00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, Alex Berenson, Why Weed is Really Bad For You and Why Legalization Has Been Awful for the Country.
00:00:08.000We then talk about the COVID vaccine and recent news regarding that, campus protests and more with a very smart, smart man, one of my favorite guests, Alex Berenson, who joins us.
00:00:19.000Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:01:07.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:02:45.000The great silent majority is rising like never before.
00:03:59.000And to my surprise, actually continues to sell pretty well.
00:04:04.000Because I think people, you know, when their children start using heavily and they see sort of negative consequences, they're like, oftentimes, especially on the left, they're like, I didn't know that this could happen.
00:04:59.000A Schedule I drug that's like LST, it's heroin.
00:05:03.000It's drugs that are really, you know, viewed extremely negatively and have absolutely no medical value and are, you know, are essentially just dangerous.
00:05:40.000Most of the United States lives in states where cannabis is legal, either recreationally or medically, or both.
00:05:51.000So in some ways, this argument's already been lost.
00:05:53.000So moving it from Schedule I to Schedule III is a way for Joe Biden, who I don't actually think wants full federal legalization, to do something to shut up the people on the left who want full national federal legalization without really doing anything.
00:06:26.000And by the way, cannabis and its compounds have been scheduled, have been researched, especially outside the United States for many years for all these things.
00:06:47.000Let them do a bunch of research that's going to show that cannabis doesn't actually do all the things that the pro-cannabis people say it does.
00:06:55.000Let's shut up about, you know, this argument that it's some that making it schedule one says it's worse than heroin.
00:07:01.000And then we can continue to talk about all the bad things that cannabis really does from the fact that it causes some people to vomit uncontrollably to the fact that it causes paranoia in a lot of users to the fact that it ruins motivation to the fact that you know people under 21 really shouldn't be using it to the fact that legalization has done nothing to dent the black market in places like California.
00:07:23.000There are lots of arguments that I want to have about the problems with cannabis that are in my book that are in Tell Your Children.
00:08:57.000But, you know, even a state like Arizona, which isn't quite as expensive, if there's any taxes, okay, plus there's, you know, costs associated with running a legal business.
00:09:11.000The black marketeers have none of those costs.
00:09:14.000So their cannabis tends to be significantly cheaper.
00:09:18.000And all these people who bought all this weed for all these years on the black market, you know, basically saw no reason to switch.
00:09:27.000And so there's still a huge illicit market, which guess what is much harder to control than it used to be because, you know, you can have legal forms growing cannabis.
00:09:38.000And certainly there's a ton of hemp being grown.
00:09:56.000Legalization has done essentially nothing to help the illicit market to the point where some of the legalized dispensaries are now begging for crackdowns on the black market.
00:10:08.000And in California, there's been two in the last two years, including one that I think was just a couple of months ago, terrible mass shootings at giant illicit cannabis farms, where multiple people died, cartel related almost certainly.
00:10:23.000And so this idea that cannabis legalization was going to destroy the illicit market has just proven completely false.
00:10:30.000The second contention, Alex, was that they said that it will actually lower user rates.
00:10:35.000They say that once it is legal, it will get rid of the allure that it is and that we will then be able to lower the rates of weed.
00:10:47.000This was a guarantee or a prediction by the weed lobby.
00:10:51.000Has that proven to be correct, Alex Berenson?
00:10:55.000And you wouldn't expect it to be correct because there are going to be a certain number of people who are going to do, who will not do something if it's illegal.
00:11:04.000And some of those people with an addictive substance, whether it's alcohol or, you know, or a prescription opioid or whatever, are going to wind up addicted to it.
00:11:12.000So no, it is absolutely not true that rates have gone down.
00:11:16.000And the most interesting thing is that the rates of really heavy use have gone up.
00:11:21.000Again, prices are down, I think, in both the illicit and the legal market.
00:11:26.000And so that makes it easier for people to use a lot.
00:11:28.000And I think people who might have used only on weekends or curtailed their use, now they'll smoke all the time.
00:11:34.000They'll get high and drive and they'll sort of almost dare the cops to stop them.
00:11:38.000And so, you know, you're absolutely correct.
00:11:47.000Remember as a kid, your parents and grandparents making you try all the vegetables on your plate or when they coaxed you to eat fruit instead of sweets?
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00:12:42.000So, Alex, the other thing that some of the pot advocates will say is that it is very good for you for relieving pain, treating anxiety and depression.
00:12:53.000What does the data show, Alex Berenson?
00:12:58.000You might be able to get some temporary pain relief from cannabis, but when you try to use it long term for pain, it doesn't work very well.
00:13:07.000It doesn't actually reduce the amount of opioids that you're consuming.
00:13:19.000People, we one of the things that I said and tell your children, and it's only become more true, is that the great lie about cannabis is that it's somehow medicine.
00:13:28.000Okay, it's not medicine, it's a drug people take because they want to get high.
00:13:32.000And you know, you can argue about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
00:13:39.000On the other hand, as you, as you correctly said, it makes people lethargic and lazy, and it's certainly not great for society to have a bunch of stone people on the roads.
00:13:47.000Is it, you know, is it more dangerous than alcohol?
00:13:50.000They're all tons of tons of legitimate debates to have about cannabis, okay?
00:13:55.000But it's not a medicine, it will never be a medicine.
00:13:58.000And by the way, even if it were a medicine, it had real good medicinal properties.
00:14:03.000What doctor would prescribe something that you have to smoke to get benefits for?
00:14:07.000Again, this is already, you know, this is one of the many lies around legalization.
00:14:13.000And so, no, it is not great for pain in the long term.
00:14:17.000And in terms of psychiatric conditions, it really shouldn't be used by people who have a predilection to any kind of paranoia, much less psychosis.
00:14:26.000And as an anti-anxiety drug, it's a terrible idea because, first of all, all anti-anxiety drugs are really not great to use long term because if you try to get off them, and I'm including prescription drugs in that too, you're going to have bad rebound anxiety.
00:14:40.000And that's certainly true of cannabis.
00:15:39.000It's not entirely clear that is true, but let's say that's true.
00:15:42.000Somebody who's 22 and wants to deal can walk in to a legal dispensary, buy a bunch of cannabis and walk out to the nearest school and sell it there.
00:15:53.000So, no, all legalization does is increase the marketing of this because it's a legal substance that can be marketed like any other legal substance and advertised.
00:16:03.000And so, you see advertising in legal states and increases accessibility and lowers the costs in, again, in both the illicit and illicit markets.
00:16:12.000So, what you see are sort of slowly increasing rates of use.
00:16:17.000There hasn't been a dramatic increase in use.
00:16:20.000And I honestly think that one reason for that may be that cannabis today is so is so potent, it's so high in THC that a lot of, I think a lot of kids, um, you know, sort of 12 to 18, see their friends using and are like, you know, like that doesn't actually look like that much fun.
00:16:37.000That guy just passed out and like did nothing for the entire party after he after he, you know, hit his, you know, his bake pen four times.
00:16:45.000And so, unfortunately, what you're getting is a small group or a medium-sized group of people who are really, really heavy users and have a lot of problems that go with that.
00:16:55.000And then, you know, there's a larger group of people who are using casually, but there hasn't been a giant increase in sort of once-a-year users.
00:17:05.000So, yeah, those kind of passive users, if you will, not a giant increase.
00:17:09.000Alex, this is an incredibly important and interesting topic because parents are dealing with this every day and it's just kind of been normalized and it's just kind of been accepted as if, oh, you know, it's perfectly fine.
00:19:03.000And, you know, I know there are other people out there that might say the Second Amendment is the most important or the right not to have to, you know, testify against yourself is the most important.
00:19:11.000I think the right to free speech is absolutely foundational to the United States.
00:19:15.000And I do think that colleges should kind of bend over backwards to let people protest.
00:19:20.000And, you know, look, there's things that these people say that is just, it's disgusting, right?
00:19:26.000Like, you know, there's there when you use the word genocide to talk about, you know, an Israeli invasion when a genocide was committed against Jews 75 years ago, you know what you're doing.
00:19:38.000You know, you know the game you're playing when you say that, okay?
00:19:41.000And there's no evidence that Israel wants to eliminate every Palestinian.
00:19:53.000And these people know what they're doing, at least some of them.
00:19:55.000Some of them are too stupid and ahistorical to have any idea.
00:19:58.000So, so, so, even though I find the protesters and some of what they say, you know, awful, I think that really they should be treated generally with kid gloves because we have a tradition of free speech in this country, and universities are central to that.
00:20:17.000That said, you start occupying buildings, you start, you know, actually making it impossible for, let's say, a Jewish student to cross the lawn without being, you know, attacked.
00:20:31.000The First Amendment doesn't protect any of that.
00:20:34.000The schools have a responsibility to enforce the laws on their campuses.
00:20:40.000And by the way, the most important thing of all is whatever rules are being set for these protests, they have to be applied to every protest.
00:20:51.000So if some Nazis at Columbia or wherever want to come and say terrible things about black people, that's got to be allowed if this is being allowed.
00:21:01.000The rules have to be the same for every kind of protest.
00:21:06.000And, you know, I was talking to Tommy Lauren at Outkick about this a couple of days ago.
00:21:12.000I don't, as I've said, I don't really like the red state crackdown, but I don't have a huge problem with it as long, again, as the rules are applied equally.
00:21:23.000So, so if the rules are going to be applied this way, you know, by the University of Florida against this protest, then they have to be applied against a pro-police protest that goes too far at the University of Florida.
00:21:35.000The most important thing of all is that whatever guidelines are set, they're applied equally.
00:21:41.000I mean, the older I get, the more I understand that that's at the heart of the rule of law.
00:21:46.000Whatever rules you make, you have to apply them in a content-neutral manner.
00:21:51.000So, Alex, I really agree with everything you said there.
00:21:54.000And I mean, I think Jew hatred has no place in decent society, but you have a constitutional right to say really vile things.
00:22:00.000I think when you start to smash windows, and I know you agree, and take over the interior of a campus building, we're not going to put up with that.
00:22:33.000I mean, I do think these protesters they've hurt their own cause because they're so clearly out over their own skis, right?
00:22:40.000Half of them don't know what they're protesting, and the other half-I mean, there was this great um clip that got pulled from this press conference yesterday with this, uh, you know, this woman graduate student at Columbia saying, We're gonna, you know, we're gonna die of dehydration if you don't get us water.
00:22:57.000Basically, don't let us, um, you know, order DoorDash.
00:23:03.000Um, you know, that part, I think, I think they're hurting their own cause.
00:23:07.000And I think to some extent, it's emboldened the schools and emboldened people like, you know, people at places like the University of Florida, where they, you know, they came out with this great statement a couple of days ago where they said, We're a university, we're not a daycare.
00:23:21.000So, if you want to protest, go for it.
00:23:23.000If you're going to break the rules, if the rules have been set out to you in advance, you can't do X or Y, and certainly you can't occupy this building and you do it.
00:23:32.000Do not start whining when the police come in and take you out because you have broken the law.
00:23:38.000And that's, you know, and I do think what we're seeing is a revulsion at the fact that these entitled children want it both ways.
00:23:52.000So when you went to Yale, is this how the people were?
00:23:54.000I think the Ivy League's little lost a step a little bit, Alex.
00:23:56.000I think you would agree that there's a little bit of a pomposity and arrogance and smugness that might not have been there a couple decades ago.
00:24:16.000I mean, well, I guess it's ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students.
00:24:23.000Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill, even if they disagree with you?
00:24:29.000If the answer is no, then you should allow basic, I mean, it's crazy to say because we're on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we're asking for.
00:24:37.000Like, could people please have a glass of water?
00:24:39.000But they did put themselves in that very deliberately in that situation and in that position.
00:24:46.000So it seems like you're sort of saying, we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building.
00:24:52.000Now would you please bring us food and water?
00:24:54.000Nobody's asking them to bring anything.
00:24:57.000We're asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian aid.
00:25:02.000They're stopping the delivery of the we are looking for a commitment from them that they will not stop it.
00:25:31.000But what's not a joke is that this woman's going to be running NPR one day, right?
00:25:37.000I mean, this is the problem is that, yes, these are children and they, you know, they look and they act like children, even if they're in their 20s.
00:25:44.000But, you know, some of them are going to go on to positions of real power.
00:25:48.000And, you know, look, I do, I think history is not going to look fondly upon this moment in American higher education.
00:25:56.000It's not going to look fondly on these people.
00:25:58.000And I think you can very clearly distinguish between this and Vietnam.
00:26:03.000Vietnam, by the time the student protests really accelerated, I mean, there were student protests in the, you know, in the mid-60s, but by 67, 68, the country had really turned against the war.
00:26:14.000And it was pretty clear that the war was out of control and that Americans were dying for no good reason.
00:26:22.000And people, and it wasn't just students who were angry about that.
00:26:24.000They may have been on the front lines, but a lot of people were angry about that.
00:26:28.000And the student protesters were sort of in the vanguard.
00:26:30.000These people aren't in the vanguard of anything.
00:26:32.000They're just out in space protesting for what is basically ISIS.
00:26:37.000And, you know, and of course, the biggest joke of all is that if that, you know, same-sex protester went to Gaza, she would not be treated particularly well.
00:26:54.000It's all a joke, except that, you know, for people who actually want to go to school and get an education, they're being denied that by these idiots right now.
00:27:01.000So, Alex, I want to just get your take institutionally.
00:27:05.000Do you believe that the institution itself is taking is lost a step that it is slipping in its prestige of how people view these Ivy League institutions?
00:27:16.000I mean, on the one hand, I think, I think, yes.
00:27:20.000On the other hand, you argue with these places are more powerful than ever.
00:27:23.000I mean, Yale, you know, Yale had an endowment of a couple billion dollars when I went there.
00:27:54.000So clearly, the brand is more valuable than ever.
00:27:59.000I don't think these kids are getting a better education.
00:28:02.000I think it's all, you know, there was a statistic a few that came out a year or two ago where Yale had one administrator for every student.
00:28:19.000But in terms of the branding and in terms of their ability to put people at the top of sort of the U.S. government or U.S. companies, it's as powerful as ever, you'd have to say.
00:28:56.000I haven't gone three years without writing a book since about 2000, but my substack, my unreported true substack has sort of taken over my life.
00:29:04.000But Pandemia is all about, you know, sort of the first 18 months of the epidemic or of the pandemic.
00:29:11.000And it sort of ends with my being kicked off Twitter, which I, you know, in June, in August of 2021, Twitter banned me under pressure from Pfizer, speaking of vaccines, and under pressure from the Biden administration.
00:30:49.000So, Missouri v. Biden, the Supreme Court's going to decide it probably in mid-June.
00:30:55.000You know, that's the case where Missouri and several prominent academics sued the Biden administration and said, you know, you've had this big censorship scheme, not just on Twitter, but on Facebook, on other social media platforms.
00:31:10.000You tried to get them to prevent us from having our views heard, especially about COVID and the vaccines.
00:31:16.000And so, you know, there's an issue, what's called standing in that case.
00:31:21.000In other words, you have to show a particular injury.
00:31:24.000The courts, you know, courts are not in the business of making legislation.
00:31:28.000They're in the business of deciding particular cases.
00:31:32.000And these plaintiffs are going to need to prove that they suffered a particular specific injury.
00:31:38.000And the Supreme Court may or may not decide to reject the claim on that basis.
00:32:09.000I sued in federal court in New York, and it's a Biden administration judge who's hearing this.
00:32:16.000Hopefully, she will give us a fair shake.
00:32:19.000That's all I can hope for, and we'll find out.
00:32:22.000But to see the way New York State and the New York State courts have sort of perverted these cases, both the civil case and the criminal case against Donald Trump is very upsetting to me.
00:32:34.000Because again, the rule of law is what really matters.
00:32:37.000And whatever you think of Donald Trump or I think of Donald Trump, and I know that my opinions on Donald Trump are probably not the same as yours or most of your audience.
00:32:45.000Donald Trump is entitled to the protection of the law and he's entitled.
00:32:49.000If he's going to be tried for something, it can't be for being a bad guy or, you know, or having had sex with a porn star or for having political views that a lot of people in New York don't like.
00:33:01.000He has to be tried for a specific crime.
00:33:03.000And if you actually look at the indictment that was brought against him in New York State, the criminal indictment, it is a terrible case.
00:33:38.000It seems as if the majority of Americans think that this, that we were lied to and that there were more problems than benefits from the mRNA shot.
00:33:46.000Well, yes, if you just look at, you know, and I've written a lot about this on Unreported Truths, if you my sub-sack, if you just look at the uptake on the vaccines, you know, each booster has gotten fewer people than the last.
00:33:58.000And, you know, the last one, almost nobody under 65 took, and even a minority of people over 65 took.
00:34:04.000So Americans have turned away from it.
00:34:06.000Whether or not we're ever going to get any real justice or any real admission by the companies that, you know, that they overstated the benefits, that there were a lot of people who took this who shouldn't have, that there were a lot of people who were injured.
00:34:21.000I don't know if we're going to get there, Charlie.
00:34:23.000I fear that a lot of Americans, you know, again, not your audience, not the unreported truth readers, but a lot of Americans just want to forget all about COVID and that includes the mRNA.
00:34:33.000And that's what these people are hoping for, unfortunately.
00:34:36.000Yeah, but it's going to be a fervent minority of a couple million folks that are not going to let this go because you're right, Alex.
00:34:43.000The majority of people, they want to just get back to NFL football because it's just too much for them, right?
00:34:48.000It's just, they don't have the stomach for it, and you can't blame them.
00:34:56.000Imagine if you gave this to your kids, right?
00:34:58.000You would hate having to accept that, right?
00:35:00.000No, you want the lie to be true, actually.
00:35:02.000And I kind of sympathize with that, which is, you know, your uncle, your aunt, your kid, your eight-year-old, maybe your 18-month-old all got the shot, and you just kind of just tune it out and you just don't want to hear it.
00:35:14.000Alex Barrinson, you're doing a wonderful job.
00:35:15.000Thank you for being so generous of your time.