Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140329

I wrote it and i will be happy to field your questions. It is great to have something to refer to give in the corporate takeover and id like to begin with we did not have so much time and that you try to control the people who are supplying the commodity of the supply and demand. And we dont spend enough time on these resources on the demandside strategy. I am actually hoping young people make healthy choices and we are talking about minimizing the harms of marijuana and what we need it to be about with this initiation. Because that is what we need to do. If we can protect children and help them make smarter decisions, we want to do that. That is a major battle. Once children get to be 21, 25 years old, preferably in age, the risks are diminished demonstrably. So in this powerpoint, most of us would agree, we do have some questions. First, what are the egg increases in heavy use. We have to consider the factors. Alcohol use has actually fallen since 1970. And its then that in the absence of any significant controls on alcohol advertising. And so the use has been cut in half in Washington State and cut in half since we finally started investing in the demandside strategies and essentially providing strategies that work. Will be talking about what about what a father of two what do. We met with experts of prevention, treatment, Law Enforcement, the university of Washington Research group is very wellrecognized that actually studies what works with prevention. And what they will tell you is that what we know about the programs now compared to 30 years ago is significantly different. And so it actually does work. Because just the same node does not work. What actually works is how we are talking about increasing investments for children. That is not necessarily just giving them information. It can be the opposite of that. And what we do need is to get an effective prevention strategy funded. We dont fund them consistently. And that is what the initiative guys. And we have spent 80 doing that and we had conducted costbenefit analogies in 2015, 2017, 2022, 2032. And it leads to a Public Health model and that is what is missing from a lot of different policies is regular evaluation and giving policymakers the data that they need. So what this prevention does and we should be very worried so state legislation and we have supported it in this way and the excessive tax for marijuana was an ordinate sometimes. Im not terribly confident that congress is the right body to help us shape marijuana policy. I dont think we are ready to establish a National Policy and im not terribly confident that the National Policy would be that beneficial for and 70 of this went to prevention and treatment i think that makes sense to let the states move forward and develop policies that work as to how we make better explosives rather than focusing on marijuana. And lastly i would like to lead to is lets think about not making this an anomaly. Were talking about this and trying to influence that and im not going to stop buying alcohol, so youre not helping me with a conscious choice. What if you actually told me . Did you know that budweiser and it is actually singling out the bad aspect of x, y, z. We are talking about reputation of cost that are significant. And we have to deny that certain part of the product. And even this is so restrictive they want to do better in their communities. So lets give them the option to do that so you will be doing better one person is selling gummy bears across the street from the school. And this includes conscious capitalism. And i am probably going to have a different opinion of what we are going to do. And i need to agree with this if we clearly understand what is happening with tobacco and alcohol. The National Survey on drug use said that five out of 10 are under age 18. An eight out of 10 are under age 21 and what this is showing you it is Illegal Drugs used over the lifespan. So the bars on the left are 12 year old and the bars on the right are 65 years old plus. So in order to show you what happens with legal drugs for the money that they have to increase consumption so we can see what is happening when we have legal drugs and legal addictive drugs that have money to market to increase consumption. And the bars on the right are 65 plus. The blue bars are tobacco and the green bars are now red. And here are the blue bars in the red bars. Unlikely as we become addicted, we need help. The Tobacco Industry had been sued by the state and the state can realize that they were putting out more money to treat tobacco related diseases through the Medicaid Programs than they were able to bring in taxes. As a consequence they sued the industry offering just how much the Tobacco Industry is part of treating addicted children. You can find hundreds of these examples in the Legacy Foundation database. The group said that if youre really selling this, youre going to be out of business in 30 years. We want to make sure that customers cannot afford our products, so they are talking about children. This includes product not regulated by the fda to attract children. This is one of many examples. Were talking about apple and eccentric or the apple industry does the same thing. Again because the industry is coming after them and this entices children to engage in that behavior. Lay commercial industry do the same thing . Well, maybe not. This is one of the products that is in fruit flavored drinks, sparkling red currant, sparkling blueberry. And we are talking about other medical marijuana states as we go through the rest of the slides. This includes what they sell and other miracle one and so this includes how we get addictive, klondike ice cream bars, other sweets. So we are talking about replacing incarceration with assessment and treatment and social services to help the people become unedited and its the best way of holding down the number of kids who engage in marijuana use. In colorado will not begin testing marijuana for contaminants until later this year and finding such things as molds and mildew and pesticides and other contaminants. Many of these kinds of products are being infused into foods and they have no control over whether this is good for you or not. And we believe that many believe that we should not do that because we cannot think of a single thing particularly among children. However if congress were to go there, based on david kesslers model for the Tobacco Industry. He said after eight years we are trying to control and let my understanding of the industrys power forced me to see those that prohibit the companies from the sale of an addictive drug. And he was trying to bring it to an end. He applied his model to marijuana, we can prevent another one from starting. Then it would charter a tightly regulated Nonprofit Corporation in my state indoor time sorry to tell you we have just passed the most extreme gunfights domination and was lobbied for by the association and a nonprofit organization. And this is governed by a Public Health board and the Public Health mission. This includes medical research and treatment and the valuation measure what is actually happening. In marijuana will be tested for the standards and would standardize these levels. And we would ban all forms of marijuana at a bulls and other things such as soft drinks and oils and waxes which are now testing out at 75 thc and higher display only a brand name, control distribution to prevent sales to children in less than and i think it includes an exit strategy to repeal the if the problems become a bit smaller. And i guess i have one more slide. Allowing the appropriate takeover in unnecessary increases in use. An Unnecessary School failures and gas for other related driving. And unnecessary rises in Mental Illnesses and Public Health and safety problems. [applause] thank you, everyone. It is great to be here. Im from the Brookings Institution and i hate to disagree with my good friend, but one thing, coming up with Public Policy and a whole lot of spheres. Although that has some disadvantages in terms of expertise so this is not one of the better managed. There are a lot of dogmatic certainties about what is going to happen. And the best ive heard from was my niece who said everybody, please calm down. And theres actually a lot of good news in the marijuana debate right now. And theres going to this pertain to the years of failure and thats a very good thing and give the thing to work with for a change almost anything you do is better than the present policy and this includes what accomplishments he has made and if you give me a week i might think of something. If you give me a week am i think of something good about what we have now in good news, number three. That implementation right on this is difficult. Its just difficult but the good news is getting the process right is very easy. What you need to do is try Different Things in different places and experiment with it and finally learn from those things that include policies. And that is part of what we are going to do with political event. And actually there are three models. And unfortunately in the United States because of federal law, that is part of the question right now. And the second one is legalization which colorado and Washington State are doing. These two things are not as different as you may have heard. They are not polar opposites. They are quite the same. Both involve very large predatory regimes on this market with criminal sanctions for people who break the rules. Too many of them dont go away and in some respects they become regularization in the distribution of marijuana and those are indeed the very different fast forwards. And im certainly concerned about you know the duel starlet is living about it if they mess it up. And thats really important to have in big corporations are part of this and we like theyre laundering operations and everything else. And i would also remind us that is pretty good at marketing to children and we know that. Not only does the illegal system marketed but uses children to market it as well. And here again there are some good news. And we are actually successful in this depends of how you count. One is industry selfregulation and the third is tobacco which is the most interesting and applicable thing. But the voluntary code of conduct. Including anyone who is too young to gamble. When you see tons of bad go out and gamble. Unless they are by the government. Alcohol is a huge market. Its just not going to happen. That is why the labels are so important. It is regulated with the Spirits Council and the wine institute. They have guidelines and 2008 the ftc did a report and found that more than 90 of these impressions were in fact leading to 70 standard imus is not a perfect world. So thats maybe not a terrible thing. And it comes out looking more like wine, for example unless like beer. And i think that is actually pretty good outcome and it is directly applicable to marijuana and cannabis honestly is a drug in 2009 is very recent history that we dont have to talk to much about it and this is something that tells us some of what this does. And that is a loophole. And there are nine warning messages that must be randomly displayed on packages and cover at least half of the packages for flavored cigarettes, no claims of reduced harm without fda approval and the samples are band without fda order. The colors are limited to black and white and ingredients must disclose and sometimes they say when you legalize marijuana theres no way you can stop these guys from advertising to stop area and until all of these models exist on one of them is clearly applicable and i think that we actually have some situations so we are going to work our best. [applause] id like to invite you up to sit with us. And wed like to have a little bit of a discussion of what we have heard. In recent surveys is here that i know i want to make sure that everyone can ask some questions of the staff. Every good here and if im going to move over. It is always a sign when we confront this and we have three of their agreements and the best way forward would be a government monopoly of the product. And i sense that that is something the three of you would agree with. And we live in a world where the public cant imagine doing anything right. Yet if i go to buy liquor in maryland or pennsylvania or utah or any number of states i have to go to an abc store in this includes the government store. Only in montgomery county. And this is something that we have had in america for around 70 or 80 Years Limited in the types of products that it sells. No fruit flavored drinks or waxes or hand lotions with a price that is set at least at the current price. And the government, as john pointed out, we do have a treaty obligation that is in the way of that. And it is something that we take that very seriously. But i dont see a downside of letting this be publicly operated. Party make that happen . In your piece of federal government should make that happen. So how do you . I dont want to disagree if we are on a triple track at the moment. Love it can be done as long as this is in the case. Because they cannot talk about this which they are. And once california legalizes it, which it almost certainly will, and we have a multibilliondollar commercial kind of industry, the prospect of rolling over that industry seems very slim. On the other hand if there is any state that wants to legalize , only if it has part of this. And thats not what i really want but better than what i got now and i thought that i could imagine people on this thing is not what we really want the better than what were going to get it really is just not a very good system. And so yes, actually, it is a felony to handle this but we probably will wont get to it if we do that. And this is not satisfactory. And if we are going to do it legally been weeding to do so the proper way. And at best its transitional and is not something that we should be out of the way. The Current Justice Department guidance is a crazy system. I think that we have overestimated the benefits of a government monopoly and i would talk about this with a government monopoly in it. And so if you have this theyre going to be marketing this product. That is my proposal. To get away from this everyone has to be a vendor to this day. And we can have an argument about First Amendment and it is an illegal product under federal law. There is some debate about whether or not its corollary freespeech constitutional protections and theres no First Amendment about that. Unlike the United States which have a government monopoly with the Scientific Research and it wont actually have an impact on this market. And i think that is true of the government being involved and you have to take into consideration whether or not it will be satisfied with this benefit will be in a separate building you have to travel to as you take away some of the ease and ability. All of those policy changes are available in the private market in exactly the ones is the day of the regulatory be in the policy considerations had to be a part of this. They had to have adequate availability to use the market do not make the market. So i just think that it will be something that we can achieve through writing a better lot. That we are not necessarily babysitting on that. Let me pick up on that and it is this sense that things are happening in a beneficial way as we do the statebystate approach. And i think most people that would agree that the way washington has regulated this marijuana market is as good as anyone has thought right now. And what assurance do we have that every state will be as responsible as washington. And there was a referendum on the ballot and it would be controlled by a group that will be selfcontrolled by marijuana producers. And it didnt pass having come relatively close. And what they did is build what they call regulatory capture directly into the regulatory part. But they didnt. If youre looking for assurances that states and legislators and the public will always be interested in, youre in the wrong city. It is not always how they work very it tries to and eventually count on the good sense of the public. I dont think that we actually know which will be part of this and what i really which would happen was that congress would pass a bill in the organization has maintained a position of being against legalization and it is a matter of you. Is it your sense that supporters of your position can . And also we have legalization it is a very tightly regulated system that is carefully regulated and that is where the public is we have some states going forward. And we have the press that has picked up on the situation. And im not sure theyre asking all the right questions so do you want to shop or your kids can go . So i think that the inevitability of it is not as strong as we might suspect. And so they have voted down the legalization after having approved the legalization bill earlier. And it may be more of a done deal. But im not so sure. Directors when i am sure a. And they are prepared to see if they will say no, we want to talk about what we will get. Natural legal prices candidacy they have in washington let alone what they have in colorado. But even 40 of nothing is nothing. And so i dont see anything that is going to keep us from getting the supercheap cannabis. Tobacco is also very cheap in many states are much lower and much too low. And your question is actually on advertising. 80 do not want to see an open Advertising Market even among those who are part of legalization. And for both of those we dont accept that legalization is going to be in a world where it is like a lego market. Someone between a third are smuggled. And the statebystate system and cannabis is much more able e to be smuggled in other and other things. A pack of cigarettes weighs about an ounce in your state has a hard time collecting a dollars per pound. And we see anything on the agenda that is owing to start that and as enthusiastic as people are, even folks that are now voting against this, you know, the republicans were all against it when it came time for the lower tax and the taxes were bad. It is the reason for if i were running a state system that i wouldnt do it is this but as an option on production rates. And they have very cheap cannabis in the three keep it almost doesnt matter. I would open it up if you have some questions. And we have a microphone. So please, mr. Woman right here can start. State your name and your affiliation if youve got one. The question has to do it the idea that marijuana could be a substitute for alcohol and the other day that we are going to have this, it turns out their marijuana is more or less a substitute including with people that are portable. So in that case could a commercialized industry with lower prices be a good thing. Including alcohol abuse. And it turns out to be a strong substitute it is partly questionable as a fact. So for example on the site in question, if youd test positive for the we encourage people to understand the they are separate and not together. Let they are separate and not together. Let me flip it over. It turns out that there are complements over time we need to be a heavy drinker later in life. Are you prepared to reconsider your position that you should legalize cannabis . A lady in the very doctor. Thank you. From the open society and nation. I really have appreciated this. One thing is the conversation around this and the corporatization of the new industry. In this opportunity to be part of this new marketplace and we have engaged the community for to have an impact on what the market would look like. With some Public Education about how they could get involved in the market and it winds up being the face of the war on drugs even with this level of shame and embarrassment and we have the war on drugs during the 80s. But we have this in an engaging situation cannot let this opportunity go by. And we should have the opportunity from a sociological standpoint to a government monopoly. Including the new regulatory market. Everyone thinks theyre going to get rich. People are going to get rich with the investors and theyre going to lose their shirts. Theres going to be a legal market instead of 10 per gram. At 3 per gram, people are putting dollars are going to go broke so id hate to see them get out and buying houses in 2006. Because someone is going to make money. And yes, a lot of them are going to lose but some of them are going to make money. Especially if you want to have this and i continue to disagree that the minorities and entrepreneurs should stay away from this business and where it has a history of. I have another view that if we are completely honest with ourselves, the drug th ourselves, the drug problem is not why we have unequal enforcement of the law. Its possible that the people who make money of this, and they are the ones that start advertising on super bowls and so forth. And they are working on this. But the truth is we dont know and we are in a very different world and the question is and i am not the only one and i think that they have negative brand equities and involvement with the existing and this could wind up not being very expensive. I cant imagine it to be. And its hard for me to see right here, mr. Woman and we actually have a corporate representation with what we are actually doing and we actually have been involved in implementation we have quibbled with the idea that things are actually tightly regulated on packaging and labeling them taxes coming in going very well. And substitution will be a good thing if it turns out the other way to change your mind about legalization. The question is why should the industry advertise freely and market marijuana as a substitute for alcohol so we can diminish alcohol use in the country and have people be encouraged to use it in bed and have a positive Public Health. If it were true there would be an argument for having lower taxes and regulations. There is easy relevance of that. It is all bringing these together. Good morning. I dont have any particular affiliation. I would just like to pose a question to the entire panel. I assume youre running on the assumption that what we want to do with the legal market is to diminish the size and the consequences of an illegal market. Now im wondering if the extent that some of the suggest the government would directly regulate a monopoly business, wouldnt that then create multiple incentives for there to be a black market running concurrently to the federal market for children, for people who might want to circumvent the registration a regime that you suggest so i would just put that out there. Its a good question. You have to distinguish between the shortrun and the long run. In the short when the regulatory system in washington has to compete with an illicit market and with the unregulated untaxed medical market and that puts an up or down on how tight the regulations will be. Also it seems to me it puts a premium on Law Enforcement. The day before you legalize cannabis you are rest of the marijuana dealer. All you are doing is creating a niche. Not really reducing the supply of marijuana at all. The day after you legalize you can arrest an illegal dealer and pushes customers towards the legal market. The benefits against illegal production and sale go of with legalization. They dont go up for very long because after couple of years there wont be any illegal market anymore than there is a substantial moonshine whiskey market. There are lots of states as you pointed out none of them have big moonshining problems. As alisons point people want a legal product. Its better better, its cheaper its labeled and you dont have to sneak around to get it so unless the illegal market has big advantages the legal market is just going to wipe it out but its going to require help from Law Enforcement to get there. Once you wipe out the illegal market then you can be more aggressive on regulation. I think the idea that we should then the concentration legal market would set up an illegal concentrated market. The only thing we have to admit is to sues point there is not very much we can do to keep something that is available to adults away from kids. We can keep the state licensed stores from selling it and we do a pretty good job of that with alcohol. That doesnt do very much to keep them from getting alcohol and in fact if minors are going to smoke cannabis which they are i would rather have them get processed and tested and labeled cannabis diverted from the state system than strictly Illegal Cannabis so i would work hard to keep them from buying it directly from the states. Steve davenport at Carnegie Mellon has paperwork on this that will be very important document. The gentleman back here. Thanks. Im eric sterling. I wear a lot of different marijuana related hats and i want to say what a terrific panel this has been and how much i have learned from everybody and how excellent the discourse has been. My question is what are your suggestions about what kinds of conversations family should have about marijuana use to discourage young people from using marijuana in either the current conversation, National Discourse and in the postlegalization environment . Im on the montgomery drug and alcohol abuse Advisory Council and i think we are struggling to figure out what should we be saying in schools and what should families be saying if the old is no longer valid . You sue . I think that its important to understand that as the country accepts marijuana first as a medicine and more recently as for Recreational Use into states that message that is coming out to children is its a safe drug. She comom its medicine. Why cant i use at . Im going to use it anyway. So the question about alcohol and tobacco is the same about marijuana and whether its legal or not in any other addictive drug. You have to be honest and you have to be certain. The Research Shows you have to be certain that you make a protective cocoon around your children and set guidelines for which there are consequences if they are broken. That is the most effective way of family can protect children. The second most effective way is to get together with the other families, the other parents of your childs closest friends and make a larger cocoon for those children. We dont tolerate alcohol use. Whether its legal or not we dont tolerate tobacco use for kids who are underage because its not good for you. It will hurt your brain. It will hurt your development and as long as you can get a peer group to reinforce that message with children you have your best chance of protecting them. But make no mistake legalizing marijuana gives the wrong message to kids and what we are seeing his increases in marijuana use since the discussion about that began in the early 1990s. He i just have got to call you on that. To say the reason the drug war failed in the early 90s is too many people criticized it and we should all be quieter and more accepting of it doesnt make sense. Thats the status quo. Its failing. I would love it if more folks would just recognize that. In terms of what to say i am not a parent so i dont really know but i come from a different tradition in which the zerotolerance message is often counterproductive. It teaches kids this stuff must be magic. We had alcohol, very bad tasting alcohol. Every friday night as part of a family ritual one thing that does is familiarize and make this a routine part of your life so the other kids were drinking up a storm because gosh i must be grown up if can use illicit alcohol. I was like this is really boring so im not sold on this dont discuss it message. He i would like to add to that because i see the aspect of building a cocoon around the children but the messages are so important. Not only is the zerotolerance for this forbidden fruit dynamic that its not credible. If we lose credibility with our children we have lost it all because parents and i am a parent, parents are the ones that children are looking up to. If you establish that relationship of trust and not in and expectations the expectations should be ones that respect the childs intelligence in the expectation should be i want you to weighed in here is why. The other piece i want to add to what both of you are saying is we have to not kid ourselves into the truth will set us free. We ought to look at tobacco which is not necessarily just focusing on the science of tobacco by focusing on what teenagers care about. This makes you and people wont have sex with you. That works. Lets look at exactly what works regardless of whether its scientifically accurate. Be strategic as well. Let me say youre bad tasting wine on friday nights is quite a different scenario from what kids face today with alcohol for example where they are exposed to it by their friends, by parents who allowed to happen and allow other people to come to their home and serve alcohol to them even though they are underage. That is really the pressure. It would be the same and it is the same with marijuana and its the same with any addictive drug you have to set standards and you have to set guidelines and no into you have grown up is a good message in the science supports that. But here is another science lesson. The American Jewish population has an alcohol prevalence of one. Everyone of the ethnicity has used alcohol and is used early early in the prevalence of alcohol abuse disorder is relatively small in the population. There are other populations in the u. S. With much higher rates of abstinence from alcohol and much higher rates of alcohol abuse. I think we should be focused on not which substances they use but whether they lose control of their behavior in modern prevention science is all around selfcommand not around specific misbehaviors. So look at the family wants to say no alcohol for you until you are 21 thats a reasonable guideline but i dont like its the only guideline and im not sure its the best. We have five form more minutes i want to get questions questions and so lets do three questions for the lightning round. This gentleman right here please keep your question short. There are two things i didnt hear on this panel that could focus on the industry, the cannabis industry which is home growing market integration. Colorado and washington have different views on that and uruguay as well that includes home grow so i wanted to see your opinion on the costs and benefits and the pros and cons. Young man on the far left. Just to follow up to the gentlemans question and analysis and comment. Price and availability are only part of the equation. Cigarettes for example are much cheaper and much more available to children than marijuana and yet fewer kids use cigarettes that marijuana and sort of related to that a lot of the concern over the corporate takeover of marijuana seems to be disdained for the idea of people getting rich selling marijuana. Rather than artificially inflating the price of erdogan and focusing on supply reduction if the natural cost of marijuana is zero then let it be zero. Theres every reason to believe based on our experience with cigarettes that but thats a much more effective approach. This gentleman right here. He a few weeks ago banks could provide Banking Services to marijuana related businesses. I was curious where you see that going and if you think i will have a Material Impact moving away from the cash only business on legalization . Okay so we have got homegrown we have got the possibility that lowering the price to zero wont be a bad thing and we have got the banking industry. Okay, please. In fact the single most effective prevention technique for kids is to raise the price of the cant afford it and all of the Research Shows us that. The more expensive it is the fewer children start all years. [inaudible] thats correct but that has nothing to do with the price and the taxing. Homegrown is one of the interesting alternatives to commercialization altogether. Anybody can grow it and give it away like tomatoes. I think we are past that. The problem with home grow in a world where its legal only in some states is that home grow can be a cover for commercial production and its very hard to get that under control. We will see what happens. Colorado and washington are contrast cases. We will see if the homegrown in colorado turns out to be a problem and if it doesnt i certainly have no objection to it create. Can i pick it back on home grow . The only reason we have home grow in washington is its a very restrictive hard alcohol model. It actually doesnt have that much of an impact. You can home grow and you can homebrew beer or wider whatever. I dont think homebrew has but i think home grow as a strategy for undermining the black market and this is the point of the greatest concentration of demand is an urban where people live in apartments. I dont think home grow has that much impact. 10 seconds. Banking is a great idea and treasuries trying to find a way. I think most banks wont accept the bait. All you need is some credit union and some players will not be an all cash business. We have that in Washington State. I agree with mark once one or two Credit Unions go. Folks bury him thank you very very much. Show your appreciation. Thank you all for coming and thank you new america for hosting this and thank you to the cspan audience. We really appreciated. Byebye now. Lets go here is the cover story the Christian Science monitor weekly. Heroines long reach, suburbs confront this gorge that road and behind a wave of prescription painkillers. Kristina lindborg is the author and she joins us now from boston. Ms. Lindborg when did you get interested in why did you get interested in this story . Guest interesting peter the way it came about, actually it was last november i was covering just a Panel Discussion this was for a another News Organization that has a lot of local newspapers so i was covering a Panel Discussion because the mayor had called this meeting with all sorts of town officials, the chief of police different people who were involved with the Youth Community services to talk about what had come to her attention with this problem of the heroin. People were finding needles in the most incongruous places like on the beaches are on the playgrounds. In a neighboring town a woman had been found unconscious peer issue is experiencexperiencing an overdose in a public restroom so this was all of a sudden coming out in a town or city i should say, a small city that never experienced anything like this before. Its a very affluent Seaside Community will. A lot of tourists go there. It has a very rich maritime history so anyway went to this meeting and i was surprised because i live in a neighboring town as well and i had never heard anything like this before. So i went back to my editor and i said you know i think this is a bigger story than just covering one event and one Panel Discussion about one town. I would like to pursue it and talk to a lot of the other neighboring towns. He said sure, go for it and they did. It was amazing how consistently i heard the same stories especially from Law Enforcement, the same stories every single time about the number of overdoses that they had to respond to and then the coupling of the heroin with it was never in isolation. That was sort of the beginning of what came forward and i did a threepart series in the Christian Science monitor asked me to just something and i was very grateful to have a more expanded view and broaden it eons just my region that kind of take in a more national feel for it. Host Kristina Lindborg you have a chart in your article, heroin use in the u. S. Showing that it has you know gone up at least 30 or 35 in the past 10 years and both biyearly users or those that have used it in the past month. Why this increase all of a sudden or why now is there an increase in heroin use . Guest you know thats an interesting question peter. I dont think they can point to any one particular reason but there are mitigating factors that seem to be undeniable and that is where the painkiller abuse comes in. As let me go back a little bit here. If there is that experimentation or sometimes its just following a prescription with a painkiller so these are really powerful opioids. There isnt theres a strong likelihood that once one goes down that road they are a diction is kind of a given in many situations so if the pills arent available and become higher and higher priced to get and that gets harder and harder than the cheaper route is to go to the heroin and that is what i tried to bring out of my story. That its not that people are necessarily actively seeking out heroin. It becomes just the easier route to go to after the pills arent available and theres a dependency on them. Host another thing you point out in your story is the heroin of today is a lot purer and its pretty accessible and cheap. Guest exactly. And that has been leading to a lot of as many would say the problems of the overdose too because Years Ago Police officer said years ago the kind of heroin that they would be finding in their arrests or whatever would be two or 3 at now its up to 80 . That means that people and new audience now is finding it and that heretofore would have had to be injected to get a high. Now they can snort it or smoke it and get the same high and then they get a date did and they will inevitably start injecting. Also because of that high concentration a lot of people who have gone through detox and it gotten off of it once they hit the street again if they have a relapse and they take it is way too powerful and it leads to an overdose. Host this article just appeared this morning that the state of massachusetts commonwealth has declared heroin addiction a Health Emergency. Governor Deval Patrick declared a Health Emergency over the rise of heroin and opiate addiction. Saying that over 140 people have died of alleged heroin overdoses just recently. Guest right, and im sure that thats not just a singular event for massachusetts. I think any states are experiencing this. I think its laudable that governor patrick has made that statement. Im hoping we will be able to talk about more in the course of the program that there are things that are being done. There are things that communities can do. There is now a growing awareness and thats the beginning of doing something about it. Its pointless for people to stand around clucking and feeling helpless and is too big for them. There are a lot of things that communities can do and they are doing it and you and i know that we can just legislate these things away. There has to be a concerted effort among all different types of people who are willing to take responsibility not just in addressing now the problem of the addiction that is present but preventing it for the future. Host Kristina Lindborg to this tweet from kiki says people are using heroin to replace pain pills. Some people have legitimate drop bombs but the u. S. Makes it impossible to get help. Is there a shortage of Treatment Facilities . Guest you know that wasnt the only line of my inquiry but the people that i did talk to i didnt get that feeling. I do think that there are for instance samhsa the substance im sorry its an acronym. If you go to their web site they have a lot of different links there that can point you out to different agencies that can help out. Even googling simply how do i get help with addiction it will, with tons of things. Just looking at what we have available in massachusetts and a lot of the people that i spoke with including recovering addicts in various stages of recovery they had gone that route. I think if you really want to find help you can and i do think thats one place where communities can pull together more and do something about that to make this more apparent for people who need the help. I think theres an awful sense of stigma that people are burdened with both the families that have a loved one that is a date did. They are ashamed of it and they dont want to talk to people and often they are shunned by their friends. Until and unless we can get over that and start an honest dialogue this is everybodys problem. This isnt just somebody elses town or city or somebody elses kids. This is our problem and we have to work on it together and that is the most positive thing that i was able to find when i spoke with people at Different Levels of trying to start coalitions in their towns and trying to pull different towns together. As you know it doesnt have a border or a boundary line. What goes on in your city or town look left or right in its bound to be there too so i think thats an important point to remember. Host we will put the phone numbers on the screen if you would like to talk to Kristina Lindborg Christian Science monitor venture vitter. Her article is on heroin use in the United States. 202585380 in Eastern Central timezones 5853881 and he can send a tweet. Estimated number of u. S. Heroin users a year up to 66,902,012. Lynn holly hansen asks via twitter Kristina Lindborg where does most of the heroin come from . The Drug Enforcement agent that i spoke with said they mostly look to mexico and colombia. Again the thrust of my story of my inquiry i really wanted to look at the people most directly affected. I think theres a great story to follow the trail but that wasnt what i wanted to pursue with this. I really wanted to talk to the people who are most affected. Host who were one of the people you talked with . Guest i talked to several. The interesting thing is i spoke with several kids at a Recovery High School and there were probably seven or eight kids that i talked to. The kids are very forthcoming. There are really to share their experiences. Not so much with adults but the kids that i spoke with i was reviewing my notes earlier and i was remembering that it was astounding to me. Most of them started something when they were 12. Most studies say the freshman year of high school is when most of the experimentation starts but these kids were all 12. They all have the same story. They started with drinking and or smoking marijuana and that quickly led to the pills and for most of them, there were a few that hadnt gone into the heroin but most of them that was the trail to heroin every single time. I think that it also begs the question because one person that i spoke with who works at a youth center in newport said we have a huge problem now with legalizing marijuana for medical use because we are telling the kids on one hand dont do this, this is bad and it can lead to other things and now there is that sense of well its medicine. That is what i have heard from a lot of doctors too in terms of of i wont say a lot of doctors but the one specific doctor who spoke out about the need for better education for doctors to have in terms of opioid prescribing. They cant have im sorry, cant remember where i was going this. There has to be that sense of what it is that they are taking. Its not a medicine that is just taken lightly. I think thats most important thing. Host Kristina Lindborg you reporting your article more than 12 main americans reported using prescription painkillers and 2010 without a prescription or just for the high that it caused. Nearly three out of four Drug Overdose deaths are now caused by prescription painkillers. In 2008 some 14,800 deaths were attributed to the pills more than cocaine and heroin combined and more than 475,000 emergency room visits were directly linked to prescription painkiller misuse or abuse in 2009. Guest thats right. What does that say . I think im going to throw that back to you then. What does that say about us as a society . I dont know. I think that certainly not a question that i can answer as a reporter. I can ask it and try to find the right people who might have given it some thought but i think the numbers speak for themselves. Host a American Hero tweets ins to you Kristina Lindborg what is the treatment for heroin addiction . Guest you know i think its a multistage thing. Again i would urge whoever wanted to find out or to just do that kind of research. My increase was talking more to people who were on the road to recovery. I do know that a lot of them had gone back and forth. Its definitely not easy. You need a lot of support from family and loved ones and friends and the community. That is where again i say its really important that whoever is trying to make that road to recovery doesnt feel shunned in any way or isolated or a need to feel shame. We all make unfortunate choices sometimes and everybody has to be supportive to help the community and the nation overcome this. Host two things to talk about specific way in your article. You talk about one family that spent 80,000 bucks they were going to use to remodel the kitchen for their daughters addiction and you talked about narcaine. Guest narcan is a stopgap measure. When Police Respond to an overdose call the ambulance people, i dont know if they go with the margo ahead of them or whatever but thats administered to bring the overdose victim out of it. It doesnt last. I think within 40 minutes they have to get the overdose victim to the hospital right away. Otherwise it will be reversed again but that is not a cure. That is just saving somebody from dying at the time of. Im sorry what was the other part of your question . Host. Talk about one family in newburyport massachumassachu setts that spent 80,000 bucks on their daughters rehab that they were going to use to remodel their daughters their kitchen. Guest that is what it would take. It was when she was at that rehab and of course that was when they found out that she had been doing heroin. All along they had been assuming that it was pills and smoking marijuana. They were floored. They had no idea. She came out of that and if i remember correctly there were still some ups and downs. It wasnt a fix as it were. There has to be that understanding that it might take several times and it might not. I think more noteworthy is the man that i spoke with in the article, mike who started his own organization because he had gone through the whole ups and downs. He had been homeless and living in a garage because of heroin addiction and didnt want his family to have to bear that burden. So there is a way out. There is a way out and you can do something about it. Its not easy to do it alone certainly but there are people, a lot of people out there who are willing to help. I think if everybody is doing their part and i feel like im doing my part by writing the story and you are doing your part by having me on the show and the people that were willing to talk to me they were doing their part because they feel its important to help other people who are going through this. Host jim is calling from loves park illinois. Please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller thank you for taking my comment. By youth oriented business is located in Rockford Illinois across from where the naval exchanges to be in this interesting beer after it was shut down by the city for a whole bunch of issues by retail thefts dropped by 70 . That is not the reason im calling though. Im involved in a lot of activities which take me to music events. I dont think parents quite understand there are a whole slew of other Research Chemicals that are being mixed because its so cheap. We have had ods that were heroin related at music events around the country. It was actually mixed with heroin so what we have happening also is people are dying from other things that stem with heroin. Really what it was was mixed with the heroin which could affect someones heart. So i think we have a huge problem in this country. We have a huge culture where people will use these drugs and we have a huge problem with people selling the drugs to get people addicted to heroin when they dont know that they are addicted to heroin. Absolutely. In fact the Drug Enforcement agency that i spoke with reiterated that. He said the people selling they dont care. They dont care about the families and they dont care about the communities. They are just out to make a profit and unfortunately they do. The other thing i think is important to add along with what you said is in terms of just marijuana now is no longer straightforward marijuana. Its often mixed with something as well and that increases the likelihood of leading to other things. So thats a good point. Host you quote Anthony Pettigrew Drug Enforcement Administration Agent saying the perception used to be that heroin was mostly an urban problem but now there are no geographic areas. This tweet from asks ms. Lindborg why are drug addiction so high in the broommacbroommac k and suburban areas . Good question. I dont know why. I just know Law Enforcement has told me and again from talking to Police Chiefs in several towns they all say the same thing. There was a time when you could almost identify a heroin user but now thats just not the case. It could be a high school kid. It could be a suburban housewife. It doesnt matter. A lot of that does go back to the put scripture and painkiller addiction. One of the police chief said there is a very high number of functioning addicts just because they can afford to maintain it so they are out there and you could be working with a heroin addict and you might not even know it. So its no longer something that is identifiable as an innercity problem. Again this is everybodys problem and in order to have any kind of solution, but its going to have to be everybodys part to see what they can do to help. Gavin, columbus ohio. Hi gavin. Caller hi printers wanted to say in my opinion is the most important issue you a pat on your show today. I grew up in a suburb and ive lost too many friends found foaming at the mouth. I wonder if you cede kids are poisoning themselves. Host Kristina Lindborg in a response for that caller . Guest thank you for that. So true. It begs another question of that whole sense of if you were to talk about prevention and education where does that started when . It cant start in high school. You cant just Start Talking to your kids in high school. Its already too late. They have already made their decisions about what theyre going to do. These kinds of conversations have to start before middle school. As i said the kids that i talked to started doing things when they were 12. I think it has to come from a lot of different sources and the people that i talked to in these services all say the same thing. He cant just come from one place. It has to be schools. Hasidic community. It has to be home whether a church a synagogue or a mosque. It has to come from a lot of different sources. Not just drugs are bad but getting a positive sense of the value of what an individual has to offer to society. I think if kids start getting that sooner when they have temptations later on they will probably look at it differently. Another thing that agent pettigrew said was that you really have to talk to your kids about having their answer and place because he feels almost every kid at some time or another is going to have somebody say to them and its going to be a friend. Its not going to be a stranger. Its going to ask them whether they want to smoke pot or take pills or whatever and they should have their answer and place whether in its excuse like know my parents would like it or jay i have to get up early tomorrow. Whatever it is have your answer in place so you can bypass that moment of whether you are going to cave in because of peer pressure or whatever so thats an important point. Host gentleman tillman 40s is it still easier for kids to steal opiates from their parents bathroom than to track down drug killer for heroin. You write trace the rise of painkiller misuse in the u. S. To 1996. What happened in 1996 . Guest in 96 that was when pharma released the brandnew oxycontin which was a time release opiate. That heretofore hadnt been described for anything other than endoflife situations so now this new time release thing from what i understand was touted as something that positions could prescribed for moderate or chronic pain situations. They were very illadvised to do that. It was totally a marketing campaign. During that time a lot of things did get out. I dont think that explains why there is such a glut in the market as there seems to be. More importantly i think the initial question or comment that yes that is where kids mostly get their pills. If you dont know whats in your own medicine cabinet you might want to check it out. Part of what a lot of the cities and towns are doing now in terms of forming coalitions to address the problem is making sure that there is a drop box 24 7 at the Police Station no questions asked. You have old pills hang around or something that had been prescribed years ago. It may be your kids friends. You could have people coming in the house. I have heard stories where people have open houses and attics will go when or if those who want to sell will go through medicine cabinets and take things. Dont leave things like that hanging around the house. Get rid of them. Take them to a Police Station to a dropoff spot and thats another small way that individuals can do their part. Host deborah, chicago. Good morning. Caller good morning. Here i am a 63yearold grandmother. I got what she is talking about with the harrowing and the children. What happened to me was my children came up in a much more better society. There were social programs to help kids after school. Then with help from daycare my children got into their teenager years. They had for my children could look forward to taking their money and buying school supplies. Once they removed all of that my children got to be 15 years old. [inaudible] we called it. They started off with smoking marijuana and they would put Something Like embalming fluid on it. Host deborah thank you for that background. In your view what is the current status of this the situation . The situation is they have to get back to putting children and more afterschool programs. They have got to get their children with the Housing Market crash and their lives turned upside down. The children need to find some kind of way where they can say okay the house is falling down. My life is not my future. Host Kristina Lindborg. Guest absolutely. There has to be more support for kids in all kinds of ways. Something that somebody brought up about cutting back and this is in a Prosperous Community too. Cutting back on the choices. I think reaching high school that you could take art but you couldnt do athletics. That is insane. At a time when Kids Really Want to test their limits in all sorts of positive ways why cut those things back and then force them into a more negative mode of experimentation . It just seems crazy and i think the afterschool programs and all of that is very important. Another study that i read said kids are far less like wade to do a lot of experimenting if they have a lot of conversations with people they can trust about things like drugs or whatever. I mean there has to be a dialogue and is parents and there are a lot of parents who have to work in some work several jobs. If they cant be there to do that than there should be some sort of backup so the kids feel they are being taking care of. In i think thats a very important point that she made. Host Christian Science monitor weekly. Heres the cover, here once long reach suburbs confront discourage discourage that wrote in behind a wave of prescription painkillers. Kristina lindborg in boston is the author and is joined us for the last 40 minutes. Thank you. Two weeks after the hurricane i received a large manal envelope at the Washington Post and had a return address of liberty publications media pennsylvania which didnt mean anything to me but it was slightly intriguing. Inside was a cover letter from the Citizens Commission to investigate the fbi. That is the name that the burglars gave each other. And what they wrote really sounded like something that a commission appointed like by a president or attorney general might have. They describe the fact that they have burglarized an fbi office that they have become concerned that there were informers and antiwar and civil rights organizations and that they saw no way to confront this except by getting evidence of whether such suppression was taking place. It said files were in close and they hoped i would make it public. These files have been sent to five people, two members of congress senator George Mcgovern and a Congress Member from baltimore and three journalists who were not named. So i started to read them and faxed document stood out. It stood out so much that i wasnt sure they were real. It seemed like it might be a hoax. Thank you sir. Ladies and gentlemen you may take your seats. At this time i would like to welcome Christine Alvin dark for a few opening remarks. Good morning. Its my pleasure to welcome each one of you to the ceremony to kick off Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Sexual assault Awareness Month was first observed nationally in april 2001. The goal is to raise Public Awareness about Sexual Violence and educate communities and individuals on how to prevent Sexual Assault. Although the army implement a robust Sexual Harassment and assault response and Prevention Program yearround todays event and Sexual Assault Awareness Month or opportunities for all leaders to place emphasis on the Sharp Program raise awareness promote action and encourage survivors to come forward. It is the responsibility of every leader, soldier civilian and contractor to set the conditions for a positive command climate based on prevention, education, Bystander Intervention victim support and accountability. Only by working together in a synchronized cohesive force fully payable to to entertain an army free of Sexual Assault for individuals can achieve their full potential and americas sons and daughters can serve with dignity and respect. Mr. Secretary general odierno Sergeant Major chandler thank you for your participation in todays event. The priority of this issue is very apparent by the fact that the three of you are here together during this extremely busy time of the year expressing the importance of illuminating Sexual Assault from the army. Under your leadership we have been able to accomplish much within the past year but there is still more work to do. Im convinced that if every individual does their part we will achieve a climate where sexualharassment assaults are not allowed to occur but if it does then victims will be taking care of and offenders will be held accountable. Thank you. [applause] thank you maam. Ladies and gentlemen its my pleasure and entre to armys 14th Major Sergeant of the army, major chandler. [applause] good morning everyone and a special welcome to the secretary, chief general officers sergeants major Soldiers Department of the Army Civilians that anyone who really cares about combating Sexual Harassment and assault. Thanks for being with us. I appreciate the opportunity to share a few comments about the armys ongoing efforts to root out Sexual Assault from our ranks. The cheese chief has passed on the responsibility that all this share but the change agent in this effort is our armies noncommissioned officer corps. Last year he challenged every noncommissioned officer in the army to own this issue and to move up. Over the past year ive been encouraged by what i have seen. Noncommissioned officers taking charge and holding each other and its subordinates accountable to ensure the Sharp Program is implemented successfully across the force. There has been a change in attitude in our young people over the last year and many of the town forums the town forms ive participated in over a year ago you would be lucky if you found less than 25 of the audience that would say i would trust my first commanded to come forward with an issue. Id dynamic is changed over the last few years where more and more soldiers feel the element of trust is essential tour army between themselves and their leader and that is from my perspective how we are going to solve this challenge. Soldiers are responsible for looking out and caring for one another. They dont need to try and solve the army problem. Our soldiers only need to solve the problems between them and their and that is the need to be connor both to each other seven days a week and when something occurs to that person of character to step forward. I believe is a Sergeant Major of the army that are noncommissioned officers are fulfilling their duties. Do we have a way to go . Sure we do that we are making efforts each and every day to make sure the armys profession is stood understood by one another and Character Counts and its what you do when none is looking. That commitment to one another the unit the army and ultimately the nation is fulfilled each and every day and finally confidence. Knowing your job and doing it well. That is what our professional responsibility is to one another, to the nation and we will overcome what i believe has become a cancer but we are slicing that out and we are going to insure that are noncommissioned officers uphold their duty. We have our task and we have our purpose and we know at the end state is. We will accomplish our mission. At this time i would like to take a moment to give special recognition to one of the ncos who is making a difference in the lives of soldiers and the level of trust the American People have in an army prater sexual response coordinator for the year is Master Sergeant richard frye. [applause] ladies and gentlemen please remain seated for the publishing of viewers. The Meritorious Service that was presented to Master Sergeant richard v. Frye for exceptional Meritorious Service while serving as the Sexual Assault response coordinator for the 18th engineer brigade at quan barracks from 28 may 13231 december 2013. Master sergeant frye was the driving force behind the sexualharassment assault response and Prevention Program of his brigade and in leading his community towards achieving cultural change. His loyalty and dedication to the success of the mission contributed immensely to the servicemembers and family members of the 18th engineer brigade and schweinfurt community. Ambassador sergeant fryes distinct actions show showed great credit upon his himself the u. S. U. S. Army and the department of defense. Signed Lieutenant General deputies t. Teva staff g1. [applause] at this time a plaque is being presented to Master Sergeant frye at reza partner family 2014 exceptional Sexual Assault response coordinator the year. Master Sergeant Richard v. Frye 18th engineer but gave United States army, europe. Thank you for your service. [applause] Master Sergeant frye thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen at this time im pleased to welcome our 38th chief of staff of the army general ray odierno. Sir. [applause] good morning. It is great to see so much of the leadership here. I want to thank everyone for coming today as we kick off Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It really is an important opportunity for us to have a discussion about what we ought designate as the armys top priority combating Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment. Thank you for your leadership. What you have shown us is what is going to take. Its about leaders taking control in about is helping to change the mindset and the culture in order for us to deal with this problem so i want to thank you very much for that. Secretary of the army thank you for your leadership and Sergeant Major and dr. Alden dos thank you as well. I want to congratulate undersecretary carson three congratulations sir. I think its your first day on the job and we are glad to have you. Welcome. [applause] all the many leaders here and im not going to name them all but i want to thank everyone for being here. For me its reprehensible and it should be to anyone who wears this uniform that any soldier who assaults a member of the family. Soldiers and civilians on an off post. These crimes have been perpetrated by all ranks from Senior Officers to young privates. These crimes destroy the lives of individuals to grade the readiness of our force for war and threatened the very core of our institution in the army profession. We also know about this Insider Threat because survivors have had the courage to come forward and report the crimes against them. Just in one year from 2012 to 2013