Im super, super thrilled to be hosting what i think is the first talk weve ever hosted for a book that has been blurbed by both noam chomsky and elton john. [laughter] this blew my mind. So that is really also for my exciting. And then finally im excited to have a book that says something a little new about the drug war. We all know the drug war is bad and awful right . I dont want need to tell you that right . If youre living in baltimore, you know that the drug war is bad and awful. But what its really exciting, when someone with the talent writing journalism like johann hari comes along and is able to look at that history, look at where we are today, talk to people, go to place figure out a way to tell the story in a way that makes us see new things but gives us a different lens and a different optic on something that we know is horrible and in telling that story gives us a way to deal with it and create a better future. So im terribly excited to welcome him here, and im glad you all came out. Thank you. [applause] thank you for coming. When the war on drugs was being launched, the man who launched it, Harry Anslinger said there was one place in the world that proved more than any other that it was going to work. If you looked at this place, it would prove if you cracked down hard enough, if you arrested enough people, if you were consistently tough drugs and drug gangs woulddisappear. That place was baltimore. [laughter] hows it working out for you . [laughter] im really glad i feel like before i start, i should kind of apologize for something which you might be able to tell from my voice that im not from here. Ive spent a lot of time in the u. S. And ive never felt anxious about it. I went to texas and i went to interview this hitman, the only hit match for the worst Mexican Drug Cartel who made it out and lived to tell the story. Hes in prison now. I went into a lunch at jack in thebox, do you think what that is . Its like a fast food chain which is responsible for at least one of my chips. And i went in there and said to the woman, can i have like a quarterpounder with cheese and she said to me, what . And i said, could i have a quarterpounder with cheese . She said to me, i apologize, and she said do you speak english . [laughter] and i said, madam, my people invented it. [laughter] she didnt laugh. [laughter] what i want to talk to you about, as i said before its now 100 years since drugs were first criminalized. And as i realized we were coming up to this ken tenly i had centenary, i had a personal reason for wanting to think about it. We had a lot of drug addiction in my family. One of my earliest memories was trying to wake up one of my relatives and not being able to. And i realized even though this had been going on for 100 years, there were loads of really basic questions that i just didnt know the answer to. And that my teachers had never told me, my government had never told me, your government had never told me no one had told me. Why were drugs banned in the first place . Why do we carry on with the drug war approach when a lot of people think it isnt working . What really causes drug use and drug addiction, and what are the alternatives . I realize we talk about it in such an abstract way. If you read most writing about the drug war its like youre sitting in a philosophy seminar. I thought, screw that, i want to find out how it really effects people all over the world. I started across this journey nine countries, 30,000 miles and just sitting and spending time and talking with loads of different people from a transsession yule crack dealer in brownsville brooklyn, to a scientist who spends a lot of time [inaudible] to see if they like them. It turns out they do but only in specific circumstancings. To the only country in the world thats decriminalized all drugs from cannabis to crack with incredible results. And the main thing i took away from this is almost everything we think we know about this subject is wrong. Drugs are not what we think they are. Drug addiction is not what we think it is. The drug war is not what weve been told it is for 100 years, and alternatives are not what we think they are. I tell the story in the book through the story of real people whose lives were changed one way or another by this war. Just five or six of the people that i talk about in the book, one of them is one of your home girls. In 1939 Billie Holliday stood on stage in new york city and she sang a song called strange fruit. Its a song against lynching. Her goddaughter, lorraine, said to me youve got to understand how shocking this was, to have an africanamerican woman standing in front of a white audience in a hotel that she was not allowed to walk through the front door. She went through the service elevator, singing a song against lynching. And that night, according to her biographer, Julia BlackburnBillie Holliday received a threat, a warning from the federal bureau of narcotics. They said stop singing this song. The man who ran that bureau was a guy called Harry Anslinger the most influential person no ones ever heard of. He took over the department of prohibition just as alcohol prohibition is ending and he had to find a new purpose for his d. And he was driven by his department, and he was driven by two really strong hatreds. The one was a hatred of addicts the other was the hatred of africanamericans. He used the nword in official police memos so often his own senator said he should have to resign and Billie Holliday can, he was obsessed. Billie holliday was everything he hated was an africanamerican woman standing up to White Supremacy was a heroin addict, was a, you know he thought jazz was really interesting, he thought jazz was this mongrel, evil music that was disordered and a sign of chaos, and he would write these memos where hed listen to the lyrics, and hed write that is what they do think when they use his heroin. [laughter] Billie Holliday grew up here in baltimore, so she grew up surrounded by the smell of burning feces. She grew up in an area called pigtown, a pigtown home girl over there. And Billie Holliday learned something, she made herself a promise. She wasnt allowed in a lot of the stores because she was an africanamerican. She promised herself she was never going to bow her head to any white man. So she says in effect, screw you. Im an american citizen, ill sing my song ill do what i want and that is the point at which the stalking and killing of bullly holiday Billie Holliday began. Harry anslinger, it was hard to stop a white guy into harlem to stop Billie Holliday so he appointed a man called Jimmy Fletcher, so his job was to follow her for two years and watch everything that she did. And Jimmy Fletcher fell in love with her, and he felt ashamed of what he did next. He busts her, she was put on trial. Shes sent to prison and when Billie Holliday gets out she cant sung. You needed a license you needed a performers license to perform anywhere where alcohol was served, and they wouldnt give it to her. Her friend yolanda said to me what is the cruelest thing you can do to a person . Take away the thing that they love. Its what we do to addicts all over the world today. I went out with a female chain gang in arizona made to wear tshirts saying i was a drug addict and dig graves. Theyre never going to work again, theyve got a criminal record. And like a lot of those women bullly holiday in all that suffering relapses. When shes in her early 40s, she collapses in new york, and shes taken to the hospital. The hospital refuses to have her. She says to one of her friends that the narcotics agents arent finished with her she says theyre going to kill me in there, dont let them. On her hospital bed shes diagnosed with liver cancer. They arrest her on a hospital bed. They handcuff her. I interviewed the last man who was still alive who was still in that room eugene calendar, incredible man. They take away all her candieses, her toys, and she goes boo withdrawal because she into withdrawal because she hasnt got any heroin. She starts to recover. Ten days later they cut off the methadone, and she dies. One of her friends said she looked like she had been violently wrenched from life. Billie holliday would go anywhere theyd have her. No mart what they did, she always sang strange fruit. And it really helped me to think about the addicts in my life if were honest theres a bit of a drug warrior in all of us, and theres a bit of all of us that thinks someone should stop you and feels really angry some of the time. And it really helped me to know that addicts can can be heroes. Her friend, annie ross Billie Hollidays friend said to me billy Billie Holliday wasnt week, she was as strong as she could be. I wanted to understand how those dynamics continue into today. And i was introduced to someone, one of the best people i know a former transsexual crack dealer in brownsville brooklyn called chino. He was conceived in 1980 when his mother who was a crack addict was raped by his father who was an nypd officer. Deborah, his mother gets aids very early in the aids crisis because nothing was done to prevent the transmission of aids amongst drug users. In fact, the thing that would help, the distribution of clean needles, was a crime. People were prosecuted under the Drug Paraphernalia act. So his mother dies. And when hes 13, he becomes a crack dealer on his corner. He helped me understand what happens with drug dealers. I didnt want check but i didnt check, but im guessing theres a liquor store on this street right . If we go in there, any of us, tonight and we try to steal the beer or vodka and i apologize if you feel like doing that after i speak theyll call the cops. That liquor store doesnt need to be violet. If we go up to the local weed dealer or the local coke dealer and try to steal their goods they cant call the police. Right . The police will come and arrest them. Theyve got to be terrifying. Theyre either got to fight you, or better yet, establish a reputation for being so frighten ping that you wont dare taking them on. Chi know had to learn to be forfying. Chino had to discipline his gang by whipping them if they got out of line. Chino had to shoot at people, had to be adepress e and violence. Aggressive and violation. Prohibition creates a culture of terror. This has got nothing to do with drugs, right . If you banned milk and people still wanted to buy milk, exactly the same dynamics would happen. This is not about drugs, this is about prohibition. You will notice that the liquor store over there, theyre not going and shooting the people who work in the drinks aisle in walmart, right . That never happens. And alcohol prohibition, alcohol sellers were killing each other. What happened was chino starts to rise through the crips hes sent to a youth prison. To send chino and his four fellow gang members to the youth detention facility cost a Million Dollars a year. I dont know if theres anybody here who can think of Something Better we can do but if youve got any ideas im happy to talk about them. And chino rises, his whole life is malformed. He starts using crack because as he put it to me, i wanted to know what my mother chose over me. And when hes in his early 20s, he gets out of prison and he starts to read about the drug war. And he discovers something that blows his mind. This isnt a law of nature. This isnt something that just happens in the world. Its not like a tsunami, a hurricane, this is a political choice. What happened to chinos mother what happened to chino, his life in rikers, his life in a prohibited market, all of that, it didnt have to happen. Chino became a campaigner against the war on drugs. His First Campaign was to shut down sparta the youth prison he was put in. And he succeeded. It no longer exists. Chinos also a really articulate exponent as explaining how much what this is about. When Harry Anslinger found out Billie Holliday was a heroin addict, he also found out judy garland was a heroin addict. 17 of the people who sell drugs in the United States are africanamerican. They make up 65 of the people who go to prison for it. Just outside baltimore at the same time that chino was selling on his block a person called lee maddox was standing on the i95. Lee maddox was a cop, and she was arresting anyone she could find who she suspected of being a drug user. Lee had long hair and a hot temper, her job was to get numbers. She knew that if you busted people, you get the cops get to keep 80 of everything they take. If they find you with coke in your car, they can take your car away. It was paying her way. Lee was thrilled. Lee could not have been a stronger believer in the war on drugs. Lee signed up to be a cop because her best friend lisa, who she grew up with they used to share an id they looked just alike, was murdered by what she believed was a drug gang. She signed up to be a cop to destroy drug gangs. That was why she went into it. But lee is an honest person. And lee noticed something. When youre a cop if you arrest a rapist the next week theres less rape in your town. If you arrest a dealer well, no one thinks theres less dealing. Theres always someone else on the corner. Crucially, lee noticed if you bust dealers, the murder rate actually goes up. And lee was like, how can that be . And what she discovered is that if you think chino, chino establishes a reputation for terror on his block, he controls his block. If you kill or arrest chino, you just trigger a war between rival gangs to control his patch. You start a turf war. Huge numbers of people are killed. The nobel prizewinning economist Milton Friedman said there are 10,000 deaths a year in the United States three 9 11s as a result of those turf wars and theyre not just dealers. Tells the story about tiffany smith, a 3yearold girl whos playing on her stoop in west baltimore, gets hit in the crossfire. And lee didnt know what to do with this. And then another of her best friends, an agent who also believed in the drug war goes to do an undercover drug bust and hes shot by the dealer who just thought he was another dealer. And lee goes and looked at eds body, and she thinks i cant do this anymore and she quit the police force, and he retrained as a lawyer, and now she spends her time getting the sentences quashed, and lee is actually here today. Im proud to know her. [applause] i wanted to know what life is like on the supply routes. This dynamic were talking about, this dynamic of creating as Charles Bowden the writer, put it the war on drugs creates the war for drugs. Thats horrific in a lot of places. In this city its one of the worst. One city where i this oi of its even worse, Ciudad Juarez. Its on the border with texas in el paso. I would stay every night in el paso, and every morning i would walk across the bridge, and it was bizarre. You walk across the bridge into what feels like an American City theres a kfc theres a deppnys and murder has effectively been legalized. And the way it really helped me to understand the story of whats happened there is through the story of mary [inaudible] she never sold drugs in her life, no one in her life used or sold drugs. She happened to live in Ciudad Juarez. She had a daughter called ruby who was 14 years old. One day [inaudible] he turns up and he says, look, ive got a kid, i need some work have you got anything i can do, and mary was a and he starts to flirt with her daughter whos 14, and marys like get out of here right . And ruby runs away to go off with sergei. And mary goes to the police, as none here would do and says look, this guys 21, hes having an affair with my daughter whos 14, and youve got to stop him. The police do nothing. Her daughter wont come back she tries to keep her daughter in her life, the daughter gets mr. President marys heart broken. Ruby has a baby. And one day mary turns up, and rubys not there. But her babys there. And sergei says ruby ran away. She ran off with another man. And mary says no no, no, she didnt run off with another man and leave her child with you. I know she wouldnt do that. He says, well, thats what happened. So mary decides to distribute leaflets all over juarez saying have you seen my daughter . Nothing happens. After a while, a kid calls her, and hes terrified. She has to drive out far into the desert with him, and he says to her i helped dispose of your daughters body. Sergei killed her. I can tell you where we dumped the body. And she goes, and she finds the bits of her daughters body. And she goes to the police and says youve got to do something, and the police wont do anything. She still doesnt quite understand why. And mary eventually campaigns. And in the witness box, sergei breaks down, and he apologizes to her and says im sorry for what i did, and he anytimes what he did he admits what he did and two weeks later hes acquitted, and he disappeared. Sergei worked for the Mexican Drug Cartel. If you imagine a Housing Project in baltimore lets say 5 or 10 is in the hands of armed criminal gangs selling drugs, thats going to be a lousy place to live. 70 of the economy of Ciudad Juarez is in illegal drugs. They can outbid the state. I was being shuttled around by the reuters correspondent, and he kept introducing me to people who had been killed by the police. I said this is important, i need to meet people who have been killed by cartels, and he said, you dont understand the cartel pay the police to do it. She would not accept it. She decided to track down sr bay sergei. She turns herself into a detective, she quits her job, and she spends three years tracking him all over mexico. She becomes a crack detective. And with her friends, who are mothers of the missing, she walks across the desert. She walks thousands of miles. And after three years, she finds him and she goes to the police, and they let him get away again. And she goes and stands outside the Governors Mansion in chihuahua, and she leads this protest, and shes become a symbol of everything. And she stands outside as she makes this amazing speech about how people in mexico deserve justice. And in front of all the police a man walks up to her and shoots her in the head. A woman whose wages you pay, Michele Leonhart, was asked about the 60,000 of deaths of civilians in mexico in the last seven years, and i urge you to look up the clip. She said it was a sign of success in the war on drugs. When i went and talked to marys best friend in a shack in juarez, i i said to her, it really stayed with me what she said. I said to her, werent you afraid . And she said, we were terrifiedment terrified. But sometimes your love for your kids stronger than your fear. And theres something in the hope of that that i contrast with what Michele Leonhart said that really stayed with me. I another thing i really wanted to understand was what causes drug addiction. If you had said to me four years ago what causes heroin addiction, i would have looked at you like you were a little bit simple minded, and i would have said heroin causes heroin addiction, right . For 103 years weve been told a story thats so obvious that its become part of our common sense. Its really easy. We think that the first 20 people on these rows, lets all use heroin for 20 days because theres chemical hooks in heroin our body would physically need the heroin, and thats what addiction is. We would physical hi crave it right . Physically crave it, right . The first hint i got that there may be something wrong with that theory, was a guy pointed the out to me if any of us step out into the street now and were hit by a car and we break our hip, well be taken to hospital and its very often well be given a lot of morphine. Its heroin. Its much better than youre going to score on the streets because its 100 pure as opposed to street heroin which is about 510 . Youll be given that for a really long time. Thats happening at johns hopkins, at every hospital in baltimore, every hospital in the United States. People are being given a lot of heroin right . You will notice something a bit weird which is your grandmother was not turned into a upkey by her junkie by her hip operation. If what we think about addiction is right, those people should be leaving hospital as addicts. That doesnt happen. And i was trying to process this, i didnt know what to do with it, it seemed so well. Until i met a man called bruce alexander, professor in vancouver. And he explained to me the old idea of addiction, the one that i believed, the one that almost all of us believe because of a series of experiments that were done earlier in the 20th century, theyre experiments that you can go home and do yourself. You get a rat and you put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water and one is water with either heroin or cocaine in it. If you do that the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself. So there you go. Addiction is our theory con officialed. Until confirmed. Until 1970s bruce comes along and says hang on a minute, were putting the rat in an empty cage its got nothing to do, lets try this differently. So bruce built rat park. Rat park is heaven for rats. Everything your rat could want, its in rat park. Its got cheese, its got colored ball, its got friends to have sex with [laughter] its got tunnels. Everything a rat can want is in rat park and theyve got both the water bottles, the drugged water and the normal water. And, of course they try both because they dont know whats in them. Heres the fascinating thing, in rat park they dont like the drugged water. They hardly are ever use it, none of them ever overdose none of em ever use it in a way that looks compulsive. Theres a human experiment going on all around us in baltimore about this. But what bruce says this tells us that both the rightwing theory and the leftwing theories of addiction are right. The rightwing theory is youre morally flawed, you party too hard, you get hooked. The the leftwing theory is the drug takes you over it hiking hijacks your brain. Bruce says its not your morality, its not your brain its your cage. Addiction is an adaptation to your environment. There was a fascinating human experiment going on about this at the same time as rat park. It was called the vietnam war. 20 of american too manies in vietnam troops in vietnam were using smack, and they were really worried because they believed the old theory of addiction, so they were like, my god, all these people are going to come back, and were going to have hundreds of thousands of junkies on the streets of the United States. What happened . All the studies show they came back, and almost all of them just stopped. They didnt go to rehab, they didnt go into withdrawal they stopped. Because if youre taken out of the hellish jungle where you dont want to be and its a nightmare and you could be killed any moment and you go back to your nice life in wichita, kansas, with your friends and your family its the equivalent of being taken out of the first cage and being put into the second cage. This has huge implications for the war on drugs because its based on the idea that the chemicals cause the addiction and we need to physically eradicate those testimony chemicals from the face of the earth. Now, i dont think thats physically possible. We cant keep drugs out of prisons, and we pay a lot of people to walk around walled perimeterrings. You can perimeters. You can at least grant theres a philosophical coherence, right . If, in fact, thats not what causes i addiction if, in fact, the vast majority of people who use those drugs dont become addictioned f, in fact, isolation and pain are what causes adduction, that forces us to think differently about the drug war because its built on the idea of what we should do with addicts is inflict more pain and isolation on them. In arizona in the city they took me to the hole solitary confinement, and these women who were there, desperate, addicted women, and suddenly thought this is the closest you will get yet to a literal reenactment of the guaranteeing addiction. They wont be able to work they wont be able to do the things they love. I think it also has deeper philosophical implications. Theres a guy whos a professor who says we shouldnt use the word addiction, we should use the word bonding. The healthy bond, the bond that most of us have, is with each other. We bond with each other. But if youre deprived of the ability to bond with each other whether youre traumatized, cut off, humiliated or isolated, you will bond with something that gives you pleasure. That might be a roulette wheel, a bag of smack, but you will bond with something, and you will keep going back to those bonds. People like the people i love to give up their bond with heroin, we need to give them alternative loving bonds. At the moment we strip them of those bonds. Bruce talks about how in addiction we talk a lot about individual recovery, and that has huge value. We need to talk more about social recovery. Something has gone wrong with us not just as individuals, but as a group and we need to think about the fact that weve created a society where a huge number of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being heavily medicated. I want to tell you two stories about the end of the war on drugs. Good news, the war on drugs has begun to end. And i went to the places where its begun to end. And if im totally honest i actually put off going for a while because i thought if i go there and it didnt work, this would be the most depressing book ever written. [laughter] actually, what i saw really blew my mind n. The year 2000, at the same time chino is standing on his corner selling crack, a man could bud osborn was living homeless on the streets of the Downtown East side of vancouver. The Downtown East side has and had the worst concentration of addicts in north america. It was regarded as the place at the end of the line, people called it terminal city. And buds friends were die canning all around him. People would use behind dumpsters so the cops wouldnt see them but if you do and you start to od no one else sees you, your bodys found two days later. And bud said i have to do something about this. I cannot just watch all my friends die. But he also thought what can i do . Im a homeless street addict. Bud had a very small and very simple idea. He got together a lot of the addicts, and he said when were not using, which is most of the time, why dont we just patrol the alleyways . Well have a timetable, and if we spot somebody oding well call an ambulance. They start to do it, and a few months passed and the overdose rate started to really fall on the Downtown East side. And that was great many in itself, but it also meant the addicts started to say maybe were not the pieces of rubbish people say we are. Maybe we can do something. And they started to go loss of them en masse to Public Meetings about the menace of the addicts, and they would sit at the back and theyd listen. And after a while one of them would put up their hand, and theyd say i think youre talking about us. Is there anything we could do differently . And sometimes people would be really angry and sometimes theyd be quite nice, and theyd say, well, you leave your needles lying around and bud said, thats fine. Well extend the parade. Well collect the needles at the end of every day. And they started to. And then bud learned about frankfurt, germany. They had opened a safe injecting room, a place where you could legally use heroin, and the overdose rate had fallen dramatically, and bud said right, were going to make it happen. And they started to stalk a man who was the mayor of vancouver. Picture mitt romney, phillip was a rich rightwing businessman who had no idea about anyone who had had any pain in their life, right . [laughter] and they started to follow him everywhere he went. He actually said the addicts should all be taken to the local military base and be detaked there detained there. They started to follow him, and they carried a coffin, and it had written on who will die next before you open a safe injecting room . And this goes on for two years and theyre starting to get disillusioned because people are still dying in huge numbers. And one day phillip owen just says, who the hell are these people . And to his eternal credit he goes incognito to the down up to east side, and he just spends a lot of time with addicts. And his mind is blown. He had no idea. And phillip owen goes to meet Milton Friedman whod grown up under alcohol prohibition and learns from Milton Friedman and phillip owen comes back to vancouver, and he holds a press conference, and he has the chief of police, and he has the coroner and a representative of the addicts, and he says im never going to talk about addiction without an addict with me. Things are going to change, just you wait and see. And they open the first injecting room and phillip o end went is deselected by his own party because theyre so horrified. The rightwing candidate is beaten by the more liberal candidate who keeps it open. Ten years on, overdoses have fallen by 80 and average Life Expectancy on the Downtown East side has improved by ten years. You only get stats like that at the end of a war, which is what this is. Bud died last year. He was only in his early 60s but hed been a homeless addict in a drug war, and it takes a toll on you. And when he died, they sealed off the streets where he had lived homeless to have a memorial service. Enormous crowds of people came, and huge numbers of people in that crowd knew that they were only alive because of what he had done. If youre listening to me and youre thinking the drug war is a really big thing and we are powerless and what can we do, i want to tell you you are so much more powerful than you know. Bud was a homeless street addict. Its hard to think of a more disempowered perp. He started a revolution that has led to the saving of thousands of peoples lives. The Canadian Supreme Court as a direct result of his activism have ruled that addicts have an inalienable right to life, and that includes a safe injecting room and that can never be taken away now. He did that by starting one day on one street with a bunch of addicts. I also wanted to go to the only mace in the world thats de place in the world thats decriminalized all drugs from cannabis to crack and tell you the story about it. In the year 2000 portugal had one of the worst drug problems in europe. 1 of the population was addicted to heroin, its a worse drug problem than in baltimore. It was mind blowing. And every year they tried the american way and every year things got worse. And the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition got together, and they basically said we cant carry on like this. Wewe cant have a country where 1 of the populations addicted to heroin. So they said look, why dont we set up a panel of scientists and judges and doctors to figure out what to actually deal with this, and lets agree in advance all the Political Parties will do whatever they recommend so just kick it out of politics. Itd be like obama and john boehner agreeing do you know what i mean. Itd be like that. To be fair to them, they stuck by it. The panel says decriminalize everything, but and heres the crucial next step take all the money we currently spend on arresting drug users, trying drug users, imprisoning drug users, lets use all that money on really good drug treatment. And its mostly not what we think of drug treatment of in the United States. Some of it was residential rehab, some of it was psychological support. Huge and valuable. The biggest thing was learning the lesson of rat park. We can all be drunk now. Forget the drug laws, we could all be drinking vodka, right . Why arent we . Because weve got something to do. Weve got meaning and purpose in our lives. Weve got things we want to be present for, people we want to be present for in our lives. The aim of the portuguese decriminalization was to make sure that every addict in portugal had something to get out of bed for. So the biggest element of the program was subsidize jobs. Say you had a smack problem you used to be a mechanic. Go to a garage when youre ready, and theyll say if you employ this guy for a years well pay half his wages. Micro loans for groups of addicts to set up businesses. A group of 15 addicts set up a removals firm, and suddenlied that that this incredible support group, because if youre one of those 14 and you relapse, the other guys have a really strong incentive to help you and get you clean. And its been, what is it, 14 years now. And, again the results are in. Injecting drug use is down by 50 in portugal. All the studies show addiction is down, overdose is massively down hiv transmission is down and moving into these areas [inaudible] i cannot say portuguese names, i would always get it wrong, and he led the campaign against the decriminalization. He was thinking what a lot of people watching this would be thinking which is surely if you decriminalize, youll have a massive explosion of use all sorts of problems. And he said to me and im paraphrasing, everything i said would happen didnt happen. And everything the other side said would happen did. And he talked to me about how ashamed he was that he spent 20 years arresting and harassing drug users. And he hoped the whole world followed portugals example. I dont want to get too billy graham on you, but i do feel like ive seen the future, and it works. [laughter] and, you know, two wars began in 1914, two global wars. One is the war on drugs that hasnt ended and one was the First World War that ended for four years. And web i was looking at the accept tenly of the First World War, i looked at those amazing images of the graves in normandy and france, all these graves stretched out for miles and miles. And i tried to imagine if all the people from the war on drugs were buried in one place, who would be there . Youd v. A. Billie holliday and all the songs she never got to sing, youd have chinos mother, lees friends, lisa and ed, youd have buds friends who died behind dumpsters, youd have is a lot of people who were loved by people in this room. Weve got a choice. Weve got another century. We can fill that graveyard with far more people, or we can choose a policy of love and compassion that will save a huge number of those lives. Its up to us now. Thank you. Thanks very much. [applause] weve got asylum for some q a got some time for q a. Theres a mic here, please line up and use the microphone. Im going to, i should just say two things. One is all the events ive done, almost all the questions have been from men so im going to try and police it so we have half women, and the other thing is do you think theres a connection between the war on drugs and aliens . And i thought he meant like illegal ail yets so i started giving an answer like people smuggling, and he said, no, no i mean extraterrestrials. I had to say i dont think theres a connection between extra dress tools and the war on druggings, so as long as your question is not about that, ill be very, very happy. We should come to this mic . What do you reckon . Because its being filmed so we should if you just want to ask a question, come to this microphone. Yeah sure, do you want to come first . Thank you. Good evening. Very good presentation. You mentioned about a country that has legalized all drugs, i believe, can you describe about the country, and how is that working out as far as helping society of young people, how are they being educated . So the country thats decriminalized everything, this is an important distinction. That means you dont punish people for using, legalization means you establish a legal route for getting the group. Portugal deals with some of the problems but not others. Theyve shut down orange is the new black, but they still have breaking bad. And thats not good enough right . So is i went to a country where they legalized heroin. Ill give you a good example. Im also a swiss citizen and switzerland legalized heroin and this is really shocking because switzerland is a really rightwing country. One of my swiss uncles was writing a book about the war on drugs, he said ah, they should make the addicts dig their own graves and shoot them into it, is that what your book says . [laughter] i said not quite. So what i did in switzerland if youre a heroin addict, you go to a doctor, and the doctor will refer you to a clinic. And at that clinic you can go every morning or afternoon whenever you want to go, and theyll give you heroin, whatever dose of heroin you ask for. You cant take it out with you but you can be given it there. And the results are really fascinating. And theres lots of one was unexpected. I asked this doctor there, rita, so they can carry on for as long as they want with the heroin, and shes like, yeah. Shes but the fascinating thing is almost everyone the chaos of street use and having to scramble for street use and the prostitution and the property crime, all of that stops. Most of them start to get their lives together. They get jobs, and they choose to reduce the heroin over time because their reality gets better, they choose to stay in reality longer. And, you know, 70 of swiss people voted to keep that policy twice partly because theres so much less street crime. Street prostitution ended. Theres much less mugging much less violence. So yeah, should we get to the next . Great, thank you. Can we take a woman . Do you mind sorry, i promise well come to you. Thank you. Hello. [inaudible] so i work for a Provider Agency that does communitybased alternatives for kids in juvenile detention. We use a wrap around advocacy approach which is all about connection, so youre helping to impose peace is why im hear here today. It really resonated with us. Last week i was in pennsylvania in harrisburg talking to a legislator that clearly was like, you know, people are addicts, they make those choices, we have to punish them. Is so what is a narrative we can use those of us who are experienced that tell us what youre saying in your week that we could use for naysayers who are in positions of authority and power to actually make those changes . If its fluffy or, you know feel good or you want to hug a thug kind of thing which i think well, thank you for work youre doing because thats sorely needed and really important. I guess what i would say is weve had a massive dehumanization of addicts in america, britain and all sorts of other places. Theres no other minority i can think of where when they die, lots of people say, well, they brought it on themselves, when Amy Winehouse i died lots of people were saying, well they put it on themselves. Even a homophobic perp if elton john died wouldnt go, good. Its about humanizing addicts and telling the real stories and its part hi about people just coming out, you know . Like how did we change you know 1963, the stone will rise right . 2000 years of gay people being persecuted. The the defenders of gay people, the progay position was to say theyre not evil, theyre sick. That was the progay position. And what happened . People told the stories of gay people in their lives and incredibly brave people said im gay, and im not the way you think i am. Its partly stories about coming out, its partly like you have on the window black lives matter which is hugely important. I think we need the message addict cans live addicts lives matter. I went to arizona the place i went with the chain gang, i interviewed this woman called donna who works on prisoners rights in arizona. And i said to her this question i asked people over time, any journalists in the room this question always gets interested. Tell me about something that shocked you. And she went through this long list and somewhere do you want the list she said there was the time they put that woman and cooked her, that was bad. And i did the facial expression that a lot of you guys did just then and i go sorry, donna, could you go back a second . There was a woman called Marsha Powell. She kept being arrested for having meth or prostituting herself to get meth. One day she woke up in perryville prison, and she was suicidal. And the doctor didnt believe she wassed suicidal. But to punish her for making noise, they took her and put her in this cake. This is arizona in this cage. This is arizona, an exposed cage in the desert. They left her there, and she screamed and begged for water and the guards mocked her and eventually she collapsed and by the time they called an ambulance, shed been cooked. No one was ever criminally punished for what they did to Marsha Powell because addict cans lives dont matter in our culture. And they went and found the father of her children and got the story of her life which is heartbreaking and like Billie Hollidays story. She was trying to stunt her grief. I think its partly explaining that addiction is caused by pain, and we need to to just tell a lot more real stories of real addicts. And, you know, i actually think most people are pretty compassionate, you know . Most people are decent people, and most americans are lovely like all of you. [laughter] and, you know, if we tell those stories, i think that kind of mad, vindictive lets cook them in cages in cages memberralty, i think, will not thrive. That is an enormous and some of money. Transferring money from some things that make the deduction worse to something that helps people turn around their lives, details would be different and what works in mississippi does not work on the upside but experiments cautiously and be humble. And absolutely working United States. And that story of how that incredible campaign, fantastic people, please come forward. The light is blinding me. Hello. I have a question about the process of researching and wondering about the broader connections, how much of that became clear as you were traversing geographic space after analysis . Anyone who wants to be a writer, it is amazing. A brilliant analogy, i know nothing about nature but heritage what about a beehive and you have a big job, hold it there for a minute and it freaks out and will always go in the direction of the high. Go as far as you can and you will lose it to catch another be let that one go, 15 times you find the hive. That was the basis of my book. I started a list of people, interesting, i wanted to read them and said should i talk to . I found so many people. It was a fascinating process. Sometimes you speak to unknown people landed is nice and interesting to gather everything forward and that is the process. So high. I was very interested to hear your take, refreshing to hear the cause of addiction is pain and the solution whether it is dysfunctional solution or societal solution would be providing bonding. The have any familiarity with the sociologists renee brown and her work in shame and the unspoken rule in our society, almost universal cause for disorder, and happiness and malcontent . I came across the work from texas and you had a chance, it changed my life and to hear those words yet again in a different context was something that i could reference. Definitely of video and youtube went viral. One of the harrowing moments of her life, she herself was introverted and struggles, a genuine nature to where she comes across watching that met me to the rest of her work. It is a fascinating person, during the holocaust there was a woman who was convinced she was going to be murdered by the nazis she was jewish. Apparent had been murdered by the nazis. She went to a christian stranger and said take my baby, take it. And is a fantastic person. Starting to work with hardcore addictss and we noticed one thing they all had in common they all had horrific childhoods, sexual abuse, physical abuse, far more than the wider population. It was he would compulsively by cds you never listen to which is not quite crack addiction but he would abandon women in the middle of later, run off to buy loads of it and started to think about that and looked into this a fascinated the thing. The experiences, they studied it on children and every traumatic event that happens to a child they are 2 to 4 more likely to be and injecting drug users, there is a stronger connection between childhood trauma and the dollar addiction than diabetes and obesity which is mind blowing. It is related to the shame they feel. When you are a kid the way you internalize this usually it is your mother, when you are upset or in pain. When you calm yourself down. And when they react to your crime with indifference and accidental seating. And different deductions. If you go through childhood trauma harder to form bonds with the world, you are more suspicious of the world. Much more likely to be isolated, more likely in the second cage. There was a woman in the line of immigrants, thank you for your question. I am looking forward to reading the book. I had a question about the Un Convention on drugs and whether you had an opportunity to talk to anyone affiliated with the un and changing policy internationally. Used to be the head, one of the main u. N. Drug agencys. And and writing those things theres a quote from him which should be the slogan for the drug war. I dont think those policies will work. And at the end of it, in the gulf of Mexico Mexico had a drug policy in the 20s and 30s. There was a doctor in charge of drug policy and marijuana was not harmful and treated with compassion and shot that thing down. And a ride in agony in mexico. After the Second World War countries are Still Holding out like thailand, and basically the u. S. Is dominant at the end of the Second World War. One of the few things they agreed on. These two superpowers unite to write these disasters so drug control, bodies impose the drug war on the world mainly funded by the u. S. And the u. S. Pressure. What is really fascinating even the what proportion of currently illegal drug use doesnt do any harm to the user . That are addicted with health problems, no harm at all. It is 90 , and and if i say to you picture cocaine use the picture an addict. And in fact it is different from alcohol users as the result of that drug but it drives normal drug use underground so we dont see it. You would be pretty foolish if you came up to me and announced on facebook or anywhere that you are a cocaine user. Your boss is googleing you and you dont get a job so the effect reinforces itself or creates a distorted picture of drug use the then speeds the drug war itself. My Free Association of questions. Talking to folks and turning i dont think it is about that. People at the top. Not exactly right. It is never going to get changed. There were a lot of people who disagree with the slogan. I dont need the truth to henry kissinger. Finos he is just the psycho. The impact on the war on drugs. And and keeping the police away from what they are doing and police have a plan to send new officers in this community but are there other examples you know of of these types of holistic communitybased efforts where Community Members are trying to organize themselves . It is supplemented by local law enforcement, and i know marijuana is used in maryland decriminalize or legalize elsewhere but it seems like theres no end in sight faas so legalizing that or punitive measures being face and the staff stuck out to me about when you arrest one drug dealer theres more violence that results in it but it seems they said it is crazy to reason with people in power but seems like that is not people just ignoring that just pretending that is not the reality so if you have any insight on that. The best example is vancouver. Matthew falk the speech he gave, happened in the drug war. If you have got a lot broken by half the population which the drug laws have been, you cant put half the population of the United States in prison although they are giving it a fair shot. What you going to do . Go after the most unpopular in the speech a cop in d. C. I am paraphrasing here, went to his boss one day, why do drug raids when well go to black neighborhoods . I am pretty sure white people use drugs. Of course they do but wait people get layers, white people know journalists, low hanging fruit. I am law for moderate reform but ultimately compassion is the framework of the drug war and wont get as far. Any incremental change is better if includes one persons wifi and in favor of it but if things stay bad to prove how bad they are and things will change any incremental change is good but i dont think people say policeing can be beneficial but ultimately if we transferred drugs to armed criminal gangs we have drug laws that the only be enforced against minorities is going to be awful. Sorry that is not more hopeful but there is hope. We talked about legalizing. Like heroin legalization means Different Things for different drugs. No one wants a crackdown on cvs, no one is proposing that but the way it works is what we have at the moment is anarchy. And known criminals still unknown chemicals, and known users in the dark. We dont know what is going on. We already expand the regulation, legal regulation. There is regulation that already exists for dangerous drugs. We have with the regulation for alcohol encouraging people to expand. Drugs like ecstasy and we cant buy powerful sleeping pills much to my dismay. And include that to apps in switzerland so successfully. At the vancouver model, you save spaces where you didnt leave. Legalization doesnt mean anarchy and freeforall. We have a market free for all. And extending control. The next in line, you are next in line. Thank you. A couple questions. Just one. My question is i came on a little late. How did you come to this topic for your research and what was your initial mentality before you started understanding of the war on drugs . We had an addiction in my family cocaine and tranquilizer addiction. A lot of people have that background. I was always drawn to relationships, on and off relationship, crack problem. Would you consider clinics in switzerland and also vancouver to be analogous to mexico for drug addicts or even nicotine. Something is complex, you need a range of options, one solution to the addiction, a addiction is complicated 4 different people. Abstinence base treatment, reconnected, a big part of the menu. A whole range of things. Dont want to take anything off the menu. Not to mention interesting patches, for got to make it in mind speech. It is important to understand there is a chemical component to addiction. Not the story we have been told is totally false that is a relatively small part of the picture and we know from an experiment people have taken part in what percentage it is. Menthol cigarettes are less addictive and we know chemically compelling part of tobacco is nicotine. There is that huge statement by american officials like smoking is going to end, the drug you are addicted to without filthy carcinogenic smoke and what happens . People wearing nicotine patches in this room wanting to go out for ecigarette, they dont work very well. 17 of people these nicotine patches can stop. 17 is the chemical compound is enough to stop your addiction. That is a lot. If you stop 17 of smoking, not for many dismissing that. 17 is a lot less than 93 . It is not what we are talking about. Lets just go . Thank you. Seriously. It is not just about the addiction or people who are seen as addicts but the fact that you are creating a more vibrant conversation about pain in the queue and species as far as the human species needs to learn to face emotional pain and deal with it in more intelligent ways because it affects all kinds of things. In Baltimore County we have a school we call the consciousness school and addicts and non addicts, we teach people how to bond with themselves, and we use holistic techniques, meditation and breathing and movement and all kinds of things and i have the honor of being able to train facilitators to help with these deep parts of themselves including addiction and not just addiction of substances but behavior. I know what i say to people. And ends with a loving people too much make an code dependent to be manipulated by an addict. I know what i say, i would love to hear what you would say. Thanks for what you said and the work that you do. When you were saying that i am blanking on the name, it was so amazing. Dont know how much longer since i went to the city but it was six months or Something Like that and there were all these addicts in this room being massaged and taught to play trust games and how to express their feelings and there was this real emotion. I wanted to fly to arizona, grab those women and take them to portugal and you are totally right. As you want to research more about how we do these things could be really interested. I hate the concept of code dependency. It is absolute nonsense. It is loving some one. Remember that show called intervention . Intervention is a deeply evil show. Putting drug war logic into the ideas that you should say disconnection is the main driver of addiction, the idea of saying to an annex i am going to cut you off and we are as a group going to cut you off unless you go to rehab which by the way doesnt work very well. That is barbaric. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. The thing to do, this is very hard and i am not saying it is easy and i find it difficult to say that i unconditionally loved you and whatever you do weather you are clean or using, with their you are sick or well, i will always come and sit with you and try to be present with you. That is the only thing you can do to help an addict and you will be hard and a lot of times you wont be able to stomach it but it is the only thing that is ever going to work. The powerful language that moves from code dependency to love, i completely two more questions. Hello. I am formerly homeless at a 2016 candidate for mayor of baltimore. You have given me a lot of work for my platform which i include legalization of marijuana. My question is this, ending homelessness or any societal issue. We have the money to do it tomorrow but if we end the war on drugs tomorrow with all these great things that have been done in other countries we are exposed opposing capitalism, trying to get the money out of politics, you are taking jobs away from billions of people in the present Industrial Complex that facilitate the war on drugs so what are the steps to oppose that and solve the problem. Interesting question. Thank you. One of the biggest backers of the legalization in california was the Prison Guards union. I found that so depressing. What i said to those people, some people will lose their jobs in the war on drugs, Border Agents i cant of Better Things for cox to be doing, Prison Guards, i would say lets retrain those people to provide compassionate support for addicts. Theres loads of stuff they can do like if you legalize you can have young men who made a reasonable living drug dealing who will be unemployed. Take General Motors out of deflate troit. You see the return of africanamerican men who are incarcerated. One thing that is easy to lobby for is pardons. The president mass pardoning people for harmless offenses so that is something i have got fair. Next. Going to give at testosterone laden question. I want to say thankyou for your talk and piggybacking to the last question. There is a recent speaker who wrote a book called Drug War Capitalism focusing on why america superimposing this talk about the drug war on movement within Global Capital and looking particularly at mexico where there is a coronation between police and cartels and labor organizers, people who are sitting on rich resources and the influence of private prisons systems in the United States, benefits that perpetuate the lobbies for the war on drugs and whether you think there are any solutions without addressing that influence on politics and with you do any research on differences in places that did legalize this as well. A lot of things come out of that. The story and covered by the book has been positive, a crazy story, when drugs were first band in 1914, there was a pretty big loophole saying this doesnt cover addicts. They can go to the doctor and get their drugs. They carry on prescribing heroin. That loophole was shot down state by state. One of the last places to shut it down, the mayor of los angeles stands in front of the clinic and will not shut this down. Why was it shot down in california . It turns out the local joy chinese drug gamecocks were really annoyed. Drug addicts buy drugs from them and in california go to the doctor to get them so they bribed federal narcotics agents to introduce the drug war. They paid them to crack down. At the birth of the drug war armed criminal gangs are paying to be introduced. That tells you who benefits from the war on drugs and the dynamic is insane. The guy i went to texas and actually of all people i met he was one i felt most sorry for, and the texas side of the border which is the same place on the mexican side. When he was 13, they used to go back and forth to the border and was recruited for the data. It is horrendous stuff. And he would talk about how in mexico he would go with the police on his murder sometimes. It is like that nexus in the same way. I dont want to imply some people a conspiratorial and think that is not the case in america. When to get that influence out of politics, virtually every problem in this country cannot be solved until you deal with the corruption problem. Why we are not dealing with global warming, Oil Companies and politicians, while we not deal with health care crisis, while obamacare is good but not that good. That is a much bigger question in the drug war. You cant deal with the drug war without getting with that. One other thing the difference between portugal, that is superinteresting, one of the biggest differences is get those in switzerland and portugal, what they couldnt do was act like people who were addicts with others in switzerland, a nice bottle picture postcard thing a nice little place with ordered parks. Some people see that with west baltimore where it is shot away and gets underway. They dont have any of that so part of the job part of it is humanizing people and saying we are all people who deserve a chance to live and a chance to be happy and can choose policies that do that. Thank you for