Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News
Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Monday, 6 January 2014
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STORIES:
Rethinking Marijuana: As Colorado Opens World's First Pot Retail
Stores, NY to Allow Medical Usage
New York state is poised to become the latest state to loosen
restrictions on marijuana usage. This week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will reportedly
announce a plan to use his executive power to allow 20 hospitals across the
state to prescribe marijuana to certain patients. The governor’s surprise
reversal on medical marijuana is part of a nationwide shift in drug laws. Last
week, the world’s first state-licensed marijuana retail stores opened in
Colorado to long lines of customers. Possession and private use of marijuana
has been legal in Colorado over the past year, but it will now be legally
produced and sold, as well. Around three dozen stores have been licensed to
sell to customers. We speak to Gabriel Sayegh, the director of the Drug Policy
Alliance’s New York policy office.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: New York is poised to become the latest state to
loosen restrictions on marijuana usage. Governor Andrew Cuomo will reportedly
announce a plan this week to use his executive power to allow 20 hospitals
across the state to prescribe marijuana to certain patients. The governor’s
surprise reversal on medical marijuana is part of a nationwide shift in drug
laws. Last week, the world’s first state-licensed marijuana retail stores
opened in Colorado to long lines of customers. The first person to make a
purchase was Sean Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD. Azzariti
spoke to reporters, along with marijuana advocate Betty Aldworth.
SEAN AZZARITI: Now I get to use recreational cannabis to help
alleviate my PTSD, and it’s a stepping stone for other states to help other
veterans, as well.
BETTY ALDWORTH: In Colorado we expect almost $400 million in
sales next year. And across the nation, the marijuana industries will create
$2.34 billion of economic activity.
AMY GOODMAN: Possession and private use of marijuana has been
legal in Colorado over the past year, but it will now be legally produced and
sold, as well. Around three dozen stores have been licensed to sell to
customers.
For more, we’re joined by Gabriel Sayegh. He’s the director of
the Drug Policy Alliance’s New York policy office.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of the announcement,
both that Andrew Cuomo will be making this week, the governor of New York, as
well as what’s happened in Colorado.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Well, Cuomo’s announcement is enormous. It has
significance on at least three levels. The first is that here’s a governor who
has been long opposed to medical marijuana, and that opposition has provided
cover to the state Senate to not do anything at all. The state Senate has said,
"Well, we don’t want to pass a bill if the governor is not going to sign
it, so we’re not going to do anything." And they’ve been saying that for a
long time. The governor’s turnaround on this, therefore, is significant because
he’s saying, "I support this wholeheartedly. I’m behind it."
But he went further. He said, "I want to get something done
in New York." And he gave us assurances, his office, that they know that
New York needs to have the most sophisticated and well-run medical marijuana
system in the nation. But the Senate has refused to act. And in the interim period,
the governor is doing something that no other governor has done: He’s using his
executive authority to move a program forward, in the meantime, until we can
you get comprehensive legislation that we need. And that’s significant here,
and it’s going to be a game changer in New York.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain how it will work in New York.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Well, the governor is drawing on a 1980 law that
was passed—and 31 other states passed these types of laws back then—that allows
for states to run a limited program allowing some people to access medical
marijuana. Now, the New York program ran for a while here, and it was hospitals
that distributed marijuana to some patients. That program was shut down in the
early '90s, and no other state has that program running today. It's why states
moved forward to build comprehensive systems that we see today in 20 states
across the country.
What the governor is going to do is revive that program from
1980. Now there’s limits to it. The program may not—is likely not, anyways, to
serve all the patients in New York who need medical marijuana. But the point is
the governor does not have to go through the Senate in order to start this
program running now. So what that means for us is, the governor is going to
move forward, within the executive authority that he has, to begin building the
regulatory system in the state of New York. That means that we need to get the
ball rolling in the Legislature to pass the comprehensive legislation that
patients need.
AMY GOODMAN: This is an usual change that you’ve seen for
Governor Andrew Cuomo.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain where he was and where he is now.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Well, the governor was long oppositional. He
said, "I’m opposed to this. I’m not going to do it." Last spring, we
began to see a small shift. He said, "I’m not there yet, but I’m looking
into this." And it’s clear that they did do the research—they looked into
this, and they did so quite deeply—because his turnaround is remarkable. And to
his credit, he’s not just saying that he supports medical marijuana; he’s
saying he’s going to do everything within his authority, right now, to get the
ball rolling.
But both the governor understands, as do we and all the patients
that we work with, that the program that he’s going to be able to start through
the Department of Health with his authority, without going through the
Legislature, is likely not going to be sufficient for the patients in need
across the state. It’ll just get the ball rolling. It will hopefully help some
people. But a lot of the details remain unanswered.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Colorado and what happened there.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Well, the people of Colorado voted to end
marijuana prohibition in 2012, as did those in Washington. This is historical
and unprecedented, really. Colorado became the first jurisdiction in the world
to have a modern system where adults can go in and buy marijuana for
recreational purposes. That’s what’s just occurred in Colorado. What’s
interesting about Colorado and Washington is that the voters there had an
opportunity to go to the polls and voice their opinion, and they did so, and
they did so overwhelmingly in support of ending prohibition. We don’t have that
option here in New York. And in many areas in the Northeast, we don’t have that
option. But in the states that do, we’re going to see additional voter
referendum on the ballots in 2014 and in 2016 and going forward, where voters
will have an opportunity to have their voice heard. And for those states like
New York, where we have to move through the Legislature, we’ve got to start
with programs like medical marijuana and decriminalization, because we have to
make sure that patients have access to the medicine that they need and that
we’re not allowing this drug war to rage on and impact hundreds of thousands of
Americans, particularly young men of color.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Colorado can and can’t do right now.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Well, right now, if you’re an adult 21 years of
age and older, you can go in and purchase small quantities of marijuana for
your personal use. You cannot use it in public. It has to be done in the
privacy of your own home. That’s significant. That’s not happening anywhere
else in the country or in the world, not like this. And that’s what’s going on
in Colorado and will soon be happening in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: When in Washington?
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Washington will roll out their program this
year. And so, by the end of 2014, both Washington and Colorado will have legal
systems, as well as Uruguay, which, as a nation, just passed a legalization
bill, the first nation in the world to do so. And other nations are undoubtedly
going to follow suit here.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Patrick Kennedy. Patrick Kennedy
is the former congressmember who co-founded a nonprofit group called Smart
Alternatives to Marijuana. Speaking on CNN’s Crossfire Friday, Kennedy said
legalizing drugs may further harm minorities.
PATRICK KENNEDY: Well, I’m also concerned about the minority
community that’s now going to be targeted by these marijuana producers, because
you look at the alcohol industry in this country. I’ll tell you what. More, you
know, alcohol distributors are in minority neighborhoods by a factor of 10. I
can’t even begin to tell you what the latest numbers are. You’re from the West
Coast; you know what L.A. looks like.
VAN JONES: Absolutely.
PATRICK KENNEDY: Forget about it. There isn’t an equal—you know,
and so, they have—it is insidious.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Patrick Kennedy, the former congressmember,
who suffered from addiction himself.
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Yeah, I’ll tell you, with all due respect to Mr.
Kennedy, what’s insidious is this nation’s war on drugs and the fact that we
allow hundreds of thousands of Americans, predominantly young men of color, to
be arrested and roped into the criminal justice system and marked with a
criminal record for the rest of their lives. New York is the marijuana arrest
capital of the world. We arrest more people in this state than any other state
in the country. We arrest more people in this city. It’s the number one arrest
in New York City, marijuana possession. And overwhelmingly, these are young men
of color, black and Latino men, who are being arrested, even though it’s young
men that look like me who are the predominant users of marijuana. Now, if Mr. Kennedy
was actually concerned about communities of color in this country, then he
would be speaking about the devastation of mass incarceration and mass
criminalization and the devastation of the war on drugs. And frankly, I find it
absolutely insidious, to use his term, that they would begin to talk about
these hypothetical situations comparing marijuana and alcohol, when alcohol
causes thousands of deaths every year. Marijuana has never caused one. And
you’ll hear from Dr. Hart later in the show, I think, more about this on the
science side. But it’s ridiculous what it is that they’re talking about. And
that kind of scare tactic is not what we need today. And if they really care
about communities of color, then they should advocate for ending the war on drugs.
AMY GOODMAN: Gabriel Sayegh, I want to thank you for being with
us—
GABRIEL SAYEGH: Thanks so much, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: —director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s New York
policy office. When we come back, we’ll be joined by Dr. Carl Hart. A
Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know
About Drugs and Society, that’s the subtitle of his book, High Price. You may
be very surprised by what he says. Stay with us.
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"Drugs Aren't the Problem": Neuroscientist Carl Hart
on Brain Science & Myths About Addiction
As we continue our conversation on the nationwide shift toward
liberalizing drug laws, we are joined by the groundbreaking
neuropsychopharmacologist Dr. Carl Hart. He is the first tenured
African-American professor in the sciences at Columbia University, where he is
an associate professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments. He is also
a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse and a research
scientist in the Division of Substance Abuse at the New York State Psychiatric
Institute. However, long before he entered the hallowed halls of the Ivy
League, Hart gained firsthand knowledge about drug usage while growing up in
one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods. He recently wrote a memoir titled
"High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges
Everything You Know About Drugs and Society." In the book, he recalls his
journey of self-discovery, how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided
becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our conversation on the nationwide
shift towards liberalizing drug laws, we’re joined now by the groundbreaking
neuropsychopharmacologist Dr. Carl Hart. He’s the first tenured
African-American scientist at Columbia University, where he is an associate
professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments. He’s also a member of
the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse and a research scientist in the
Division of Substance Abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
However, long before he entered the hallowed halls of the Ivy League, Carl Hart
gained firsthand knowledge about drug usage while growing up in one of Miami’s
toughest neighborhoods. He recently published his memoir called High Price: A
Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know
About Drugs and Society. In the book, he recalls his journey of self-discovery,
how he escaped a life of crime and drugs and avoided becoming one of the crack
addicts he now studies.
Dr. Carl Hart, we welcome you to Democracy Now! The title of
your book almost was the song we were just playing, "Trouble Man"?
DR. CARL HART: That was my vote, Trouble Man, but the publishers
thought that it wasn’t 1973, so we should go with something more modern.
AMY GOODMAN: Both your research findings will surprise many and
also your own path in life. Let’s start by talking about, well, where you come
from.
DR. CARL HART: Well, I come from—as you said, I grew up in the
hood. And so, when we think about these communities that we care about, the
communities that have been so-called devastated by drugs of abuse, I believed
that narrative for a long time. In fact, I’ve been studying drugs for about 23
years; for about 20 of those years, I believed that drugs were the problems in
the community. But when I started to look more carefully, started looking at
the evidence more carefully, it became clear to me that drugs weren’t the
problem. The problem was poverty, drug policy, lack of jobs—a wide range of
things. And drugs were just one sort of component that didn’t contribute as
much as we had said they have.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the findings of these studies. I
mean, you’ve been publishing in the most elite scientific journals now for many
years.
DR. CARL HART: Yes. So, one of the things that shocked me when I
first started to understand what was going on, when I discovered that 80 to 90
percent of the people who actually use drugs like crack cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine, marijuana—80 to 90 percent of those people were not addicted.
I thought, "Wait a second. I thought that once you use these drugs,
everyone becomes addicted, and that’s why we had these problems." That was
one thing that I found out. Another thing that I found out is that if you
provide alternatives to people—jobs, other sort of alternatives—they don’t
overindulge in drugs like this. I discovered this in the human laboratory as
well as the animal laboratory. The same thing plays out in the animal
literature.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean? You’re saying that crack is not
as addictive as everyone says?
DR. CARL HART: Well, when we think of crack—well, we have a
beautiful example now, the past year: the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, for
example. The guy used crack cocaine, and he did his job. Despite what you think
of him and his politics, but he came to work every day. He did his job. The
same is true even of Marion Barry. He came to work every day, did his job. In
fact, he did his job so well, so the people of D.C. thought, that they voted
for him even after he was convicted for using crack. But that’s the majority of
crack cocaine users. Just like any other drug, most of the people who use these
drugs do so without a problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Compare it to alcohol.
DR. CARL HART: Well, when we think about alcohol, about 10
percent of the people—10 to 15 percent of the people who use alcohol are
addicted or meet criteria for alcoholism; for crack cocaine, about 15 to 20
percent—the same sort of thing when we look at the numbers. And we’ve known
this in science for at least 60 years. We’ve known—I’m sorry, at least 40
years, we’ve known this sort of thing, but we haven’t told the public.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re saying someone who has wine every night
for dinner would not be considered an alcoholic in the same way if you take
crack every day?
DR. CARL HART: Exactly. So, the criteria, to me—the way we judge
whether someone is an addict is whether or not they have disruptions in their
psychosocial functioning. Are they going to work? Are they handling their
responsibilities? Or are they overindulging in the activity? And when we think
about drugs like alcohol, wine every day, people can drink alcohol every day
and still meet their responsibility. The same is true with crack cocaine. The
same is true with powder cocaine. The same is true with marijuana. Think about
it this way. The three most recent presidents all used illicit drugs, and they
all have met their responsibilities. They’ve reached the highest levels of
power. And we would be proud if they were our children, if they—despite the
fact that they’ve all used illegal drugs.
AMY GOODMAN: But they are saying they didn’t use them in a
regular kind of way. I mean, who knows?
DR. CARL HART: Well, when we say "a regular kind of
way," for example, I use alcohol. I may use it once a month, twice a
month, four times a month. It may vary, but that’s certainly regular. And so,
when we think—I think the public, when they think of regular, they think of
overindulging. And when people overindulge, like every day multiple times a
day, it’s going to disrupt some of your psychosocial functioning. Now, that is
a small number of people. Only a few people engage in behavior like that. And I
assure you that if they engage in behavior like that, that’s not their only
problem. They have multiple other problems.
AMY GOODMAN: So why do some people get addicted to crack, and
some people don’t?
DR. CARL HART: That’s a great question. People get addicted for
a wide range of reasons. Some people have co-occurring or other psychiatric
illnesses that contribute to their drug addiction. Other people get addicted
because that’s the best option available to them; other people because they had
limited skills in terms of responsibility skills. People become addicted for a
wide range of reasons. If we were really concerned about drug addiction, we
would be trying to figure out precisely why each individual became addicted.
But that’s not what we’re really interested in. We are interested, in this
society, of vilifying a drug. In that way, we don’t have to deal with the
complex issues for why people really become addicted.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about brain science.
DR. CARL HART: Yeah, so we talk about—"talk about brain
science," that’s a real good question. Brain science, at some level, in
terms of drug abuse, has become voodoo, in a sense, because people think—I
mean, that’s not to be disrespectful, because that’s my favorite sort of
science, by the way. But the way we have been thinking about brain science is
that people show you pretty pictures, pretty images, and you think that that
tells you something about how they behave. It doesn’t. And so, from that
perspective, it concerns me deeply. But on the other side, I am—I marvel at
what we are learning about how the brain works, in general. And so, we are not
anywhere near being able to explain drug addiction with our brain science yet.
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to try and figure out what’s
going on in the brain.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been testing humans. How does human
experiments compare with rat and animal experiments?
DR. CARL HART: Depends on the question that you’re asking. For
example, if you’re asking a question about simple neurochemistry. When we think
about dopamine, and you’ve heard a lot about that neurotransmitter, it’s in the
brains of rats, it’s in the brains of humans. If you want to know what
dopamine—what cocaine does to dopamine, you can use a rat brain to figure that
out as well as a human brain, and that’s pretty close. But when you start to
talk about drug addiction and the complexities, drug addiction is a human sort
of ailment, not an ailment in rats. What you can do in rats is maybe model one
component, maybe two components of drug addiction, but understand that that
model might be quite limited.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, one of the nation’s most prominent
doctors announced he had shifted his stance in support of medical marijuana.
That’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN, openly
apologizing for his past reporting dismissing the medical uses of the drug.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA: I have apologized for some of the earlier
reporting, because I think, you know, we’ve been terribly and systematically
misled in this country for some time. And I—I was—I did part of that
misleading. I didn’t look far enough. I didn’t look deep enough. I didn’t look
at labs in other countries that are doing some incredible research. I didn’t
listen to the chorus of patients who said, "Not only does marijuana work
for me, it’s the only thing that works for me." I took the DEA at their
word when they said it is a Schedule I substance and has no medical
applications. There was no scientific basis for them to say that.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Carl Hart?
DR. CARL HART: On the one hand, I applaud Sanjay. But on the
other hand, I might be embarrassed if I was a physician and I’m this late in
the game. The evidence has been overwhelming for quite some time. And if you
read the literature and have been reading the literature, this position or this
change should have come earlier. But still, it takes some courage to say you
were wrong. But I think that it’s been overstated how much praise he deserves.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Carl Hart, can you talk about your life’s journey,
how you ended up being the first African-American scientist to be tenured at
Columbia University?
DR. CARL HART: Well, that’s a question that society should
answer. I mean, when we think about the numbers of African Americans who are in
neuroscience and why—they’re low—and why the numbers are low, that’s an issue
that the society hasn’t grappled with. And it’s related to some of this
marijuana talk that we’re talking about. You played something about Kennedy
earlier. Those kind of people, they sicken me, quite frankly, when we think
about the role that racism has played in our drug enforcement, and those people
don’t knowledge that? Those kind of—those types of practices have played a role
in why African Americans are not in many areas in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to that clip right now. This
is—you’re talking about former Congressmember Patrick Kennedy, who battled
addictions himself, you know, through his time in Congress. He was on Cross—
DR. CARL HART: Which does not give him any sort of special
qualification. That’s one thing we want to make clear. Because you are an
addict does not give you some special insight about addiction.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s go to what Patrick Kennedy said on CNN
last week.
PATRICK KENNEDY: Well, I’m also concerned about the minority
community that’s now going to be targeted by these marijuana producers, because
you look at the alcohol industry in this country. I’ll tell you what. More, you
know, alcohol distributors are in minority neighborhoods by a factor of 10. I
can’t even begin to tell you what the latest numbers are. You’re from the West
Coast; you know what L.A. looks like.
VAN JONES: Absolutely.
PATRICK KENNEDY: Forget about it. There isn’t an equal—you know,
and so, they have—it is insidious.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s former Congressmember Patrick Kennedy, who
co-founded the group Smart Alternatives to Marijuana. Dr. Carl Hart?
DR. CARL HART: So, when I think about what Patrick Kennedy says,
if he was really concerned about the minority community, one thing that he
would be talking about is this fact: Today, if we continue the same sort of
drug enforcement policies, one in three African-American males born today will
spend some time in jail. I have three African-American males; that means that
one will spend some time in jail. If he was really concerned, he’d be worried
about those kind of numbers. If he was really concerned, he’d understand that
African-American males make up 6 percent of this population, 35 percent of the
prison population. That is abhorrent. And you never hear those people talking
about those numbers.
And when we think about the dangers of marijuana from a
scientific perspective, let’s really evaluate this. When we think about the
dangers of marijuana, they are about the equivalent of alcohol. Now, I don’t
want to somehow talk about the dangers of alcohol or to besmirch the reputation
of alcohol, because I think that every society should have intoxicants. We need
intoxicants. And every society has always had intoxicants. So alcohol is fine.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do we need intoxicants?
DR. CARL HART: Makes people more interesting, decreases anxiety.
Alcohol is associated with a wide range of health-beneficial effects—decreased
heart disease, decreased strokes, all of these sorts of things. The same can be
true of a drug like marijuana—helps people sleep better, can decrease anxiety
at the right doses. All of these beneficial effects, we know.
And so, when we think—think about it this way. We have
automobiles. They are potentially dangerous, particularly if you’ve been in New
York City in these past couple of days, the icy roads and so forth. Now, in the
1950s, automobile accidents were relatively high. We instituted some
measures—seat belts, speed limits, all of those sorts of things. That rate,
even though we have more cars on the road, has dramatically decreased. If
people are really concerned about the dangers of marijuana, we’d be teaching
people how to use marijuana and other drugs more safely, because they’re not
going anywhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Go back to your life story, so how you ended up
going from a real tough neighborhood in Miami to—
DR. CARL HART: Yeah, so, when we think about—
AMY GOODMAN: —Columbia University and being an adviser on some
of the most elite drug policy panels in the country.
DR. CARL HART: Yeah, so, when we think about how one comes from
point A, in the hood, to point B, where I’m at now at the highest levels of
academe, there are some things that I point out in my book that are clear, if
we were serious in this society. One thing was we had welfare. We had this
safety net for families like mine. I had seven siblings, and all of us are
taxpayers today, but we were raised on welfare. Make no doubt about it: Without
welfare, I wouldn’t be here. Without some of the programs that the government
instituted for minorities in science, by—in medical science, that helped me get
a Ph.D., those kinds of programs. I had mentors, a wide range of mentors. And
they were white, black; they were men, women—a wide range of mentors. And I had
a strong grandmother, and I had five older sisters who made sure that I stayed
as close to the sort of beaten path as possible, so I didn’t stray too far.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve talked about really recognizing racism, not
when you lived here, but when you lived outside the country. So, where did you
go to college?
DR. CARL HART: I went to college in the Air Force, and I went to
college at the University of Maryland, who had college campuses on Air Force
bases.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you go into the military?
DR. CARL HART: I went into the military because I didn’t get a
scholarship, a basketball scholarship I thought that I would get. And so—
AMY GOODMAN: You were a big basketball player.
DR. CARL HART: I was a big basketball player. I played on some
of the best all-star teams in Miami and so forth. Yeah, so, I didn’t get the
basketball scholarship that I thought I should get, and so I went to the Air
Force. It was the only option. And while—my time in the Air Force primarily was
spent in England. And while in England, I got quite an education about American
racism. In England, they have programs on a regular basis like the U.S. PBS
series Eyes on the Prize. And I learned a lot about the U.S. sort of civil
rights movement and history while in England. And the British were not bashful
in their criticism of American racism, because they didn’t have to look at
their own. And so, I learned—well, more importantly, my reality was
corroborated while I was in England.
AMY GOODMAN: So you come back to this country, and how did you
end up at Columbia?
DR. CARL HART: So I came back to this country, finished off my
undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, went to
the University of Wyoming to do my Ph.D.—it was the only program that accepted
me in the neuroscience Ph.D. program—got quite an education from Charlie Ksir
about not only neuroscience, about society, and did a number of post-docs
from—at the University of California in San Francisco, at Yale, at Columbia.
And this is how I came to Columbia.
AMY GOODMAN: You begin your book talking about a human
experiment that you recently did. Explain it.
DR. CARL HART: Yeah, so, this particular experiment was featured
in The New York Times recently. I had read the literature, the animal
literature, showing that when you allow an animal to self-administer,
self—press a lever to receive intravenous injections of cocaine, they will do so
until they die. But then, when I looked at the literature more carefully, if
you provide that animal with a sexually receptive mate, with some sweet treats
like sugar water or something of that nature, they wouldn’t take the drug. They
would engage in those other activities. So I thought it would be interesting to
find out whether or not crack cocaine addicts could also have their drug-taking
behavior altered or changed by providing an alternative. And in that
experiment, we used as low as $5 cash. And when you do that, you can see that
they will take the cash on about half of the occasions—
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, explain the scene.
DR. CARL HART: OK, when you explain the scene, you have a
person, you bring a person into the laboratory. They’re seated in a chair in
front of a Macintosh computer, so they can indicate their choice. On the left
would be drug; on the right would be money. And they would have five
opportunities, separated by 15 minutes, for example. So, every 15 minutes, a
nurse will come in and ask them to indicate their option.
AMY GOODMAN: Who are these subjects?
DR. CARL HART: These participants are people who meet criteria
for crack cocaine addiction. These are people who smoke crack cocaine on five
days a week about. They spend about $200 to $300 a week on the drug. They are
committed cocaine users. And we pass all of the ethical requirements to bring
them into the laboratory. They have physical examinations. They’re carefully
monitored by a nurse, a physician, and so forth.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have them sitting in front of the computer.
DR. CARL HART: They’re sitting in front of the computer, and
every 15 minutes a nurse will come in and ask them to indicate their choice.
And once they indicate their choice, the nurse will bring in the option that
they selected, whether it’s crack cocaine, whether it’s the $5 option. And when
you provide an alternative like $5, they’ll choose $5 on about half of the
occasions and drug on the other half. But if you increase the alternative
amount to something like $20, they will never take the drug; they’ll always
take the money.
And so, people say—sometimes people say, "Well, they’re
only selecting the money so they can use drug when they leave the
hospital." Now, one thing that was said about crack cocaine users is that
they couldn’t make rational choices once they have cocaine on board or once
they’re faced with the choice to take cocaine. Well, they demonstrate—if that’s
even what they’re doing, they demonstrate that they can display, or do, a
delayed gratification, which is a good thing. But I know that most of the
people in those studies did not simply take the money to go buy drug when they
left the study, because we paid some of their bills. They asked us—they saved
up the money and asked us to write a check for certain bills and that sort of
thing.
AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised by your findings?
DR. CARL HART: I was absolutely surprised, when I started
collecting these data in 1999, 2000, because I had been fooled or hoodwinked,
just like the American public, that crack cocaine addicts, they—if you present
them with a choice to take crack cocaine, they would take every dose, and
they’d be crawling on the floor looking for more. And that’s just absolutely
false. That’s a myth.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Dr. Carl Hart, your assessment of the
media in dealing with the issue of drugs?
DR. CARL HART: You know, since I’m a professor, so I give people
grades, I would say a D, D-minus, and I’d say scientists deserve maybe a D-plus
to C-minus, because it’s not only the media. Scientists also contribute to this
misinformation, in part because scientists are so afraid that whatever they say
will be interpreted as being permissive, and therefore they say very little.
Scientists’ first goal is not communication, it seems. It seems like their
first goal is not to be wrong. And we’re missing an opportunity to help educate
the American public about how to decrease harms related to drugs.
AMY GOODMAN: You just talked about your three boys, that you
have three sons.
DR. CARL HART: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you say to young people about drugs and
alcohol?
DR. CARL HART: Well, so, I think of these things just like I do
any other potentially dangerous behavior, like driving an automobile. I make
sure that I educate my kids on how to be safe in driving their car, how to be
safe when they have sex. The same is true with drugs. I make sure I let them understand
the potential positive effects, the potential negative effects, and how to
avoid the potential negative effects. I’ve written about this on AlterNet.com,
a letter to my son about how to use drugs safely or what you need to be aware
of.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Carl Hart, I want to thank you for being with
us. He is the author of the new book, High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of
Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. Dr.
Carl Hart is associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia
University.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace
Report. We’ll be back in a minute with the first Socialist city councilmember
in decades in Seattle, Washington. She’s being sworn in today.
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A Socialist Elected in Seattle: Kshama Sawant on Occupy, Fight
for 15, Boeing's "Economic Blackmail"
Seattle has elected its first Socialist to city office in
generations. Kshama Sawant’s election to the Seattle City Council made her one
of a few Socialists to hold elected office in the country. Sawant is an
economics teacher and former Occupy Wall Street activist who ran on a campaign
to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. "The important thing about
running as a Socialist is, for one, to show that there is a definite openness
for clear alternatives, not only to the big business parties, but the system
that they represent, the capitalist system," Sawant says. Seattle’s new
mayor, Ed Murray, has announced plans to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour
for all city employees. Meanwhile, voters in the nearby community of SeaTac
recently increased the minimum wage for many local workers to $15. The vote
suffered a setback when a judge ruled last month that the raise does not apply
to workers at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the area’s largest employer.
That ruling has been appealed. Murray and Sawant are being sworn in today with
record crowds expected at City Hall.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Seattle, Washington, where a former
Occupy Wall Street activist is being sworn in today to the City Council. Kshama
Sawant is the first Socialist elected to the city office in Seattle in
generations.
KSHAMA SAWANT: We have shown that it’s possible to succeed as an
independent, grassroots, openly Socialist campaign, not taking any money from
big business, not currying favor with the establishment parties of big
business, having an unapologetic campaign platform for improving the living
standards of Seattle’s working people, and rejecting the business as usual.
This moment belongs to that way of organizing.
AMY GOODMAN: Kshama Sawant has also played a pivotal role in the
Fight for 15 movement, the campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in
the Seattle area. Voters in the nearby community of SeaTac recently increased
the minimum wage for many local workers to $15. While that vote is being
challenged in the courts, Seattle’s new mayor, Ed Murray, has just announced
plans to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for all city employees.
We go now to Seattle, where we’re joined by Kshama Sawant, newly
elected Socialist city councilmember of the Seattle City Council, member of
Socialist Alternative. She is also a teacher and a union activist.
Welcome to Democracy Now! and congratulations, Kshama. Can you
talk about what today means—today, your inauguration?
KSHAMA SAWANT: Thank you, Amy, for having me here.
Today’s inauguration really is an absolutely historic moment for
working-class politics, and to understand—to really feel the moment that this
is a turning point in the history of the United States. And I don’t mean just
the election of a Socialist in city council, but everything that you have been
mentioning—the Occupy movement, the movement to legalize marijuana use, marriage
equality—this is all an indication that the people in this country are
extremely frustrated and angry and outraged at the status quo, at the deepening
income inequality, poverty, the political dysfunction of the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party, and there’s this deep search for alternatives. And
the fact that we have been victorious in this grassroots campaign is really an
indication that people are ready to start moving forward, moving into struggle.
And so, the real question is: How are we, on the left—how are we going to take
up this responsibility of organizing the vast numbers of people, especially
young people, for whom there is no future? And how are we going to present
those alternatives?
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you decide to run as a Socialist, Kshama?
KSHAMA SAWANT: The first thing is, I’m a member of Socialist
Alternative, which is a nationwide organization of social and economic justice
activists. And that, by itself, presents a really different way of organizing
politics and political actions where it is not simply up to me as some sort of
superstar, but really a democratic decision among large numbers of people,
saying, "You know, year after year we are asked to vote for Democrats or
Republicans, and nothing changes. Wall Street is making historically high
profits since the recession broke out, and the burden of the recession has
fallen squarely on the shoulders of ordinary working people. How do we come out
of this? What is the way forward?" And presenting a different type of
electoral politics was extremely important to me and to everybody else who was
involved in this campaign. And there were hundreds of people who worked on this
campaign.
And the important thing about running as a Socialist is, you
know, for one, to show that there is a definite openness for clear
alternatives, not only to the big business parties, but the system that they
represent, the capitalist system. And if you look at recent polls, they show
that people, especially young people, are much more open to socialism than you
would find out from the corporate media. People are also fed up with the
political dysfunction. Sixty percent of Americans recently said that they are
looking for a political alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. And, you
know, everybody says, "Well, don’t you have to vote for Democrats, because
otherwise the evil Republicans will come in?" And, of course, it’s
absolutely correct that, you know, Republicans and the right wing need to be,
you know, defeated, but at the same time it is important to recognize that the
reason the right wing, the tea party and the Republicans gain any sort of
ascendancy over the American people is because the Democrats do not present an
alternative. The tea party arose because of Obama’s administration’s failure to
deal with the outrage against the bank bailouts, and the tea party channeled
it. So, really, it’s up to us to present a different way of doing that, to
really show that working people can fight for ourselves.
It’s not simply about electoral politics. The electoral arena is
one avenue where we can, you know, gain a hold, you know, occupy the space, so
to say. But really the question is: How are we going to organize overall? How
are we going to have a mass movement that will challenge the status quo of
capitalism?
AMY GOODMAN: You were involved in the campaign to have the
minimum wage increased to $15 an hour. I want to play highlights from news
coverage of a recent march by the Fight for 15 campaign in the Seattle area.
REPORTER: After the yes vote in SeaTac, there’s a lot of energy
behind this cause.
DALLAS BRAZIER: The cost for, you know, basic necessities for
everyday things that you need, sometimes you just don’t have enough on the
wages that we make now.
WORKER 1: I’m out here for everyone. I’m out here for me, my
family, my children. I’m out here for our future—all future generations.
REPORTER: Fifteen dollars an hour would change her family’s
life.
WORKER 2: Will be great—pay bills off, medical bills, go back to
school.
WORKER 3: I mean, I wouldn’t have to work two jobs.
AMY GOODMAN: That was coverage of the whole campaign for the
minimum wage to be increased to $15. You have been an integral part of that.
Explain what’s happened, both at SeaTac and Seattle.
KSHAMA SAWANT: Yes, this really started with, you know, the
growing discontent against economic inequality and the abysmal standard of
living and the race to the bottom that is being meted out to the vast majority
of people, especially the younger-generation low-wage workers. And as you all
have covered on Democracy Now!, December 5th of 2012 was a pivotal day, when
fast-food workers walked out in New York City—very courageously, might I say—to
take a stand on $15 an hour and the right to unionize without retaliation. And
that movement for $15 an hour has really captured the imagination of people all
around the country. And as you mentioned, the SeaTac initiative last year in
2013 went through. You know, people voted in a majority to give $15 an hour to
all the workers there, especially the airport workers. And in Seattle, we, our
campaign, Socialist Alternative’s campaign, has been campaigning, from day one,
for $15 an hour for all workers in Seattle. We’ve also been campaigning for
affordable housing and for taxing the wealthy to provide funding for transit
and education. And now this battle has come full force to Seattle. You
mentioned the mayor, in the third day of his term, talking about $15 an hour
for 600 city employees. We’re saying that this is a positive step forward, and
it really reflects how much groundswell of support there has been. The movement
has really been building up.
And I would urge everybody to go to 15now.org. That is
15now.org. That’s the website we have launched. It’s a grassroots campaign that
we are starting to mobilize in Seattle to fight for 15 in 2014. And I would
urge all your viewers and listeners to go to the website, volunteer, sign up to
help out. Please give your financial contributions. It doesn’t matter whether
you are in Seattle or not. This is the epicenter of $15 an hour, and we need
the support of everybody all around the country.
And, you know, I think it’s important to see how dramatically
different the political terrain here is today since before Occupy. Before Occupy,
there was a lot of, you know, disenchantment and a sort of a feeling of
demoralization. Occupy ended the silence on inequality, and really it put
capitalism at front and center, you know, the question of the fact that we need
a system change. And what’s happening in Seattle is—you know, in a sense, it’s
not unique, in the sense that the social conditions that are preparing people
to jump into struggle are—exist everywhere in the country. What’s different
about Seattle is that the workers and labor activists in SeaTac went forward
with this ballot initiative, and Socialist Alternative and its supporters had
the audacity to challenge the Democratic Party establishment and go forward
with what is now a victorious campaign for a Socialist in city council. And
that’s an example, a seed, for something that can be carried over. And so I
would urge everybody to support us.
AMY GOODMAN: Kshama, very quickly, in your state, in Washington,
the 30,000-member union of machinists has narrowly accepted a new contract from
Boeing that includes major concessions on pensions, healthcare benefits, wage
growth. Can you talk about this? The union had rejected Boeing’s previous offer
by like two-thirds in November.
KSHAMA SAWANT: Yes, and, in fact, people—for people who have
been following the news, you will know that Boeing workers, the workers in the
state of Washington, have been extremely courageous, and we’ve been in
solidarity with them in rejecting the really—this is economic blackmail by the
Boeing CEOs. And they have extracted tens of billions of dollars of subsidies
from the state. And this is yet another example of why we need an alternative
to the Democrats and Republicans. You know, the Democrats have colluded as much
as the Republicans in the state Legislature, totally sold out the Boeing
workers and urging them to accept this really—this real assault on their living
standards. And it’s—
AMY GOODMAN: Washington approved the largest corporate tax break
by a state to a single corporation in U.S. history.
KSHAMA SAWANT: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s quite astounding.
KSHAMA SAWANT: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what would you say, Kshama, to people who
want to run on a third-party platform, like you did as a Socialist?
KSHAMA SAWANT: I would say that it is very possible. There is an
openness. And, in fact, I would go farther than that. I would say, look at our
campaign. Look at Lorain County, Ohio, where 24 labor activists were elected on
independent left labor ticket, not Democrats or Republicans. And, most
importantly, this would be an abdication of responsibility of us on the left if
we did not challenge the two-party system. This is a challenge for the left and
the labor movement.
AMY GOODMAN: Kshama Sawant, we’re going to have to leave it
there. I thank you so much for being with us, the newly elected Socialist city
councilmember of Seattle’s City Council. She’s being sworn in today.
-------
HEADLINES:
Iraq Loses Control of Fallujah, Key Site in U.S. War
Iraq’s prime minister is urging residents of Fallujah to rise up
against al-Qaeda-linked militants after the government lost control of the
city. Swaths of Fallujah are now reportedly in the hands of militants with the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Shifting loyalties among tribal militias
fighting alongside the government are complicating the picture. Militants are
also holding parts of the nearby provincial capital Ramadi. It is the first
time militants have so overtly claimed key cities since the peak of fighting
after the 2003 U.S. invasion. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry ruled
out any possibility of sending in U.S. troops.
John Kerry: "Now, we’re going to do everything that is
possible to help them, and I will not go into the details, except to say that
we’re in contact with tribal leaders from Anbar province whom we know, who are
showing great courage in standing up against this as they reject terrorist
groups from their cities. And this is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis. That
is exactly what the president and the world decided some time ago when we left
Iraq. So, we are not, obviously, contemplating returning. We’re not
contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their fight, but we’re going
to help them in their fight."
A decade ago, Fallujah was the site of the bloodiest chapter for
U.S. troops since the Vietnam War. The U.S. push to recapture Fallujah in 2004
involved the extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus, leaving a
legacy of birth defects that continues today.
-------
Syria Rebels Battle Al-Qaeda-Linked Fighters
In neighboring Syria, anti-government rebels are battling
militants from the the same al-Qaeda-linked group. Clashes between the factions
erupted across northern Syria over the weekend and spread to the key eastern
city of Raqqa earlier today.
-------
Afghanistan: Violence Against Women Hits Record High
In Afghanistan, violence against women has hit a record high.
Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission says attacks against women increased in
both frequency and brutality in 2013. The head of the commission, Sima Samar,
and Suraya Pakzad, a top advocate for women’s rights, discussed the violence.
Sima Samar: "I think the problem is the brutality of the
violence against women was really shocking this year, including the cutting of
the nose and lips of women, including mass rape in public space, which is
shocking in our culture."
Suraya Pakzad: "Government is not that much strong here in
the whole country, and law is not enforced. Still gaps are everywhere, and
everybody can do anything. And assassination of women, recently you are hearing
from Afghanistan that it is an easy thing for anyone, if they would like to do
that. There is no punishment."
The report comes as Afghanistan is preparing for the departure
of foreign aid as well as foreign troops at the end of this year. It is unclear
how many U.S. troops — and how much U.S. aid — will remain in Afghanistan amid
tensions over a long-term troop deal. The promotion of women’s rights was
touted as a key pretext for the U.S.-led occupation. But in a further sign such
rights have deteriorated, doctors are reporting a rise in self-immolations by
women. According to Reuters, the burn unit of one hospital admitted a record
number of women who tried to set themselves on fire in 2012. The plight of
children in Afghanistan has also worsened. U.N. data shows cases of severe
malnutrition among children have risen by at least 50 percent over 2012 levels.
-------
"Polar Vortex" Brings Life-Threatening Cold to U.S.
A so-called polar vortex is blasting much of the United States,
with swaths of the country set to record some of their lowest temperatures in
decades. Wind chills are projected to drop as low as -70 degrees Fahrenheit in
the Midwest. The National Weather Service called the blast "historic and
life-threatening," warning the wind chills are cold enough to freeze human
flesh within five minutes. Below-zero temperatures were predicted as far south
as Alabama, with nearly half the country set to plunge below freezing by
Wednesday. Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard warned residents to take
precautions.
Mayor Greg Ballard: "This weather combination that we’re
seeing right now with all of the snow and the cold is unlike anything that
we’ve seen in decades in this area, and I can’t emphasize that enough. The cold
really scares me, and as such that we will have temperatures that are
potentially deadly or certainly life-altering temperatures right now, and we
have to be very, very careful with that."
The cold blast comes after at least 16 people died from a winter
storm that brought snow and freezing temperatures to the Midwest and Northeast.
-------
Australia Suffers Hottest Year on Record
While the United States freezes, Australia has been suffering a
blazing heatwave that saw temperatures hovering around 50 degrees Celsius -– or
122 degrees Fahrenheit. Last year was Australia’s hottest year on record.
Recently elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott has eliminated Australia’s Climate
Change Commission and vowed to undo measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
-------
30,000 African Migrants Protest Detention Law in Israel
In Israel, African migrants marched in protest Sunday against a
new law that allows those without valid visas to be detained indefinitely. At
least 300 people have reportedly been arrested since the law passed last month.
Police said more than 30,000 migrants joined the march in Tel Aviv in their
largest action to date. A demonstrator from Eritrea outlined their demands.
Daud Nemos: "We are asking that the Israeli government (do)
three simple things: First is to cancel the new law and release all the
prisoners; second is to check our asylum requests in a fair and transparent
way; third is to give the basic human rights, including a right to work, a
right for health service and so on."
-------
Kerry: Saudi King Voices "Enthusiastic Support" for
Peace Talks
The protest in Israel came as Secretary of State John Kerry left
Israel for Jordan and then Saudi Arabia as part of his push for a peace deal
between Israelis and Palestinians. Speaking in Riyadh, Kerry said Saudi King
Abdullah had voiced "enthusiastic support" for the peace talks.
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Egypt Court Sentences 12 Activists to Suspended Jail Terms
In Egypt, a court has sentenced 12 activists to one-year
suspended jail terms, purportedly over an attack on the headquarters of a
losing presidential candidate in 2012. Those sentenced include the sibling pair
Alaa Abd El-Fattah and Mona Seif, key figures in the 2011 uprising that ousted
Hosni Mubarak. Mona Seif condemned the verdict.
Mona Seif: "The verdict was political. We were given
one-year suspended sentences. The case has 12 defendants even though there
isn’t evidence or witnesses to prove that any of these defendants are
guilty."
The sentences are part of an ongoing crackdown that saw three
other top activists sentenced to three-year terms last month. On Friday, at
least 17 people were killed in the deadliest clashes in months between security
forces and supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi.
-------
Boeing Workers Accept Major Concessions to Keep 777X in
Washington
In Washington state, the 30,000-member union of machinists has
narrowly accepted a new contract from Boeing that includes major concessions on
pensions, healthcare benefits and wage growth. The union had rejected Boeing’s
previous offer by 67 percent in November. Boeing then began soliciting bids
from other states to host production of its 777X aircraft. The firm also
tweaked its offer, adding an additional $5,000 bonus. On Friday, the union
accepted the new contract with just 51 percent voting in favor. To entice
Boeing, Washington state had approved the largest corporate tax break by a
state to a single corporation in U.S. history. The measure hands Boeing $8.7
billion worth of incentives through 2040 to build the its new aircraft in
Washington. We’ll have more on the Boeing vote with Seattle’s new Socialist
city council member, Kshama Sawant, later in the broadcast.
-------
NSA Declines to Specify Whether It’s Spying on Congress
The National Security Agency has declined to specify whether or
not it is spying on Congress. In response to an inquiry by Independent Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the NSA said members of Congress have "the same
privacy protections as all U.S. persons." Republican Sen. Rand Paul,
meanwhile, has announced he is filing a class action lawsuit against the NSA
over its bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. On Friday, the secret
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorized the bulk spying program for
another 90 days.
-------
Report: Oil in ND Train Explosion Contained High Levels of
Flammable Chemicals
Newly published documents show oil on board a train that
exploded in Casselton, North Dakota, contained high levels of flammable and
toxic chemicals not found in other types of oil. DeSmogBlog reports the company
due to receive the cargo had a special permit noting the oil contained high
levels of volatile organic compounds. The report comes after federal
transportation officials issued a warning about the oil, which comes from the
Bakken shale reserve that stretches under North Dakota and Montana, saying it
may be more flammable than other types of oil. The explosion in North Dakota
forced the evacuation of a small town. A previous train derailment involving
Bakken shale oil killed 47 people in Quebec.
-------
AP: States Confirm Oil, Gas Drilling Contaminates Well Water
The Associated Press reports a number of U.S. states have
confirmed oil and gas drilling is polluting well water. The report examined
four states that have received hundreds of complaints. In Pennsylvania, for
example, authorities have confirmed more than 100 cases of drilling
contaminating private wells since 2005. The state received nearly 400
complaints about contamination last year alone, down from nearly 500 in 2012.
-------
USDA Proposes Lifting Restrictions on GMO Corn, Soybean Seeds
U.S. agricultural regulators have proposed lifting restrictions
on genetically modified corn and soybean seeds that are resistant to the weed
killer 2,4-D. The herbicide is made by Dow Chemical and has been linked to a
range of health risks including cancer and Parkinson’s disease. It was one
ingredient in the toxic Vietnam War herbicide Agent Orange. The proposal to
lift restrictions comes amid pressure from farmers after many weeds grew
resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready weedkiller. Critics say the herbicide
often drifts from its application site, posing a risk to health and nearby
plants.
-------
Appeals Court Considers Texas Rule That Shuttered Abortion
Clinics
A federal appeals court in New Orleans is hearing arguments
today on a Texas provision requiring abortion providers to obtain admitting
privileges at a nearby hospital. The requirement forced a third of Texas
clinics to stop performing abortions immediately after an appeals court allowed
it to take effect two months ago. A judge had earlier ruled it served no
medical purpose. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 70 anti-abortion
restrictions were enacted by 22 states last year. Over the past three years,
states have passed some 200 restrictions on abortion, more than in the entire
previous decade.
-------
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