for coming on, I really appreciate it.

Sure.

So I guess there's two main areas I wanna cover here. One is everything that normal does, and kind of the genesis of normal, and then getting into marijuana policy, potential reform, but I also want to learn about you, and how you got involved, and kind of why you're involved. So I'd like to start there, if that's possible. We can get to all the fun, wonk stuff, and what's actually going on with policies, but I'd love to hear from you how you became the executive director of normal, and kind of your path leading up to that.

Well, I joined in 1990 as a volunteer, and then there was a Saturday night massacre where three quarters of the staff was let go, and I got a call from the chairman of the board who offered me a position, and it was called the communications position, but I was found to this sort of a catch-all to do just about everything that was needed to be done at the time, and I guess became deputy director in '94. In '97, the normal foundation was created, separate from normal itself, and I became its first director, and I'm still the director of it, and in 2004, the founder of normal, Keith Strop wanted to retire as the director, and the board voted me to be director.

Cool, and why were you interested in normal in the first place?

Well, I'm a stakeholder. I've always enjoyed marijuana since my late teens, almost everybody I knew growing up, family, friends, coworkers, fellow students, more or less responsibly used marijuana, and never saw them or myself as criminals, except for the fact we were violating a prohibition law, which even by the 1970s, it was pretty clear, it was unenforceable, and really not that popular, but as I found out later, after finally working at normal, no, when normal was founded in 1970, about 12% of the public supported legalization, and here we are all these years later, and now almost 60% support legalization, so clearly something remarkable and transformative has happened over these years, but I guess one could have argued that in the '70s and early '80s, a politician would have really had been at the vanguard to see reform, so only today are we now finding politicians wanting to get on the reform bandwagon.

So what do you think, I mean, I have my theories, but I'm sure you do too, at the forefront of this, what do you think changed over those 20, 30 years to kind of sway the mass public opinion on marijuana?

Well, I could probably go dissertation length. I'm not such a good question, because it is. It's, how do you go from 12% support to 60% support in a generation? Something cataclysmic has happened, and I usually ascribe it to five basic things, and some of them are fairly self-evident, I'd suggest. Nothing I'm suggesting here is really that intellectual. One is simply the baby boomers came to power, finally. Think of the current president. He was the leader of a pot smoking gang in Hawaii, and after going to Columbia and Harvard, how poorly did he fare after using marijuana? So the baby boomers are in charge of our institutions, whether it's government, media, I mean, for example, here's my best example in the media.

In the 1980s and '90s, the most prominent anti-marrowanna columnist in the country was former editor of the New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal, and he just wrote these terrible, mindless, reefer madness-oriented columns. And so he retired and passed away early in the 2000s period. Well, last year, the New York Times did something you'd never done before. It did a seven-part series, starting with a front-page editorial, something that rarely, if ever, had done in 100-plus years. The seven-part series was on why marijuana should finally be legalized. And the person who ran that project was Andy Rosenthal.

A.M. Sun.

I know, it's-

Yeah, I figured.

And so even a place as austere, as an August, as the New York Times, you could see that generational change within a 20-year period from A.M. Rosenthal's reefer madness to Andy Rosenthal getting the editorial board to, in total, support marijuana legalization. So baby boomers taking over. Number two is medical marijuana. If the good citizens of California do not vote to have medical marijuana in '96, leading to about another 23 states having what we call functional medical marijuana laws. Now, almost half the country resides in those particular states. The third is the internet. Just the very thing that we're doing right here.

I've been at normal so long, I've been here pre and post-internet. And to describe what it was like to be an advocate for marijuana law reform, pre-internet would be pretty long and arduous. So to use some brand names here, like say Facebook, normal has almost one and a half million people we can reach through Facebook instantly. Or is in, we'd spend two weeks licking stamps and trying to get those out the door 25 years ago. The fourth reason is that prohibition has largely just failed. It's just been acknowledged that it is not something that the public supports anymore. So those are the basic reasons I think that we've moved from prohibition towards reform.

Yeah, I mean, those all make sense. And I mean, I have to imagine part of the normalization, no pun intended, of this is that more and more people are coming out as professional, highly skilled professionals who use marijuana. People know people who are skilled. The stigma of being a lazy pothead who's just gonna eat Doritos all day is clearly evaporating. And we see that reinforced by media people too. I mean, while that stigma is still there for many people, we know that there are functional people who ingest or smoke marijuana on a regular basis. Myself included, and listeners of this podcast know this.

It's a big passion of mine. It's something that I've been, you know, 10 years ago I never would have been vocal. I would have been a college student, maybe looking for a job, and I would have been a little afraid. But now I have no qualms whatsoever speaking about it freely because it's helped me. It's helped people I know, I enjoy doing it. It's not dangerous, it doesn't hurt me. It doesn't hurt other people. So I wonder if all of those factors combined with the fact that almost everyone, I mean, I know I'm biased and I try not to use, you know, have the illusion of central position here, but a lot of people know people who smoke marijuana, right?

Or have an edible or do this. And I think that is hugely important over a period of time. And especially when your parents, like my mom, you know, baby boomers, they, most people, like you said, the president has admitted to smoking. He used to yell interception when people were passing a joint in a cipher, right? Everyone can relate to that. So I think that's a huge, huge thing too. But I mean, it must be fascinating and really encouraging from your end to see all of this in a relatively short period of time. I mean, it's not like the shortest period of time, but if you would ask me 15, 20 years ago, if I ever thought in DC, right?

I'm 15 minutes away, you're there, that it's illegal. You can grow what, six plants in DC now, if you're a personal user. I mean, it's totally insane in our nation's capital. So could you talk to me a little bit about kind of what you view the current state of marijuana laws around the country and in states? Could you talk about a little bit? Sure, so if we have to just break them into three categories, clearly there are the four states that have legalized marijuana outright. Then you've got 15 to 16 states that have decriminalized marijuana. We can talk in a moment about what that really means.

And then we've got about 20 to 25 states that really haven't done anything per se. Now thankfully they have gone from felony, like you would get a felony charge down to a misdemeanor, but we're still having 700,000 arrests per year in the United States from marijuana with 90% of them for possession only. So we've got the four states with legalization, the 15 states with decrim. Decrim means basically if you're caught with an ounce or below, some states like Ohio, you can have as much as 100 grams, which is three and a half ounces. That's plenty of marijuana. Yeah, yeah. So if you get caught in those particular areas, it's like a $100 fine.

It's like a speeding or a parking ticket. It's the mid-ground in policymaking that normally supported 45 years ago with decriminalization. So for us, that's always been the starting point for the discussion for reform is decriminalization. And again, you've got 25 or so states that have really no reforms. In those places, if you get caught with a small amount, you will be arrested, you will be prosecuted. And in some cases, even for possession, you will go to jail. Folks can go to a website called lifeforpot.org, and a angelic woman named Beth Carter runs this. Her brother is in jail, as you may guess, for life, for a non-violent offense, where he was just an industrious marijuana grower or seller.

And as far as we can see, he's one of about 15 men that have life sentences for marijuana only related crimes.

I mean, it's mind-blowing to think that that someone can get. I mean, to me, this boils down also. Marijuana, to me, the conversation is really functionally about what people do with their own state's of consciousness, right? And there's also this juxtaposition here with something that has been legal for a very long time. It was prohibited at one point, which is alcohol, right? I mean, if we add it up cumulatively, all of the negative impacts, all of the deaths, cars, you know, alcoholics, combined. I mean, like, I was just, here's an interesting, I want your take on this. I was just reading an article where the FDA just approved gummy amphetamines for children.

I just read this is blowing my mind, because you know, and this is a real issue in some places like Colorado and California, where gummies can be consumed by children 'cause they look like candy, and this is something that I think everyone is going to have to examine and figure out the right way to do this and be responsible. But now the FDA is essentially saying here, little kids, have some speed, you know, some candy flavored speed, which is just mind-blowing to me. I mean, what do you, it must just be crazy. Luckily, you have marijuana legally to be able to consume and calm down a little bit.

But I mean, when you see the FDA do something like that, and then still, I mean, while it is decriminalized and the federal government isn't going, you know, crazy about pursuing people at this point, you know, it's still, like you said, in many, many states, right, almost half, no reform whatsoever. And even in states where there is reform, you can still be arrested for it. You can still be stopped and ask questions. I mean, what goes through your mind when you see something like amphetamine gummies for children, for ADHD, yeah?

Well, the hypocrisy is great to say the least, to criticize people who produce such in places like Colorado, and then approve at the federal level, something like gummy amphetamine. So, generally, I'm all for gummy amphetamines, just in the same way that I'm all for popcorn balls of cannabis, as long as it's label and well-marked and sold properly to adults. So, yes, each state has totally imperfect legalization laws. One can go to Washington and Oregon or Colorado, Alaska, and pick apart any one of them as being imperfect. But what they did was they ended prohibition. They stopped now, 99% of the marijuana arrests have abated.

And now, tens of millions of dollars a month is coming into state and federal coffers and taxes. So, it's clear that legalization is working in the states that have it. What we're really excited to see is beyond the six to seven states that are gonna have initiatives this year, notably California on legalization, is to see a state legislatively become a legalized state. And what was disturbing was, three weeks ago, Vermont came very, very close. It's hard to understand why a state where the governor, the speaker of the house, the state's attorney general, and the majority leader in the Senate, all favor legalization.

And somehow the bill did not manage to get through. So, we think it's probably Rhode Island is up next for the next state to legislatively try to pass legalization. And what I'm suggesting here is once a state legislatively passes legalization, the dam is broken open, and many states, dozens will move in that direction within a few years.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that leads me to my next question, which is, what do you view at this point as the major hindrances towards national legalization and state legalization? 'Cause I'm sure there's some, like, I see, you know, I think it was a couple years ago, the head of the DEA, they were bringing it up. And she was like, no, this is horrible. How are you telling our police officers not to do this? Like, I don't know, maybe there's violent crimes or something they could be worrying about. But, I mean, what do you are? Like, there's clearly an oppositional force. And my first question is, name some of the hindrances, and then why, is it true?

Sure. - Yeah.

So, what I call these are the five pillars of pot prohibition, 'cause that's some iteration. And so, some, again, are quite obvious here. The number one is so obvious. It is law enforcement. Law enforcement, whether it's the head of the DEA or the local country bumpkin sheriff, they are always the first and the loudest in line to oppose any modicum of reform. Medical marijuana, industrial, have decriminalization. They are the most oppositional. And for them, it's a strong reason to keep prohibition in place because it gives them the ability to get into people's pockets, to ask what's in your backpack, what's in your car, it gives them a remarkable ability to get in the face of citizens and try to find out whether they're engaged in possibly other crimes.

And if not, then they'll just bust them from marijuana, which is effectively what's been happening with great criticism in New York City for the last 10 years.

That happened to me, so, yeah. I am well aware, been to the tomb central booking in Manhattan, so, yeah.

So, yeah, it's remarkable how these numbers have added up over the years. And you can appreciate it as somebody who effectively became a number in a place where everybody thinks it's such a urbane, progressive place, but on marijuana, here they are arresting upwards of 45,000 people a year, even though the state decriminalized marijuana in 1978. Not one of those arrests ever had to happen because the New York City police have chosen to largely look aside state law and still make these city-based arrests.

Uniscibly, yeah.

So, law enforcement is numero uno when it comes to trying to stop marijuana prohibition. Number two are, again, it won't surprise you, the actual government bureaucracies born of the prohibition. The drug czar's office, the partnership for Drug Free America, the dare program, the National Drug Intelligence Center, and I could name 20 other acronym bureaucracies you've never heard of that suck up $30 billion a year at the federal level and are totally feckless when it comes to marijuana. So, they absolutely want to keep the prohibition in place. That's what they were created to do with our tax dollars.

The third entity are the companies that make money off of prohibition, private prison, drug testing companies, and companies that are out there, for example, that are trying to interdict drugs. You've got private mercenaries like Dying Corp, that go around the world trying to stop drugs from coming into the United States. And then you've got the companies that are afraid to lose market share, pharmaceutical companies, alcohol companies, tobacco companies. So, almost all of them are out there against marijuana. And then when you look in America and it's duopoly in politics, well, Democrats, and we're non-partisan, so I just say this analytically, Democrats generally hue to about where the public is, about 55 to 58% of Democrats want marijuana legalized, but only 35% of Republicans want marijuana legalized.

So, in a duopoly, if you've got one side totally against it, then this is gonna drag on for some time until we can get some parity between the two parties.

So, when we're looking at, let's say right wing, Republican, do we think that it is a moral issue with it? Is it cultural conditioning? Is there a financial, 'cause I always, I mean, this is my armchair politics view of marijuana. I always figured what's taking so long, outside of, like you said, there are institutions that literally exist and have a financial stake in doing this. I always figured out, one of the biggest hindrances to really national marijuana or recreational legalization is that we don't have the systems built out to support the economy that would then come in. So, like, I looked at this, and you can talk a little bit about the Ohio thing, 'cause I know there was a bill recently that came up that looked like a good thing, but in reality, it kind of seemed like it was just a few companies who were gonna make a crap load of money, and people kind of wised up and said, "Well, we want this, but not yet."

So, is that a part of this? Is there an infrastructure, or is the fear of there not being an infrastructure for some of these things kind of holding back reform, especially with the laws, and just kind of like opening the gate, so to speak?

Well, certainly our opponents would claim that we don't have any data or don't know what's happened in the four states that have legalized marijuana, though there's plenty of data that would suggest otherwise. Ohio was a unique situation. It was an initiative that was put forward, not by donors, but investors, and they wanted the economic benefits of legalization to largely redound back to them. Most of the licenses that would have been given out would have gone to them, the people that actually put the initiative on the ballot. So, that really breaks the mole that has been out there in the last 30 years of advocates going to the public and with no economic interest, just criminal justice reform and civil justice on our minds to reform these laws and not economically benefit from them directly, I mean indirectly, but not to simply say, we're gonna change the laws, oh, and when it happens, the licenses are gonna go to us, so we can sell all the marijuana.

If that was the case, you think normal would have thought about a long time.

So, it did fail, and it failed principally for these reasons because the citizens of Ohio saw it as sort of a get rich quick scheme by a group of investors rather than trying to end a failed policy.

Right, right, I remember, I mean, that's essentially what I had read about it, and I know, you know, I have, you know, on Facebook, a lot of my friends, both older and my age and younger, they're big marijuana advocates, and they were, they were hip to it, which I was happy to see. I mean, what, I mean, this is a murky area too with the legalization efforts, I mean, there are people who are constantly kind of waiting for this to happen, right? There are business people lining up. I'm not one of them. Normal isn't, aren't some of them. We just think this is a freedom and a right, it's a plant. It can be helpful.

I mean, you mentioned the Colorado thing. I mean, what I read is not only is the money going at the coffers, they're being able to spend it on schools and education and like good things that help people. So, I mean, what, at this point, what do you think the remaining stigma for people? Like, are the Republicans, or I don't wanna generalize, but are Republicans against this because they are buddy, buddy with corporations? I mean, I have to imagine this can't just be that we think it's the devil's weed, and it's the most evil thing, the reefer madness thing. I mean, what is your sense kind of working on this stuff with that?

Sure, so we've done focus groups with Republicans, and it's clear, across the American specter, one out of five Americans will never, ever support marijuana legalization. They will not know or are like a marijuana consumer or seller. So, that's baked into the cake right across the board that 20% of the public is never gonna be supportive of these and will basically be an opposition. So, yes, morality is really the big play in the Republican party, why? They still see, I mean, a party that would be okay with cigars and okay with drinking high balls and drinking beer and all that. No problem whatsoever, but somehow has had a problem making that migration to marijuana.

But, Democrats not so much, we can see that Democratic governors and in the House and Senate, it's Democrats that are leading the charge for legalization.

Yeah, I mean, it's always interesting to me, because I think stigmas do not typically develop kind of organically. I think they're kind of superimposed, and I think you can see this going back to the reformatiness stuff, and this is your brain on drugs and marijuana, it's a gateway drug and all these other things. And, I mean, I can safely say marijuana was not really a gateway drug for me. I mean, it led to some psychedelic usage, but those have been positive too. So, I always wonder where, I think a lot of people like to think that there's some evil person or group or oligarchy at the top kind of dictating that this is why weed is gonna remain illegal.

It's, you know, it's bad, and we're profiting, and I think that's gotta be happening on some level, but it seems like the system has just been in place. Like people, like maybe we could talk about this too, the history of marijuana, making it illegal, the prohibition, wasn't that primarily just the financial decision and kind of like a discriminatory thing against minorities, and they didn't like that they were eroding certain aspects of culture and what people were doing with their time. Can you talk a little bit about the history of prohibition?

Yeah, the history of marijuana provision is terribly sorted, definitely reflects America's ethnocentrism and knee-jerk reaction to minorities. It's not so much an economic play as much as it is a discrimination against folks who largely came from a part of the world today that is now Israel and Lebanon and Beirut and Syria. That first wave of Middle Easterners that came to the United States in the late 1800s, early 1900s, not only brought their cashew seeds and their seeds for pistachios and for olives, but they also brought some seeds for some very fine Middle Eastern marijuana. And the first laws against marijuana begin in places like liberal Massachusetts and California in 1912, 1914.

So it's not a grand conspiracy by the Hearsts and the Answers and Melons to make marijuana illegal, but it is a terribly racist policy. When one goes back and just reads the actual congressional testimony given in 1937 to make marijuana illegal, it cannot be said in polite society today. It's so racist and non-scientific.

Right, I mean, I've known the history is sorted and just not great, but it seems like it's just the system was created. It's carried on, it's been this way, people. And then like you said, these systems of 30 billion dollars, right? I mean, that is not a small amount of money. That makes a dent in the deficit, actually, and that's a big deficit. So, I mean, okay, let's shift gears a little bit. Can you talk to me about your personal use of marijuana, the benefits, it's helped. Like, what has it done for you in your life? I can talk at Infinitum about that, but I'd love to hear from you, the head of normal here.

What has it been? Why, when you're in your late teens, have you continued to be an advocate and really, really fight for this plan?

Well, I found juxtaposed to other both legal and illegal drugs that were available in my misspent youth, shall we say, that it just seemed like it was a given that cannabis not only was the most benign and safest, but had the greatest utility in other parts of my life, and that the other drugs had such a serious, negative consequence, let alone the serious health problems that could happen if you just consumed too much of those particular products. So, for me, I've always used cannabis as a relaxing, without a doubt, it's the sort of end goal at the end of the day to put a eight, 10-hour workday in, and look forward to as my parents enjoy drinking wine, as many of my peers enjoy drinking craft beers or whatnot.

Well, my wife and I enjoy consuming cannabis occasionally, and I definitely benefit from living in the District of Columbia. I, this year, grew my own marijuana.

That's so awesome.

Legally. - Congrats, man.

And if at this past normal conference about a week ago, I gave out a quarter pound of marijuana. Anybody who wanted a joint or needed marijuana for the next couple of days, if they were over 21, then I just simply asked them to open up their hand, and I dumped marijuana in their hand, and it felt wonderful.

Yeah, and I mean, that's a huge thing about, I was thinking about this the other day, because there are always people who will try to profit and do what they want, but nothing feels better whether it's marijuana, whether it's money, whether it's food, giving things to people is like a really fun thing to do. Like, it really is. I don't know how else to describe it, and especially when it's something like marijuana. Like, I know and I have really, really good weed, and I can give it to someone who's really gonna appreciate it. What that's gonna mean for them is just a good feeling. And yeah, I mean, I just, I wonder what about, I mean, do you think it's, it's, here's my take on weed.

This is what I think it is. I think it is a distinct form of consciousness, depending on the strain, depending on the type, that really does, subjectively in some ways, but also objectively integrate in with our own consciousness. I really think there is an interplay that happens there, and that can account for the wide range of effects it can have for many people. Some people smoke, they're super paranoid. Some people smoke, they're incredibly relaxed. Some people smoke, you know, they're laughing at everything. So, and I know there's different types and different effects, of course. But I really do think there is kind of a mystical element to it that is, you know, probably not your focus with normal and you're not going around and talking about the mystical benefits of marijuana.

But I do think that it is in line with a new, I don't wanna say new, but a current trend in consciousness to be more open, to be more accepting, to be more compassionate. And I've said this before on this show that I think a lot of the things that marijuana helps people with are feminine principles, you know, being more compassionate, being more open, being more generous. Things that are typically associated with feminine qualities, not in the gender or sexual type, but just the qualities, the lunar solar type things. And I think, you know, we've lived in a patriarchal society for thousands of years, two, three thousand years.

And I think I'm starting to see people kind of realize, maybe this is not totally balanced. Maybe it's not totally right. And I think that kind of fits in line with what's happening now around marijuana reform. So I was wondering if you had any, you know, metaphysical take on marijuana, or is it just a good thing that helps you relax?

Well, I think it is really quite deep seated. We know from the science today that regardless of where you've grown up on this earth at any time, every human being has THC receptors in them. So this is, you know, whether one takes this an evolutionary tack or a intelligent design, shall we say? To me, it doesn't matter. Both have to try to answer the question, why is it that humans have our physiology and anatomy somehow or another recognized cannabis? But we don't do it with opioids, we don't do it with ethyl alcohol or with almost any other plant-based drugs. So there must be something remarkable about the interplay between humans and cannabis, regardless of what your views and my views are about it.

I mean, that, I think I found, I think I knew about the endocannabinoid system in us for a while, but I think a couple years ago, I think I saw the documentary about the guy who discovered an Israeli guy, I think, right? He discovered-- - Yeah, Raft El-Machulam.

Yeah, exactly, and I mean, it was mind-blowing. I mean, this is, I don't know if people really understand how weird or, I mean, not weird, but it's pretty nuts that this actually exists within us and this is why I have a friend, he has a podcast on a network that this podcast is on and his sister was featured in this documentary on PBS called Seized and she suffers from really, really bad seizures. And so her family got her to Colorado and got her cannabinoids, right? And blow and behold, they stopped the seizures, like nothing else had done it. And I mean, it's hard for most of us to imagine what it's like to go into one seizure, let alone hundreds a day and for the families and the impact and just the terror that must grip entire families with this.

And lo and behold, this is really helping people. And so I'd like to, I mean, this is this leads into a really interesting point. The medicinal benefits of marijuana, we don't know what they are because just now, they're loosening the shackles, right? They're finally allowing some form of research on this stuff and it's doing pretty well. What do you, okay, let me try to tie in the medicinal stuff to what's your prognosis for the next five to 10 years with marijuana reform legalization? And if you could fold that into some of the medicinal things that are going on.

Well, the calendar is actually gonna tell us something very soon here, relatively speaking, June 30th, the DEA is supposed to release a self-directed report of whether it should or should not make a recommendation to Congress to down schedule marijuana. There's no way they would be doing this if they didn't recognize and know the pressure that marijuana is completely absurdly illogically scheduled at schedule one. And so the federal government has no serious bargaining chip if it doesn't come down to schedule two or lower. So we think that'll happen on the 30th of this month. And while that won't impact legalization per se, it will have a dramatic impact on medical research and banking regulations and a bunch of other things that will help a lot, but not again in a binary way really affect legalization.

Legalizations always been a bigger, larger discussion than just the scheduling of marijuana.

Sure.

So we suspect that again, of the seven or so states that are gonna have legalization initiatives, we would surely hope the majority of them pass. It's crucial that California, that nation state, unto itself pass a legalization. If they do so, well, we can look forward to who's in the presidency if it happens to be a Democrat. And there's a very good chance that the reforms are gonna keep moving along at least at the pace that they're at allowing state's greater autonomy. If, for example, and this is where this gets really quirky, Donald Trump has largely said throughout most of his life that the drug war is a failure, marijuana should be legal.

During the president's run here, he has said that almost all other candidates, regardless of their political affiliation, that we should leave this to the states. The states are the petri dishes of experimentation. But the scary thing is, well, who would he have as his vice president and notably his attorney general? So, if Chris Christie, for example, were to become the attorney general of the United States, those of us who remember the time between Carter and Reagan can remember an incredibly stark time in the same way that we could see the difference between Obama who allowed a remarkable state autonomy with marijuana.

We could have a Republican who is gonna just turn around and stop it dead in its tracks. And Mr. Christie was running for president. He would constantly say, I'll let me president, I will go to Colorado and I'll stop the pot party overnight. Now, that's delusional. That's probably unconstitutional. But it tells you that, for those of us who remember what the anti-drug zeal sounds like, like Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Reagan and others, that is still out there. So, we don't whistle by the graveyard here at normal when it comes to policy making. This election will have a huge sway in what's gonna happen in the future.

And then, just looking out to 2018 and 20, at some point, Congress itself is gonna pass some reform laws. And again, once a state legislatively legalizes marijuana, at least a dozen more will do so, probably within a calendar year.

And that's because you just think that it'll show that it's possible and that the benefits are relatively clear if they're gonna get their act together and do that. You know, you scared me because I never had to think about a potential Donald Trump attorney general. Like I've thought about like, hey, like maybe you'll pick a celebrity for the vice president and it'll be weird and the media won't shut up about it. But like, oh yeah, he's gonna actually have people who are in charge of a lot of important things.

Well, you have this former federal prosecutor who clearly hates marijuana. He has been terrible implementing New Jersey's medical marijuana laws. And he has just said the worst things of any political candidate on the presidential stump this year. So he is in a very good position to make the argument that he should be the attorney general. But that's another reason for those who are wondering whether they should be political or not this year. You know, whether or not they wanna have maybe a Chris Christie as their attorney general.

Yeah, I mean, this is a little divergent, but I think incredibly important. I protested outside of the Supreme Court in 2000 when we had the whole Gore Bush thing and the hanging chads and, you know, I was also a day away to miss school, high school for me, but I was really passionate. I was very into politics. And then I got disillusioned for about 12 years, eight years, 'cause it was just like, you know, as an idealist, a young person, you're like, oh, this is cheating. This is not fair. This is why I should I care anymore. But now I registered Democrat to vote in Maryland for Bernie Sanders, and he got crushed, of course, here.

But I think it's incredibly important for all of the listeners, for anyone. I have friends who still are apathetic. It doesn't matter. My vote doesn't count. Yeah, it definitely does count. And especially if you're not voting, you can end up with some shitty things. And then after the fact to be like, oh, well, maybe I should have voted isn't as hard as actually just going and voting for things that are maybe important. It's funny because I do think marijuana legalization, at least on the coasts, the coastal states, I do think this is a political issue for a lot of people. This gets people off the couch, so to speak, and really gets them involved.

So I'm hoping as more politicians kind of warm and see that maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, and maybe it has some positive stuff that this can actually bring in. I mean, it's funny because you always hear politicians want to get younger people involved. And some of them do, and some of them don't, right? Some of them do not want people voting. They want old people voting who vote the same way. But I mean, I think this is an issue that really galvanizes people because we're kind of glossing over it. But I mean, we spoke about for you, and for me, the positive benefits, but marijuana can really, really, really help people, especially if you look at the alternatives of what people do to kind of alter their consciousness.

So yeah, I do think it's very important that people vote for this. And I think just voting in general is maybe as it seems like it's not important. It is important. It really, really is. And it's also good to stay informed about what's going on around you, because it's gonna matter at some point. I guarantee for everyone. Awesome. Okay, so whoa, we can wrap this up. This is really fun though. And also, Alan, I'd love to check in as kind of these things progress in the coming months and years, 'cause I love your enthusiasm for this. I think we're totally aligned about what we see marijuana and the potential is in a lot of different ways.

So I leave every show asking my guests for practical tips that have helped them in their lives. And that can mean whatever you want it to mean. It can be one tip, many tips, but something that has helped you in your life that you could share with the audience. That would be great. Well, I guess when I was growing up, and certainly even throughout my 20s, I did not much care what my direct peers thought, mainly because they didn't live any more of a life than I had. They'd have to be sort of an extraordinary individual for me to think, why do I wanna take any advice from you? You haven't lived one day longer on this earth than I have.

But so that meant I always sought out older men and women, in my case, older women to date, for example, or to have mentors in business and social activism. But if you're an 18 or 20 or 25 year old, you can learn a lot from a 30, 35 and 40 year old. And so I've always sought out older individuals because just clearly they know more. They have a greater degree of life experience, not intelligence, life experience. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that's important. And I can also say, I just became a father. I have a three week old boy. And I can say, you can even learn stuff from kids, from children three weeks old.

There's always lessons to be learned in life, regardless of where it's coming from. Hey, Alan, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. This is something that's incredibly close to my heart in a lot of ways. And I'm just thrilled that you took the time to talk about this with me. So thank you.

My pleasure. And obviously let's follow up. There's a given that to every three to four months, something substantive is happening in marijuana.

I am totally, I trust that I will reach out. I mean, I have a few pillars of what this show is about. And in the past 20 episodes or so, I've been pretty clear about my stance on marijuana and where it fits into my life. And I just think the world would be a better place. I don't like making huge blanket statements like that. But if it was legalized in this country, I think it would be a much better place, truthfully. So thank you again. This has really been awesome.

My pleasure. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thank you for listening past the music, people who listen past the music. I am rubbing my tiny infant son's tummy with one hand and doing this intro on the other. I'm trying to keep a pacifier in his mouth as well. There he is. So you're gonna hear at the end of this intro, my little baby crying, hopefully not. No Eli, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Isn't this a good outro? Okay, I hope you liked that episode. I don't got much else to say about it. Rate and review this podcast on iTunes. If you're able, I appreciate it. Visit the website, sync podcast, and you know, give me some tips on how to calm down a fussy baby.

Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.