TRIGGERnometry - Are We Being Told the Truth About Drugs？ Dr Carl Hart

00:00:00.000 The drug war is one of the most successful jobs programs in the history of the world. 0.83

00:00:12.900 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:16.940 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:18.100 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:23.820 Our brilliant guest today is a psychologist and neuroscientist who is known particularly for his research into drug abuse

00:00:29.560 and other things related to drugs. Dr. Carl Hart, a very warm welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:34.600 Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

00:00:37.020 It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. Listen, you're well-known in the United States,

00:00:41.420 less so here in the UK. So tell everybody a little bit about who are you, how are you,

00:00:46.120 where you are, what has been your journey through life?

00:00:49.260 Yeah, well, as you point out, I'm Carl Hart. I'm a researcher, scientist, professor at Columbia

00:00:54.540 University. My expertise are in drugs, that is studying drugs and people trying to understand

00:01:02.920 the effects of drugs, what they do, what they don't do. I came to this area because I was

00:01:09.740 concerned about drugs destroying my community in the 1980s. At least that's what we were told.

00:01:17.340 In the 1980s, I was in the UK serving in the U.S. military and getting reports back from home

00:01:23.380 where that crack cocaine was destroying communities like the one from which I came.

00:01:31.500 And so I started to study psychology and neuroscience in order to have a better understanding

00:01:37.480 how drugs affect the brain. I figured that if I could alter the way that drugs like cocaine

00:01:44.700 affect the brain, that I could probably develop some treatments. And then if I developed some

00:01:49.880 treatments, then I could start to go a long way in solving the problems that I thought were caused

00:01:57.400 by drugs in my community. Problems like unemployment, violence, a wide range of problems that were

00:02:03.640 attributed to drugs. Some 30 years later, I have come to the conclusion that we all got hoodwinked

00:02:12.280 and I'm trying to help people to understand just how. And when you say hoodwinked, I mean,

00:02:17.800 You've set up the interview beautifully because now everybody wants to hear what you have to say.

00:02:23.120 What is it that you think has happened and why does the official narrative, in your opinion, not represent the truth?

00:02:31.440 Well, if anybody ever watched a television program, a movie about drugs, anything about drugs, drugs are always scapegoated to be the problem.

00:02:41.520 People who write movies don't have to even develop a character if we say that the person is a drug dealer. The public is already primed to think that the drug dealer is just a unidimensional bad person. There is no complexity to the person, which is nonsense. There is complexity to every human.

00:03:04.000 And so I thought drugs were the problem in my community, for example, when in fact the problems are the same things that have always been a problem.

00:03:15.560 Things like unemployment, things like poor education, things like lack of health care.

00:03:21.420 All of these issues have always been the problems long before drugs were ever in various communities and long after drugs were in communities.

00:03:32.040 These were always the problem and they continue to be the problem.

00:03:35.140 And we can talk about some of my research findings, some of the evidence that bring me to that conclusion.

00:03:42.260 Well, let's talk about it. So what does bring you to that conclusion, Carl?

00:03:46.540 Let me give you one example. An important example is this.

00:03:51.420 The vast majority of people who use drugs are not addicted. That is, 80, 90 percent of the people who use drugs never have a problem. In fact, they are middle to upper class people who are responsible. They take care of their families. They pay their bills. They pay their taxes.

00:04:08.620 is in some cases, like in our case in the United States, some of those people even become president

00:04:14.920 of the United States. You can think about Bill Clinton. You can think about George Bush. You

00:04:20.500 can think about Barack Obama. All three of those guys reported using drugs like marijuana and

00:04:26.440 cocaine when they were younger, just like many people around the globe, and they never become

00:04:32.260 addicted. The people who become addicted and have problems, they have those problems because of not

00:04:39.560 drugs, primarily because of the other issues in their life. Like they may have co-occurring

00:04:45.040 psychiatric illnesses, co-occurring pain problems. They may have chronic unrealistic

00:04:52.640 expectations heaped upon them. They may have other issues, but oftentimes we have to look

00:05:00.280 beyond the drugs themselves and look at the person's environment, at the person's personal

00:05:07.460 situation. But drugs are scapegoated. So we don't have to look at those more complex problems. And

00:05:14.700 those are the kind of things I'm trying to share with people. Yeah, it's an interesting perspective,

00:05:18.780 but isn't the problem, like with alcohol, which of course is legal almost everywhere in the world,

00:05:23.500 is that 90% of people can have a glass of wine and then leave it there. But there is that small

00:05:28.780 minority of people who do become addicted, whether that's genetic or whatever the cause of that is.

00:05:34.880 And they are the ones, whether it's alcohol or other drugs, who are causing a lot of the problems

00:05:40.160 in society, the violence, the crime, the burglaries, the whatever. And so, yes, most people don't get

00:05:46.500 addicted, but the ones that do really have a terrible experience and they inflict a lot of

00:05:51.560 damage on the rest of society. Yeah, you're making my point. So if 90 percent of the people who use

00:05:57.180 alcohol don't have a problem, then you can't blame alcohol. I know you just said maybe it's

00:06:04.280 genetics and so forth, but it'd be nice if we had some evidence to show that it's genetic,

00:06:09.880 which we don't. I know people, they sometimes say, well, we have disassociation, but association is

00:06:15.400 not correlation. And like I said, those problems become all the things I talked about, co-occurring

00:06:22.680 psychiatric illnesses, chronic unrealistic expectations. Sometimes people were somebody

00:06:30.440 in their community. They now lost gainful employment and they have no sort of prospects

00:06:35.980 of regaining their previous status. All of these issues are far more important than the alcohol

00:06:42.680 itself. But we act as if alcohol is the problem because it doesn't require us to look any deeper.

00:06:49.760 It's a any stupid person could say, well, it's genetics without having any information that it is genetics. 0.96

00:06:57.480 And so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help people to look deeper so the rest of us can continue to enjoy our substances. 0.99

00:07:05.900 And then the rest of us can maybe help solve what is the problem with those people who are having problems.

00:07:12.920 So do you think the path to having a better drug policy is decriminalization and medicalization

00:07:20.980 of this problem? Emphatically, no. So we have to explain the difference between decriminalization

00:07:30.880 and drug legal regulation. So decriminalization simply says that you're not going to arrest

00:07:37.920 people for personal use of the substance. Selling of the substance remains illegal. That means that

00:07:45.000 the people who are using substances still have to interact with a black market. There are problems

00:07:50.540 with the black market, like you don't have quality control. Your substance might be tainted. In the

00:07:56.880 United States, between 1920 and 1933, we had alcohol prohibition. In effect, it was kind of

00:08:05.300 like a decriminalization, such as some people could get alcohol and not have to worry about

00:08:09.680 being arrested. But the quality controls weren't there. And so tens of thousands of Americans were

00:08:16.020 maimed or killed because of tainted alcohol, because of having to interact with the Black 1.00

00:08:21.700 market. And so, no, I'm not a proponent of decriminalization, maybe as an intermediary

00:08:27.300 step on the way to legal regulation. But legal regulation, you can sell it legally and you have

00:08:34.300 this quality control such that people can be sure of what they're getting so what do you think needs

00:08:43.460 to be done if you were in charge of the government's drug policy what laws and what regulations would

00:08:50.100 you implement or would you go for a completely libertarian approach well please let's not talk

00:08:56.200 about a political party or a political position because that's i'm a scientist and and so when

00:09:01.180 we start to talk about libertarian conservatives or what have you, and then people start to join 0.99

00:09:07.340 camps like they are on a fucking football team. Just saying, this is much more complicated than 0.98

00:09:15.220 that. Because you may have to dip into all of these camps in order to come to some solution

00:09:21.580 that actually works. So what I think, where I start is this. Most countries around the world

00:09:28.220 have some sort of, in their constitutions, something about people's right to liberty,

00:09:35.340 people's right to freedom. And part of that right to liberty deals with having the right to put in

00:09:42.720 your body what you choose as an adult. And so when I think about these substances, people should have

00:09:49.260 the right to put what they like in their bodies, particularly when substances actually make them

00:09:56.620 feel better and happier, increasing the likelihood that they will treat other people better. That's

00:10:02.180 a good thing. And so my job then as a public official will be, how do we do this in a way

00:10:09.160 that keeps people safe and healthier and make sure we don't have problems with the substances?

00:10:17.860 And so I would legally regulate the drugs that people are seeking, cocaine, the opioids, MDMA.

00:10:24.580 I would make sure that our unit dose, that is the amount that is in a dose that's in a package, is not enough where someone can kill themselves.

00:10:36.880 I would make sure that the route of administration that is available would not be, for example, intravenous.

00:10:44.160 I would make sure that the route could be in a form that one could easily digest, whether it's orally, whether it's putting underneath their tongue in a way that does not cause problems like intravenous use can cause some problems.

00:11:01.060 And there is no reason for intravenous use unless there is poor quality of drug.

00:11:07.920 And so I would use my knowledge in pharmacology to make sure that the way that we make these drugs available enhance the safety, just like we do when we give drugs in the laboratory as part of my research.

00:11:23.600 And so we can use the knowledge that we already have obtained.

00:11:29.520 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:11:35.300 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:11:40.560 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:11:44.560 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:11:51.380 Now through June 7, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:11:55.280 Get tickets at murbush.com.

00:11:58.660 Are you tired of using bulky old wallets, giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be?

00:12:06.180 My old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard, 1.00

00:12:10.560 which was a huge distraction and got in the way of my esteemed work on trigonometry.

00:12:16.180 Ridge wallets have an incredible solution for you.

00:12:19.360 This is mine, sleek, stylish, and with an industrial look to it.

00:12:23.140 It can fit 12 cards with cash on the back using a clip like this one or a strap.

00:12:28.660 we've got one for the whole team i've got one francis has one even our producer anton has one

00:12:33.780 but he's from liverpool so he flogged his on the black market the great thing about ridge is that

00:12:39.060 they give you a lifetime guarantee which means if you want you can have only one wallet for

00:12:44.980 the rest of your life ridge are so confident in the quality of their product they will give you

00:12:50.100 45 days to test drive their wallets that means you can get the wallet use it and if you don't

00:12:55.540 like it you can return it within 45 days because ridge is such great guys they're going to give you

00:13:00.660 10 off and free worldwide shipping and returns to take advantage of this incredible offer go to

00:13:07.700 ridge.com forward slash trigger that's ridge.com forward slash trigger and use our special code

00:13:14.020 which is of course trigger all right may i ask you something just sort of coming back to addiction

00:13:20.340 and also picking up on what you said about how when people take drugs they feel good and therefore

00:13:24.900 or they treat other people well.

00:13:26.520 And by the way, I'm playing devil's advocate

00:13:28.740 and sort of a good cop, bad cop going on

00:13:30.700 because we've got to stress test

00:13:31.780 some of the things you're saying,

00:13:32.980 but it's all said with a curiosity and respect,

00:13:35.300 which I hope you know.

00:13:36.520 But when you say that people feel better

00:13:40.460 when they take drugs and they treat other people better,

00:13:42.500 I mean, I think that's true of marijuana,

00:13:45.000 certainly in my experience.

00:13:46.560 I don't know that I think that that's true

00:13:48.360 of cocaine and alcohol, for example, right?

00:13:50.800 Well, you know, we don't have the guests about this. You're talking to a person who has given thousands of doses of cocaine to people in the laboratory and carefully studied their effects. I've given thousands of doses of methamphetamine and other drugs to people and carefully studied their effects.

00:14:09.280 Other people have given thousands of doses of things like heroin to people and carefully studied their effects.

00:14:15.440 So, no, it's absolutely true.

00:14:17.540 The data is there.

00:14:18.360 The evidence is there.

00:14:19.360 It's in the scientific literature.

00:14:21.000 We don't have to guess about this.

00:14:22.780 I mean, people take these psychoactive substances because they make them feel better or they alter their consciousness in such a way that is desirable for that person.

00:14:33.520 And so that's not a mystery.

00:14:36.940 I mean, why else would people take these substances?

00:14:39.600 I know, I'm sorry, I do understand that in our media, we have this nonsense where they say, oh, the drug has a grip on that person.

00:14:49.160 That's that's that's TV. That's drama. That's not reality.

00:14:53.960 No, that's not what I'm saying. But I think what what I do genuinely this isn't playing devil's advocate.

00:14:58.760 What I do genuinely disagree with is the idea that people who take cocaine treat other people better necessarily or the same with alcohol.

00:15:06.100 Like, I don't think cocaine makes people nicer people, in my experience.

00:15:11.440 Well, follow me here for a second, please.

00:15:14.200 Sure.

00:15:15.000 If you feel better as a person, whatever, you feel good, it increases the likelihood that you treat other people better.

00:15:23.540 That's not controversial.

00:15:25.560 And now what you're saying about cocaine, please tell me what you're saying.

00:15:30.000 You probably will say some anecdote that you have about some awful person who took cocaine and treated someone poorly.

00:15:39.040 That's certainly possible. But in general, when people take cocaine, they feel better, just like anyone else who feel better.

00:15:47.520 You're more likely to treat others better. That's just a general statement that is I don't know how one can argue with that.

00:15:56.400 and carl what would you say to the argument of that look right let's say you legalize all these

00:16:02.640 drugs you therefore make them more prevalent and once they become more prevalent more people are

00:16:07.300 likely to take them therefore more people are likely to get addicted yeah so uh as i pointed

00:16:13.600 out earlier when we think about drug addiction um the vast majority of people who take any drug

00:16:19.760 are not addicted so we can't blame the drug for addiction so yeah if we want to make sure that

00:16:26.220 our society is that people are not getting addicted. The way you guard against that sort

00:16:32.300 of thing is that you make sure you have a healthier society. Make sure that people have

00:16:36.420 employment opportunities. I mean, real employment opportunity, not just these sort of gig economies

00:16:42.620 where they don't have much support. I mean, real economic opportunities. You make sure you have

00:16:47.940 healthcare in your system. You make sure you have a healthier society. That's the thing that guards

00:16:52.780 against having a society with fewer numbers of addiction. But let's not get it twisted.

00:17:02.220 Any activity that's worth doing in this human endeavor, there is some risk attached to it,

00:17:09.360 whether it's driving an automobile, whether it's flying in an airplane, whatever it is,

00:17:14.580 there is some risk attached to it. And so humans who are looking for an activity with no risk,

00:17:19.740 well I'm not the person to talk to because that's not the world I want to be in the activities in

00:17:26.620 which I engage there is some risk and then because there is also potential payoffs that's life and

00:17:35.740 those people who are looking for no risk well that's a pipe dream and I don't really deal in

00:17:41.280 pipe dreams yeah that's a good point Carl I was going to say do you think part of the problem

00:17:45.880 with this entire debate is that no one ever looks at the substances objectively. You've got people

00:17:52.820 on one extreme of the spectrum going, if you touch weed, it's a gateway drug. And then by the end of

00:17:58.240 the day, you're going to have a heroin needle in your eyeball when you're going to be mainlining

00:18:01.700 it in. And you've got people on the other side who are like, no, it's absolutely fine. It's a,

00:18:05.980 you know, it's a gateway, the doors of perception, William Blake, et cetera, et cetera. The fact is,

00:18:11.720 we don't have a sensible and rational discussion. Absolutely. You know, my book is called Drug Use

00:18:17.840 for Grownups, right? This is a conversation for grownups. And I want to have a conversation with

00:18:24.860 grownups. So we have those people on those extremes. I don't have time for that. I'm now

00:18:30.080 55 years old. I probably have fewer years left than I've already been here. And so I'm trying

00:18:36.560 to enjoy my life and I'm trying to get at what's really important and trying to leave a mark that

00:18:43.340 where people who are suffering and from those types of extremities they can have something

00:18:50.420 to read that I've written and where they don't feel like they're alone but yeah I don't I don't

00:18:55.820 I try to spend I try not to spend my time with people who don't play by the rules of evidence

00:19:00.820 life is too short. And coming to your research, which is really the reason that we're really

00:19:08.180 interested to speak with you, I guess the basic question I would have for you is why do people

00:19:13.460 take drugs? It's a question that's like, why do people have sex? I mean, and beyond that sort of

00:19:20.780 religious sort of nonsense reason that people give. I mean, if sex feels good, people like to

00:19:26.920 alter their consciousness. Taking drugs alters your consciousness, helps people feel better in

00:19:32.660 some cases, helps people be more empathetic or more magnanimous. A wide range of reasons

00:19:39.720 is why people take drugs. In some cases, people take drugs out of curiosity, particularly young

00:19:45.180 people. But here I'm talking about adults who kind of know something about drugs. I mean,

00:19:49.700 to connect with a loved one at a level, a deeper level. They take drugs for a variety of reasons.

00:19:59.060 And what about, I think Johan Harry talks about a lot about the fact that drug addiction or drug

00:20:05.540 use is often a way to deal with trauma and pain. Yeah, Johan Harry talks about trauma.

00:20:11.620 He talks about trauma. Yeah, there are people, for example, who are experiencing trauma, PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome, who see things like MDMA is beneficial for that kind of trauma.

00:20:30.460 And that is true. But, you know, one of the things I try to do in my latest book, Drug Youth for Grown Ups, is to get away from the pathological frame.

00:20:41.260 So, you know, so like when we talk about drugs, we oftentimes talk about it from that pathological frame.

00:20:47.360 But, oh, these people are suffering. That's why they're taking drugs or these people are addicted.

00:20:51.860 That's a small percentage of people. The vast majority of people who take drugs are just like the vast majority of people who take alcohol.

00:20:59.660 I mean, like when someone is at the pub hanging out on a Friday evening, we don't think, oh, yep, that person's had some trauma.

00:21:09.060 That's why they're at the pub. No, we think about them celebrating with their mates and having a good time.

00:21:16.340 The same is true with most people who take drugs. And and that's not a mystery.

00:21:21.740 It only becomes a mystery because we've been so dishonest about this conversation.

00:21:26.000 and we have been dishonest about this conversation it's such a good point and we seem to have a

00:21:31.320 really dishonest attitude to psychedelics particularly when you look at something like

00:21:36.080 mushrooms which i think was made illegal in this country in 2005 i don't think a single person has

00:21:41.860 died from an overdose of mushrooms why is it we don't have an honest relationship with drugs in

00:21:48.060 general, but particularly with psychedelics? Well, I think psychedelic in general, the psychedelics

00:21:55.660 have enjoyed rehabilitation of their reputation, particularly here in the past decade, in part

00:22:03.280 because the writers, our reporters, people in the media, the opinion makers enjoy psychedelics like

00:22:13.640 psilocybin, like LSD, like ketamine, a number of these drugs writers, our opinion makers enjoy

00:22:22.060 these drugs. My concern there is that they treat psychedelics as if they are some special class of

00:22:29.920 drugs, like they are somehow different or the users of those drugs are somehow seeking something

00:22:37.700 different than the users of, say, heroin or cocaine or some other drug. And so I don't think

00:22:45.380 of psychedelics as being special, as it's being elevated today in our society. In fact, I think

00:22:50.820 that's dangerous. And that's the thing that's one of the things I write about in the new book.

00:22:56.700 Psychedelics are not special. But I agree, they certainly should be available to people who find

00:23:04.040 them helpful, useful, or enjoy them. They certainly should be available. But my concern is that we

00:23:09.120 have started to pivot to say, this drug is okay, but this drug is not. Let me give you an example,

00:23:15.460 a real life example. PCP and ketamine are chemical cousins. They are nearly identical. In fact,

00:23:24.140 ketamine is made from modifying the PCP structure. They exert similar effects, but they have wildly

00:23:31.620 different reputations. PCP, in the U.S., our police have told these nonsense stories about how

00:23:40.280 PCP helps people to develop superhuman strengths. And so if someone's on PCP, they've said,

00:23:48.040 you have to shoot them like 16, 18, 20-some times before you can subdue them. Whereas ketamine has

00:23:57.360 a reputation. It's actually approved in the United States for treating depression. It has a more

00:24:03.480 favorable reputation. Now, how this plays out in the United States? Police oftentimes use PCP as

00:24:10.840 an excuse to kill people. In fact, last week, a Chicago ex-police officer recently got out of jail

00:24:20.360 after serving three years for shooting and killing a 17-year-old kid, 16 times he shot him,

00:24:27.400 even when the kid was on the ground. And the public virtually said nothing, in part because

00:24:35.120 PCP was in the kid's system. And you look at the video, the kid was running away from the police,

00:24:42.700 not coming towards the police. But the problem is, is that the reputation of these drugs have

00:24:48.080 these wildly different sort of narratives associated with them. And so that's why I'm

00:24:54.160 a little concerned when we try to act like ketamine or psychedelics are somehow unique

00:25:00.800 and when in fact they are not. But there's been quite a lot of research,

00:25:05.920 Cole, in showing that, and we had Dr. David Nutt, who's heading up this particular type of

00:25:12.080 research, telling us about the wonderful effects that psilocybin is having on treating depression

00:25:17.820 anxiety trauma so are you very much in that camp that they they can be used but they're not a

00:25:24.780 panacea is what you're arguing to treat these types of conditions yeah i mean i i published

00:25:30.280 papers showing that psilocybin can be used to help treat something like cocaine addiction i

00:25:37.620 published paper with mdma showing how beneficial that drug can be under some condition mdma is

00:25:44.880 considered a psychedelic, but really it's an amphetamine. It's not a psychedelic, it's an

00:25:49.480 amphetamine, but it's been, I guess, given honorary status in the psychedelic camp because

00:25:57.820 these folks enjoy MDMA. All I'm saying is that if we're going to talk about these drugs in that way,

00:26:06.180 then mention the fact that the amphetamine to have been useful for all of these sort of things,

00:26:11.700 like even methamphetamine is FDA approved in the United States to treat obesity, to treat

00:26:18.240 attention deficit disorder. So just bring all of these drugs and don't don't act as if there's

00:26:24.320 just this special category. That's my concern. Some people would say to that, though, that some

00:26:30.360 drugs are worse than others. And by the way, what I would where I certainly I think would agree is

00:26:34.740 that actually many of the drugs that we are legally allowed to consume are far worse than

00:26:39.080 some of the drugs that are currently illegal. But wouldn't it be true that something like

00:26:44.080 crack cocaine, heroin, meth are far worse and damaging to you, and alcohol, by the way,

00:26:51.960 than something like marijuana, for example? So shouldn't we look at things differently on a

00:26:55.560 case-by-case basis? Yeah, I think we should. I think that's a good point. But the assumption

00:27:00.960 that, for example, meth is far more damaging to you, or heroin is far more damaging to you,

00:27:07.220 We have to think about what's the comparison and what are we saying.

00:27:14.580 So when we think about something like heroin, one of the things that we're seeing is when we think about how damaging it is, we're thinking about intravenous use, for example, for some people.

00:27:26.960 And we don't need to use heroin intravenously.

00:27:30.220 You can make heroin. You can use it. You can have it be available sublingually, underneath the tongue, or orally, or intranasal, some other route that probably won't have as many problems associated with it.

00:27:45.340 So it depends on the route of administration.

00:27:48.020 Then we think about methamphetamine.

00:27:50.520 Methamphetamine is just like deamphetamine.

00:27:54.320 These drugs have been used in the United States forever, for at least 100 years now.

00:28:00.900 And they've been fine.

00:28:02.960 They're used in medicine.

00:28:04.500 But they're taken orally in those cases.

00:28:07.860 And so when we're talking about people making illicit methamphetamine, smoking it or shooting it,

00:28:14.580 And you might start to see some problems, but the problem aren't necessarily the drugs themselves, but it could be the conditions under which the drug is taken.

00:28:24.300 So when we think about taking drugs, it's important to talk about route of administration, the environment that drug use is occurring.

00:28:32.120 All of these things are so important.

00:28:34.540 That is a really good point.

00:28:35.680 And I actually I'm glad you made it because I think and this is, again, the point you've made earlier already about how we see things shown in the media and movies, etc.

00:28:45.020 When I was saying, well, heroin and meth and whatever are so much more dangerous,

00:28:49.760 really what I'm saying is the image in my head of a meth addict

00:28:54.080 is worse than the image in my head of a chain smoker, right?

00:28:58.540 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:29:00.140 That image has been reinforced with the media.

00:29:04.000 Well, partly it's reinforced, but partly it's also, as you point out,

00:29:06.820 it's a product of the fact that these drugs are criminalized, right?

00:29:09.660 People wouldn't be shooting up heroin intravenously if it was illegal

00:29:13.500 because it would be available.

00:29:15.280 Otherwise, you wouldn't have as many overdoses.

00:29:17.400 You wouldn't have people ending up, you know,

00:29:19.320 in this kind of infectious situation

00:29:21.340 where HIV is getting passed on through needles, et cetera.

00:29:25.620 That's a really interesting point to think about.

00:29:28.480 So I know this question gets asked a lot,

00:29:32.740 but are there examples of countries

00:29:34.840 that have decriminalized all drugs,

00:29:37.220 or so not decriminalized, legalized all drugs,

00:29:39.360 as you would, where it's working out well?

00:29:41.960 No, because of international conventions, countries have not legally regulated drugs and said what countries do. They move to decriminalize drugs and they have some sort of or they have some de facto decriminalization where they're just not prosecuting or arresting people for drugs, certainly not in the levels that we are in the United States.

00:30:08.700 and so I don't think that you'll get drug legal regulation until you start to see more movement

00:30:17.860 in the United States. Case in point, the United States started to, various states on an individual

00:30:24.620 level, started to legalize cannabis, legally regulate cannabis. Now we have at least two

00:30:32.800 countries, they have legally regulated cannabis. Canada and Uruguay and Germany has said that

00:30:41.360 they're planning to legalize cannabis as well. These kind of things are happening in part because

00:30:47.720 in the United States, we have about 20 states that have legally regulated cannabis for adult

00:30:54.360 use. And so as the United States goes, so goes the world. And Carl, you talk a lot and you put

00:31:02.480 you wrote this open letter, which I read, which I thought was fascinating. You were talking about

00:31:08.240 the politics of respectability, particularly when it comes to the politics of respectability

00:31:13.320 around drug laws. Would you be able to talk about, first of all, explain to our viewers and listeners

00:31:18.300 what is the politics of respectability, and number two, how it affects drug laws?

00:31:23.620 Yeah, so when we think about drug laws in the United States, especially, people think that

00:31:28.840 drugs are banned because of pharmacology, because of the sort of unique dangers that some particular

00:31:35.100 drug poses based on its pharmacology. And that's just simply not true. When you go back to drug

00:31:41.740 regulation in the United States, the first federal regulations were in 1914. We regulated or banned

00:31:51.360 drugs like cocaine and opioid drugs. And we did so because of our fear of Black people taking 1.00

00:31:59.620 cocaine. And there were media reports of people testifying before Congress who would say things 0.55

00:32:06.160 like when Black people smoke cocaine or use cocaine, they became impervious to 32 caliber 1.00

00:32:14.240 bullets and such that if you unloaded your six shooter into a Black person's heart on cocaine, 1.00

00:32:20.940 that person would not stop. They would continue to come at you. They were more murderous and they 0.97

00:32:26.440 were better marksmen. These were the stories that we told. And these stories were the primary reason

00:32:33.240 that we banned or regulated cocaine at a federal level. We told similar stories about Chinese 0.55

00:32:40.860 people who had come over to the United States and when it related to opioids. And so, and then

00:32:46.980 And with cannabis, when we banned cannabis, we told stories about Mexican-Americans in that way. 0.92

00:32:53.860 And so these are the reasons why that these drugs are banned, not because of pharmacology.

00:32:59.340 Now, when we think about politics of respectability, now we think like, okay, that's racism, classism, and so forth.

00:33:06.720 That participated, and that's the reason that these drugs are banned.

00:33:10.820 But our racism is not limited to the dominant white culture. Our racism also occurs within those groups. So you have Black people who are equally sort of going at the cocaine or saying this nonsense about cocaine, repeating this nonsense, and trying to distance themselves from other Black people, 0.98

00:33:36.680 trying to show the larger white population that we're not like them, we're better. 0.99

00:33:42.300 That's the politics of respectability. In fact, they even try to police the behavior of members

00:33:48.520 of their group in this way such that they don't use cocaine. So that's what I mean when I say

00:33:54.680 politics of respectability, policing the behavior of members of your group in the way that you show 0.96

00:34:02.560 the dominant culture hey i'm uh deserving i'm like you i'm not like those other bad black people 0.99

00:34:09.060 and so that's what i mean when i say politics of respectability and and that being the case

00:34:14.800 do you think we still that still operates even now because you talked about the crack

00:34:21.460 emphatically yes that operates now turn on your television um you could think about hip-hop music

00:34:28.980 You can think about a number of these sort of cultural promoters of information.

00:34:37.780 Hip-hop disparages drugs, and they talk about the horrors of crack.

00:34:43.860 They participated in getting these awful laws passed by telling these stories that had no foundations in reality.

00:34:53.340 Yeah, this happens all throughout society.

00:34:56.800 just watch a movie anything you'll see it but hang on but carl but also rap celebrated the use of

00:35:04.280 smoking weed you know smoking blunts etc etc so it's not so they didn't just demonize one drug

00:35:10.740 they also celebrated another you know you look at the chronic literally had a marijuana leaf on the

00:35:17.080 cover that's right uh they celebrate the safe drug the easy choice uh cannabis now is legal

00:35:24.820 And for most Americans, it's legal. That's not edgy. I know it pretends to be edgy, but it will celebrate cannabis on the one hand and vilify everything else. On the other hand, no foundations in reality.

00:35:43.820 Yeah. You turn on your television now, the stories about cannabis are a lot more realistic than they were, say, 20 years ago, say, 30 years ago. A lot more realistic than 40 years ago. The only thing you saw in the U.S. about cannabis was Cheech and Chong. And now we look at that and we cringe because it was so awful. And it had little bases in reality.

00:36:08.940 But people thought that was reality, and they laughed and they tolerated that nonsense. And so cannabis is not edgy. That's not hard to do when you have been allowed to say, okay, this is the way that you can act up.

00:36:28.360 You can express some sort of disagreement with the general population.

00:36:35.520 I mean, that's the only way. And that's the sort of sanctioned way that that's not that's you get no cool points for that.

00:36:45.160 I mean, you get cool points for like following the evidence and being the only person saying that or because the evidence leads you to say that.

00:36:55.000 That's real cool. The rest of that shit. No. 0.99

00:36:58.360 I wish we lived in that world, Carl, where following the evidence made you cool.

00:37:04.080 I'm afraid we haven't lived in that world for some time, my friend.

00:37:07.740 I'm telling you, man, we are.

00:37:09.340 This is where I am at.

00:37:10.580 You know, man, that's exactly how I've always lived my life.

00:37:14.760 And that's how I'm living my life.

00:37:16.200 And so I don't know anyone cooler than me.

00:37:19.920 Do you know what?

00:37:20.840 Present company accepted, obviously.

00:37:23.420 You know what? 0.92

00:37:24.060 If I said that, it'd sound ridiculous and cringeworthy. 0.91

00:37:26.700 when you said that, I went, correct. But let's talk about marijuana, weed, whatever you want 0.81

00:37:33.800 to call it. I don't think we're having an honest discussion about it, Carl, and I'll tell you why,

00:37:38.360 because to me, we talk about marijuana, and skunk is a completely different drug, isn't it?

00:37:46.980 Skunk is far more powerful, far more potent, far more likely to addict you. It's far more likely

00:37:52.400 to create mental health problems push back if i'm talking rubbish because this is what i've 0.60

00:37:56.680 ready i love the smile on his face you're about to get destroyed with facts and logic okay come 0.67

00:38:00.860 on destroy me car yeah no i just want to i mean you're absolutely right about like we have these

00:38:06.840 higher quality of cannabis so the thc level the major active ingredient in some like skunk is

00:38:14.640 higher than something like a ditch weed or some nonsense that some people smoke so you're absolutely

00:38:21.820 right that we have these different potencies. Now, this notion that it's more likely to cause

00:38:28.660 you to become addicted, there is no evidence to support that. I know people say that. In fact,

00:38:34.620 if you have a higher THC concentration cigarette, you're more likely to take fewer hits off of that

00:38:43.140 joint, which is a better thing if you're smoking because then you're not inhaling as much

00:38:48.640 burning weeds down your throat, which is a good thing. And this notion about more likely to cause

00:38:58.540 you psychiatric problems. Now, if a novice smokes something like a skunk the first time and they 0.77

00:39:07.040 have no experience, yeah, that can cause them to have more anxiety, more paranoia, and that can

00:39:14.360 cause them to have some problems. But the vast majority of people, they should just chill and

00:39:19.380 relax, and the drug will float away from the receptor, and those effects will subside,

00:39:26.800 even if it's hours later. Now, like all of these leaps that people are making into more addiction,

00:39:34.660 into more psychiatric problems, that's not, I mean, long-term psychiatric problem, that hasn't

00:39:40.500 been demonstrated. And that's not necessarily even a logical conclusion. The most expedient

00:39:48.100 conclusion is that just think about if you drink, if you have two drinks, you have a stiff drink

00:39:56.680 with 151 rum, and then you have a drink with a lager. You're going to drink those differently.

00:40:05.100 If you don't drink those differently, you're going to have some wildly different effect.

00:40:10.180 If you drink your 151 rum the same way you drink your lager, that's not a good thing. And you only need to do that one time. And you know that that's not a good thing.

00:40:22.280 And so most people who have just a small degree of intelligence know that. And so these people who are predicting these horrible outcomes are just divorcing what humans really do. They are acting as if humans don't learn from these things.

00:40:45.300 But our education can help people too. That's one of the things that has helped when you know

00:40:50.700 the amount of THC in your substance. Like in the US where we have legal cannabis,

00:40:57.260 you can purchase cannabis cigarettes with varying degrees of THC in it. And if you are a novice,

00:41:05.140 you know not to purchase the one with the most amount of THC because that's stupid. 1.00

00:41:09.700 hey KK do you believe in spring cleaning yes but only when my wife does it in Russia men who 1.00

00:41:17.700 clean are executed for not being real men which is correct well for those men who are living in 1.00

00:41:23.500 the 21st century manscaped has an incredible offer for you manscaped are the global leaders

00:41:29.980 in men's below the waist grooming and have forever changed the grooming game with their

00:41:35.360 amazing performance package 4.0.

00:41:39.040 Inside this care bundle, you'll find a lawn mower 4.0,

00:41:42.620 trimmer, weed whacker, ear and nose hair trimmer,

00:41:45.320 crop preserver, ball deodorant, crop reviver toner,

00:41:48.380 performance boxer brief, and a travel bag

00:41:50.980 to hold your goodies.

00:41:52.280 This elite trimmer is designed to trim hair on loose skin.

00:41:56.260 Although your werewolves might look like a couple 0.99

00:41:58.440 of Boris Johnsons, treat them with respect

00:42:01.420 and benefit from their proprietary,

00:42:03.920 skin safe technology.

00:42:05.840 Complete your grooming game this spring

00:42:07.620 with the new refined cologne signature scent by Manscaped.

00:42:10.840 This stuff is legit and will have you smelling like royalty.

00:42:14.040 The good kind, not Prince Andrew.

00:42:15.680 Get 20% off and free shipping

00:42:18.140 with the code TRIGGER20 at manscaped.com.

00:42:21.720 That's 20% off and free shipping

00:42:24.680 with the code TRIGGER20 at manscaped.com.

00:42:28.560 It's time to throw out all your old hygiene habits

00:42:31.740 and upgrade your life.

00:42:33.920 Carl, why is it that I'm having to ask you these questions

00:42:38.220 and my own media is misinforming me?

00:42:41.400 I read about the effects of skunk

00:42:43.960 and I've read it in a variety of different publications.

00:42:46.980 They're all very reputable.

00:42:48.340 This is not some, you know, bizarre site I go to on the internet.

00:42:52.680 Why is it that our own media and the sources of information

00:42:56.340 are not being honest with us when it comes to this subject?

00:42:59.380 Well, you hit on the major reason that we have this thing we call the drug war, these restrictions, because the drug war is one of the most successful jobs programs in the history of the world.

00:43:15.960 Now, when we think about the media, you can write reports, articles on drugs, you can write movies, you can write a number of stories about drugs, and you can really increase the drama.

00:43:31.220 And you don't have to have factual information, well, information that has been vetted.

00:43:37.820 You don't have to have it. You only need to have information that makes contact with people's stereotypes about the drug. And so the quality of the control of the information in the media is not vetted as heavily as, say, when you're talking about a politician's position on some issue.

00:43:57.960 It has to be heavily vetted. The vetting of drug information, it doesn't. It just has to be in line with the current stereotype view of the drug. And that's the problem. And it's easier for the writer to get their articles published. That's the real concern.

00:44:18.960 So when we think about the war on drugs, we oftentimes think about police benefiting, prison officials benefiting, and we never talk about the writers, the lazy writers who benefit from this nonsense. I mean, just watch any movie related to drugs and you'll see what I'm saying.

00:44:36.660 When drugs are involved, we don't have to develop the character in the same way we would have to develop other characters.

00:44:45.060 And you have this unidimensional sort of view of the drug characters compared with other characters.

00:44:53.740 And I was thinking about, like, The Sopranos.

00:44:57.880 I love watching The Sopranos, shows like that.

00:45:00.620 On a show like The Sopranos, Tony Soprano is the mob boss who kills people. His nephew, Christopher, had a drug problem, and they treated Christopher like he was a pariah, like he was the worst thing on the planet.

00:45:17.860 Now, these people who are treating Christopher like this, mind you now, they kill people on a regular basis, but they were looking at him as he was a horrible person for taking heroin, but not for killing people. That's the kind of shit that we accept as viewers as if that's okay. That's remarkable. 0.98

00:45:42.820 You know, when you put it like that, it is remarkable.

00:45:45.000 And it leads me to the question I was going to ask you, which is, why are some drugs more

00:45:50.460 equal than others?

00:45:51.420 Because this argument could also apply to theoretically, at least to alcohol and tobacco.

00:45:56.380 But we don't seem to demonize those.

00:45:59.260 And look, I'm a former smoker.

00:46:01.160 I think tobacco is one of the worst drugs ever. 1.00

00:46:03.320 It's fucking useless. 1.00

00:46:04.220 And it's bad for you at the same time. 0.99

00:46:05.780 If you're going to take a drug, take something that's going to make you feel good, at least,

00:46:09.160 which tobacco really doesn't.

00:46:10.340 but we allow those drugs we allow alcohol and like you were you served in in the uk as you 0.99

00:46:17.300 mentioned so you would have seen the drinking culture right if you drink fucking 50 pints 0.94

00:46:22.020 on a saturday night you're a legend absolutely absolutely right and if and if you're doing 0.99

00:46:27.640 something that's illegal then then you're a criminal and you're the worst thing in the world 0.97

00:46:32.440 why are some drugs allowed and some are not and by the way why are the shitty ones allowed and 0.98

00:46:38.020 some of the better ones not? Well, you just said what I say damn near every Friday night 0.84

00:46:44.100 when my wife and I are seeking some substances. Like, why is alcohol allowed and not MDMA? That's

00:46:50.820 a great question. But it's simple. In our capitalistic societies, those drugs have a

00:46:58.220 foothold and people are making a lot of money off of them. In the United States, for example,

00:47:03.160 when we were making drug legislation, every major drug legislation that regulates drug

00:47:10.940 has in it alcohol and tobacco are exempt. And they get exemptions in large part because

00:47:20.600 they had well-established lobbies. And their lobbies ensured that their drugs were exempt.

00:47:28.340 even when we had discovered that the tobacco companies, for example, was misleading the public

00:47:36.860 about the safety of their product. By that time, their lobbies had so much money,

00:47:43.840 they could still withstand this truth coming out. So it's really about the money and the influence

00:47:52.640 that those industries have in our society.

00:47:56.140 So it's entrenched interest.

00:47:57.580 But a question I suppose I would ask is why,

00:48:00.360 if you were a massive alcohol company,

00:48:02.620 surely the thing that would make the most sense

00:48:04.480 is you encourage the legalization of other drugs

00:48:07.380 and then get into that business yourself

00:48:09.220 because you've already got the infrastructure to distribute it.

00:48:11.500 Why aren't they lobbying for that, Carl?

00:48:13.900 Well, because they are going with public opinion,

00:48:17.900 just like politicians, and what they try to do is to say that our substance is not like those

00:48:28.040 other drugs. In fact, we're not really a drug. I mean, they try to convince the public that

00:48:34.020 they're not even a drug, which is nonsense. And so that's where they have put their efforts.

00:48:39.740 And tobacco goes a step further and say, we are an agricultural product. All

00:48:47.760 All of these drugs, all of these drugs we're talking about are agricultural products.

00:48:52.760 But you don't hear folks using that kind of language because but the tobacco companies have years of experience with this.

00:49:03.040 Carl, why do we look at people who take drugs, people who sell drugs, but mainly people who take drugs and in fact drug taking as a whole as a moral issue?

00:49:16.640 we tend to look at people who take drugs as immoral why do we do that

00:49:22.260 we have convinced the public the regular common person in the public that

00:49:30.360 your value is attached to your ability to abstain from these pleasures this sort of

00:49:45.020 Protestant work ethic. You resist, you abstain, and you work hard, and you don't have these

00:49:59.160 unearned pleasures. And so we've convinced the common person of this nonsense. And so the common

00:50:09.220 person can say, well, at least I don't use drugs. You know, I may not have the job that I want. I

00:50:17.500 may be a horrible person. I treat my significant other poorly, but I don't use drugs. I mean,

00:50:24.780 you can see this. One of the things that used to make me laugh in the 1980s is that

00:50:29.880 some hip hop artists, they do these public service announcements about staying off drugs.

00:50:36.220 Back in the 80s, I was a DJ and I did some shows with Run DMC and we got high together at a show like smoking some weed, some little lightweight stuff.

00:50:49.300 And then like a few weeks later, I see Run DMC in a public service announcement saying something like.

00:50:56.440 What's up? We're Run DMC and our rap's about something which is no doubt when it comes to drugs.

00:51:01.360 just say no. We've teamed up with the Drug Enforcement Administration and millions of

00:51:06.120 people who won't fool with drugs. Not now, not ever. Who wants to be involved with something

00:51:10.920 that can rob you of your job, your future, your self-respect, your family, even your life? Nobody

00:51:16.760 does. That's why, where drugs are concerned, the only thing to do is just say no. Kids stay off

00:51:25.080 drugs, you know, don't do drugs. And meanwhile, some of these folks are doing horrible things,

00:51:31.540 but you're excused if you say, stay off drugs. And so drugs have been that sort of activity

00:51:39.180 that people can use and say, at least I don't do drugs. I may be a horrible person, but I don't do

00:51:45.580 drugs. What do you think about the conspiracy theorist position, Carl, which I've migrated to

00:51:51.640 more and more over the pandemic, just with everything.

00:51:54.360 Yeah, it's because you've been smoking a lot of weed, man.

00:51:59.700 Correct.

00:52:01.140 But what do you think of the conspiracy theorist's position

00:52:04.340 that the reason that they've banned psychedelics,

00:52:07.800 the reason that they've banned all of these drugs

00:52:10.680 is because they get you to see the world in a different way.

00:52:14.180 And if you see the world in a different way,

00:52:16.120 then you start questioning things.

00:52:17.540 And once you start questioning things,

00:52:18.940 you stop being you know a good worker drone as it were well you know when we figure out how to make

00:52:26.940 money off of these drugs um in a way that we're figuring out how to make money off cannabis i

00:52:33.520 think that um some of them will become more available particularly the psychedelics um i think

00:52:39.820 the almighty pound or dollar um is what really drives these things i mean right now it's just

00:52:47.260 so much money in restricting drugs. And that's the main driver. It's just that everybody's making

00:52:55.540 money off of the current legal scheme. And so when we discover how to make even more money

00:53:02.520 off of legally regulating it, I think it'll be legally regulated. So I try to just follow the

00:53:08.940 money because, frankly, I don't think they're smart enough to think through this kind of thing

00:53:14.300 about, oh, you see the world differently.

00:53:16.280 I think many of these people actually believe

00:53:20.220 that you take a drug like heroin, MDMA, cocaine,

00:53:25.100 that you have some problems.

00:53:27.040 I don't think they're smart enough, frankly.

00:53:30.080 There you go, Franz.

00:53:31.000 I think what Dr. Hart is saying is stay off the weed, mate.

00:53:33.380 You've been smoking too much.

00:53:35.060 But Carl, before we wrap up the show,

00:53:38.000 one of the things we haven't really touched on,

00:53:40.360 you were talking about what people call the crack epidemic.

00:53:43.400 And basically, I think one of the things you're talking about there is the impact of the criminalization of drugs on communities.

00:53:51.480 And the way I feel about this and the reason we talk to people like you is I remember reading a lot about what's happening in Mexico.

00:54:00.400 And this is a country to us on the far side of the world.

00:54:04.720 You know, I don't know many Mexican people.

00:54:07.500 It's not a country to which I've been.

00:54:08.980 I don't feel a connection.

00:54:09.800 But when I read about tens of thousands of people who are being butchered every year,

00:54:14.120 when I read about some of the horrific atrocities that are happening, that's when I start to

00:54:19.520 go, well, look, I appreciate that I think legalizing drugs will have certain negative

00:54:24.360 trade-offs, but at least it will take away these billions of dollars that are currently

00:54:30.440 going to some of the worst human beings in the world only because there's a profit to

00:54:35.020 be made and that profit is only able to be made because these drugs are illegal.

00:54:39.800 Yeah, I mean, when we think about horrible people in the world, you should probably look at some of the people who are leading our countries, yours, mine, other countries. I think those people are equally horrible. But the problem is, is that they have these media machines that don't show them in the negative light that we see so-called drug cartel leaders are shown. And so I think we should be careful about.

00:55:04.900 Well, hold on. So what do you mean? So-called drug? Are you saying there's no drug cartels?

00:55:08.660 No, no, no. There are drug cartels, but the ones who we prop up as the evil folks. I mean, I'm not defending them. This is more an indictment of people like your leader, Boris Johnson and Biden.

00:55:22.740 What I'm saying is that these people are equally horrible in terms of having people killed and that. So that's what I'm saying. Now, when we think about legalizing drugs so that you take away the black market, yeah, you certainly will take away that black market. 0.95

00:55:43.560 But it's frankly naive to think that we're going to take away black markets in general, because as long as there are people who are suffering and they are not allowed to participate in the sort of mainstream economy, people will seek alternatives.

00:56:03.400 I think about in places like Brazil. I spent a lot of time in Brazil. There are a lot of people who've been shut out of the mainstream economy. And some of those people are in drug trafficking. But drug trafficking is not only what they do. These organizations do a wide range of things. And so when we focus our attention only on the drugs or the trade, again, we're missing the mark and we are following that easy story. It's a lot more complicated than that.

00:56:33.400 So you don't think if we legalized the drugs, cocaine, etc., etc.,

00:56:40.480 in your opinion, would it fundamentally change the black markets in Mexico?

00:56:45.180 Or do you think these people will then just go work in other black markets

00:56:49.220 because they've been ostracized from society?

00:56:51.760 They're already in other black markets.

00:56:53.840 I mean, this notion that they are just drug traffickers, that's nonsense.

00:56:59.440 I mean, just like the tobacco companies,

00:57:01.040 When we really started to put the pressure on the tobacco companies in the 1950s and

00:57:06.840 60s, the thing they did was that they diversified your cereals, your sugars, all of these sort

00:57:13.560 of things.

00:57:14.220 They're owned by the tobacco companies.

00:57:16.260 They just diversified.

00:57:17.440 They're in these other sort of markets.

00:57:19.340 Any smart business has diversified.

00:57:22.980 And that's what these folks have done.

00:57:24.540 And so when we focus on just the drug markets, that's not very smart.

00:57:31.700 And, Cole, what do you think the future holds now for drugs?

00:57:34.980 Do you think it's going to be a steady case of, you know, legalization and we're going to have a far more sensible approach to it?

00:57:42.160 Or do you think we're going to we're going to carry on with this quite infantile way of discussing a very serious subject?

00:57:49.780 I think we're going to continue with our infancy with some drugs.

00:57:54.620 most of the drugs of cannabis will be moved out. And we will continue to see growing legal

00:58:03.480 regulation around the world as governments and think that they can make money off of that one. 0.99

00:58:08.820 But these other drugs, I don't see the stupidity stopping in any way, which is unfortunate. That 0.99

00:58:16.240 means that a lot of people are going to unnecessarily die. That's not a good note to end

00:58:22.780 So let me, before we ask you a couple of questions from our supporters on Locals, let me ask you a final question, which is always the same.

00:58:31.100 What is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really should be?

00:58:36.600 So in my latest book, Drug Use for Grown-Up Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, the thing, I started out to write a book, a love story about love and how drugs have these tremendous beneficial effects

00:58:51.500 and how drugs can enhance your sort of understanding, empathy of other people.

00:59:00.840 And it was a book about love.

00:59:04.720 And you can never talk about love when you're talking about drugs

00:59:09.760 because everybody wants to talk about addiction

00:59:12.620 and these problems that are a minority of drug effects.

00:59:17.500 It's like saying, hey, let's talk about, I want to talk about cars.

00:59:21.500 You know, I'm a car enthusiast. And then the audience only wants to talk about car crashes. And so we're not talking about love. We're not talking about the empathy and the sort of generosity that occurs when people are in these states.

00:59:40.980 And I think that's what we should be talking about more. And I try to do that. But invariably, I get I have to go. I'm a university professor, but I'm always asked to teach elementary students, school, primary school students. And it's maddening because I want to teach university at the university level.

01:00:02.220 Carl, it's a very good point.

01:00:04.640 I don't know if you know this, but you know, we had a massive problem of hooliganism,

01:00:09.180 football hooliganism or soccer hooliganism in the 1980s in this country.

01:00:13.680 And there was lots of legislation brought in and we prosecuted people and it kind of ebbed away.

01:00:20.900 But actually, a lot of people have said that the reason that the football hooliganism kind of died out

01:00:27.820 was because all the football hooligans got into ecstasy

01:00:30.760 at the time of the ecstasy boom in the late 80s, early 90s.

01:00:34.620 So actually, all the hooligans were off their face in a rave.

01:00:42.040 Well, I don't know about that.

01:00:43.620 You know, the acute effects of MDMA, they're great.

01:00:48.720 It helps you to be more understanding of other people's perspective.

01:00:53.680 It helps you to kind of look outside of yourself.

01:00:56.420 That's a great thing.

01:00:57.380 And sometimes, you know, you have this ather glow, like these effects can last several days later, which is a lovely thing.

01:01:04.460 And even months later. So but I don't have any evidence about the football hooligans.

01:01:11.920 But if it actually happened and they got in the MDMA use, I hope they're safe and more power to them.

01:01:19.640 All right. Well, our producer is an angry football fan, so maybe we'll know how to deal with him now.

01:01:23.900 Yeah, we'll put it in his teeth.

01:01:25.100 Yeah, there may be no scientific evidence, but we're going to give it a shot anyway.

01:01:28.700 Dr. Carl Hart, thank you so much for coming on.

01:01:31.080 I recommend people check out your book.

01:01:33.020 Is there somewhere for people to follow you online to keep in touch with your work?

01:01:36.920 Yeah, I'm on Twitter, drcarlhart.

01:01:41.560 I'm everywhere on Twitter.

01:01:43.360 I mean, I don't do Twitter every day because, yeah, it's too much hate on Twitter.

01:01:50.020 So I have to step back and I'm trying to be, I'm trying to love, not hate.

01:01:56.100 Well, we'll do a couple of quick questions for our locals,

01:01:58.720 but in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us

01:02:00.640 and thank you guys for watching and listening.

01:02:02.740 We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one

01:02:05.240 or our show.

01:02:06.540 All of them go out at 7 p.m. UK time.

01:02:08.480 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go,

01:02:11.120 it's also available as a podcast.

01:02:13.320 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:02:25.100 Dr. Hart

01:02:32.540 what good exactly

01:02:33.920 do you think

01:02:34.960 you're doing

01:02:35.840 with your drug advocacy

01:02:36.980 wow

01:02:55.100 Coming to Toronto, the true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more,

01:02:59.760 featuring all the songs you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

01:03:05.500 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here,

01:03:09.580 the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

01:03:12.240 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales Theatre.

01:03:17.340 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

`witch hunt`	Both words, anywhere in the episode.
`"witch hunt"`	The exact phrase.
`witch OR hunt`	Either word.
`"alpha male" -"high value"`	The first phrase, but not the second.
`(feminist OR feminism) AND (marriage OR divorce)`	Parentheses group alternatives.
`"decline civilization"~5`	Both words within 5 words of each other.

`misogyn*`	Any word starting with "misogyn": misogyny, misogynist, misogynistic…
`feminizm~1`	Words one letter off: catches typos and transcription errors.

`person:"Andrew Tate"`	Episodes where they host, guest, or are mentioned.
`host:"Glenn Beck"`	Episodes they host.
`guest:"Jordan Peterson"`	Episodes they appear on as a guest.
`mentioned:"Andrew Tate" -host:"Andrew Tate"`	Talked about on other people's shows.
`show:"Bannon's War Room"`	Episodes from one show.

`topics:abortion`	Episodes tagged with a topic (see the Topics page).
`summary:"Andrew Tate"`	Words in the episode summary. Summaries are machine-written and can be wrong.

`"great replacement" AND episode_date:[NOW-1YEAR TO NOW]`	From the past 12 months.
`lockdown AND episode_date:[2020-01-01T00:00:00Z TO 2020-12-31T23:59:59Z]`	From one year. Dates need the full time, as shown.
`"high value" AND misogyny_count:[100 TO *]`	Episodes with 100 or more sentences flagged as misogynistic. Also: hate_speech_count, toxicity_count, word_count.

TRIGGERnometry - March 31, 2022

Are We Being Told the Truth About Drugs？ Dr Carl Hart

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript