TRIGGERnometry - ＂What I Learned From Going to Prison for Selling Drugs＂

00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:00:22.660 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:00:27.120 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

00:00:31.000 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:00:36.860 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:00:42.120 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:00:46.120 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:00:52.980 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:00:57.440 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

00:01:00.000 Hello, and welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:01:02.920 As you know, we put out an interview here every single Sunday, once a week.

00:01:07.520 But what we thought we'd do is we've got a few extra episodes in the bank

00:01:10.780 where we talk to somebody about something that's not really a core subject,

00:01:14.880 a core issue that we normally talk about.

00:01:16.800 So we've got a few slightly shorter, slightly different episodes

00:01:20.020 that we'll be putting out, and this is one of them.

00:01:22.500 So sit back, relax, and enjoy.

00:01:25.580 What, do I not get to speak?

00:01:27.520 Thankfully not.

00:01:28.520 What?

00:01:30.000 Right, Anton, on mic, mate. I'm done. I quit. Right, that's it. I'm off. See you later.

00:01:34.760 The podcast is going to be a lot better now.

00:01:43.660 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:47.520 I'm Constantine Kissinger.

00:01:48.600 And this is a show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about.

00:01:55.420 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts. We ask the experts.

00:02:00.060 Our brilliant guest this week is a former drug dealer and the author of Dope World,

00:02:03.920 which is this book here, which we'll be talking about.

00:02:06.140 Nikovar Biov, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:07.860 Hi, thanks very much for having me.

00:02:09.720 What's up, everyone?

00:02:10.460 Home, what's up, mom?

00:02:11.740 Sorry I wore this shirt.

00:02:14.380 Well, that is the first shout out to your parents we've had on the show.

00:02:17.580 Fantastic.

00:02:18.400 Welcome.

00:02:19.360 Listen, before we get into the interview, just tell everybody you've had quite a journey

00:02:22.720 through life.

00:02:23.300 So tell us a little bit about what it's been like.

00:02:26.200 um yeah so uh originally i was born in um in leningrad and was then the glorious soviet union

00:02:33.560 um came to britain about the mid-90s and i lived in bath which is a great sort of city for visiting

00:02:42.780 if you're a like a french student on an exchange trip but when you actually live there it's kind

00:02:46.940 to. So yeah, it's enough to turn a man to crime, which I did. I wasn't very good at it. I got

00:02:55.640 caught. And because I still have no work ethic, I became an author. So here we are.

00:03:01.820 Well, you summarized it quite neatly. But actually, I think, having read the book,

00:03:07.360 your story is much more detailed than that. And you've traveled around the world looking at

00:03:12.240 the the war on drugs and drugs in general and stuff like that which is something

00:03:16.280 the book weaves your personal story with some of the experiences you've had elsewhere and the

00:03:21.880 research that you've done into the into drugs yeah so um one of the one of the few good things

00:03:27.020 about prisons i had a lot of time to read so i kind of became um quite obsessed with like um

00:03:35.840 the whole reason why uh certain things are legal and certain things are not um so because for me

00:03:44.800 um when i was a drug dealer none of the stuff i saw was like the sort of stereotypical kind of

00:03:51.900 like pimping out junkies when they can't pay their 20 quid crack rocks to be fair nico you

00:03:57.900 were a drug dealer in bath this is true this is also true um but yeah uh so i would like for me

00:04:08.320 it struck i saw myself more as kind of like a like a bartender you know so i it wasn't um

00:04:15.980 unfair that i got locked up because like they say don't do the crime if you can't do the time

00:04:21.280 But it did kind of something did seem very off. So I started reading a lot about it. In jail, you get obsessed with certain subjects very easily because you have nothing else to do. So, yeah, I kind of got obsessed with that. And afterwards, when I got out, I got probation so I could leave the country.

00:04:41.340 finally i um i started going around the world went to places like russia around philippines

00:04:47.940 i just wanted to find out more about this uh the drug problem and uh yeah the result is this book

00:04:54.900 i mean so what were you selling when you were a drug dealer was it just weed or were you selling

00:04:59.960 the hardest stuff uh sweet coke mdma so basically everything you need for a good night out

00:05:05.520 sounds like you're still working right now man um well and so what happened to you just tell

00:05:12.120 everybody before we get into some of the research that you've done and the stuff like that uh you

00:05:17.060 you were selling the stuff you you went on the tube in london with some coke in your pocket is

00:05:21.400 that right uh yeah well it was um it was mdma um so basically i'd moved to london because i was

00:05:28.640 going to uni there and i i know that one of the tactics that um the met uses to get a few easier

00:05:35.360 rest stats is they stand on top of the escalators with some sniffer dogs and that's why I always

00:05:43.420 tell I was aware of this tactic so I was always telling people don't take drugs on a tube there

00:05:47.140 are dogs on a tube or if I would have to do that I put in a glass jar because it takes a while for

00:05:53.200 smells to get through glass but that day I was in a rush so I thought fuck it I just put like

00:05:58.860 a few wraps of MDMA in my back pocket

00:06:02.720 and I set off

00:06:03.660 and the dumb thing is

00:06:05.560 I actually got off at the wrong tube station

00:06:07.620 I got off at Tottenham Court Road

00:06:10.180 if I got off at Gooch Street like I was supposed to

00:06:12.940 none of this would have happened

00:06:14.360 I wouldn't be here

00:06:15.960 probably have a real job

00:06:19.460 like writing up Excel spreadsheets somewhere

00:06:22.040 yeah but here we are

00:06:24.800 I was actually

00:06:26.000 when I was arrested

00:06:28.980 So what I had is about three grams, so I could still blag that was a personal amount,

00:06:33.840 but they're in half gram wraps, so it looks like six grams.

00:06:36.760 So there's not really much I could say there.

00:06:39.560 And when they went to my house, so my housemates were still there,

00:06:43.240 and they'd actually ordered a pizza half an hour before the feds came.

00:06:46.800 So the pizza man and the police came at the same time,

00:06:50.320 and there was a very confused pizza man walking up the stairs

00:06:52.820 while all these coppers are taking down like massive bags of weed like bags of cash and

00:07:00.020 yeah i got uh two and a half years of which i did just under a year because i didn't start any

00:07:08.820 fights right and how much money were you making as a drug dealer right this is one thing that

00:07:14.860 annoys me about drug dealers a lot they're saying like oh yeah i made like two grand this week

00:07:20.300 but like how at least like half of that money is going to go towards buying more drugs because you

00:07:26.960 have to have a sustainable business model but like in terms of pure profit i would say

00:07:32.680 i was probably on about like 22k a year give or take so like yuppie salary 22k a year like in

00:07:42.720 just profit not like okay right okay like if it's the money that passed through my hands probably

00:07:48.020 some more like 50 100 yeah something like that i love how what annoys you about drug dealers is

00:07:54.140 their poor accounting practices more than anything else you're like these guys are selling drugs that

00:07:58.940 are killing our kids but fuck them they've got shit accounting practices that's what really

00:08:02.940 pisses me off right um so you you get caught you you go to jail for officially two and a half years

00:08:09.360 you come after a year and in in the time you kind of started to question well why is the stuff that

00:08:16.240 you had in your pocket illegal but tobacco alcohol etc why are these drugs legal those two in

00:08:24.960 particular are the big ones yeah so for example like I used to sell weed and there's not a single

00:08:30.280 record of weed killing anyone ever in the history of mankind not like directly anyway and then maybe

00:08:37.400 someone fell asleep in the wheel and crashed but that's not direct but I do have like one friend

00:08:42.580 in russia who killed four people in a drunk driving accident and that's kind you can directly

00:08:50.300 pretty much link that to alcohol so i thought why is this one well if anything when you're stoned

00:08:56.980 you're a more careful driver you slow down more i feel like we're promoting all the wrong things

00:09:02.780 in this episode if you want to be a drug dealer do not take drugs on the tube you know be careful

00:09:08.060 when you drive stone like what other tips have you got for us nico uh no but but the the main

00:09:15.460 thing actually is the impact on on your own body from consuming drugs yeah right because tobacco

00:09:21.500 and alcohol are incredibly toxic and bad for you there are other drugs that are not and also in

00:09:27.620 terms of their psychic um not psychic psychological effects right there are you know marijuana for

00:09:34.180 example, there are some people, there's a link to psychosis, but broadly speaking, it's a drug that

00:09:39.320 makes people into nicer people, whereas something like alcohol or cocaine really doesn't, right?

00:09:45.380 Yeah, yeah. So you've explored some of that as well. So why is it that these harmful, unpleasant,

00:09:52.920 dangerous, antisocial drugs are legal, and yet there are other drugs which you might say are

00:09:59.340 not as bad which are illegal how did we start how did this start i think like um a lot of it has to

00:10:06.460 do with uh it's not so much the effect of the drugs themselves it's like some social political

00:10:13.100 or cultural thing that was going on a certain time which led to that uh so for example i was in

00:10:19.420 iran and there okay well in iran pretty much everything is illegal like you can get arrested

00:10:25.240 for having the wrong haircut even but um you'd be locked up mate according to our fans anyway

00:10:32.940 yeah trigonometry fans would get in the run want you locked up yeah that's true they don't not just

00:10:38.240 for the haircut um so one thing that's funny in uh in iran is um so alcohol is it's it's it'll be

00:10:48.020 legal for us because we're not we're not muslims so it's it's also legal for all the uh the armenian

00:10:53.360 refugees who fled the Turkish genocide, the descendants of them. So basically, yeah, if you

00:10:59.360 want some booze and alcohol, call Kim Kardashian. But what's funny there is that opium, it's very

00:11:07.040 much, they're both illegal, but opium is kind of more tolerated, because there's nothing in the

00:11:12.580 Quran, there's nothing in the Islamic law specifically about opium. And if you really

00:11:17.440 want to dig deep, like according to some interpretations, it's only a very specific

00:11:21.920 kind of alcohol, which should be, they've blanket banned all alcohol, but in some interpretations

00:11:27.180 it's a very specific kind of alcohol, it should be banned. So that just gives you an idea that

00:11:33.720 around the world, different cultures view this differently. Another thing, so weed, originally,

00:11:41.440 so when weed was banned in America, it was 1937, I think, and the American prohibition lasted from

00:11:50.640 1919 to 1933 so there was 14 years where smoking a joint was legal but having a drink wasn't

00:11:58.020 and the reason part of the reason that happened was uh so there was like a bunch of these uh

00:12:04.220 prohibition narcs uh led by a guy called harry ansinger from the um federal pure prohibition

00:12:11.300 bureau and once they saw that the sun was setting on the booze ban they they didn't want to like

00:12:18.700 sit around with their dicks in their hands waiting to get redundant they wanted to get another job so

00:12:23.160 one way they did that was they started stoking fear about marijuana so they may uh they paid

00:12:29.640 for films like um or they supported films sorry like reefer madness great movie great movie have

00:12:36.880 you seen it i haven't oh it's hilarious the piano scene oh it's incredible it's just faster

00:12:42.520 it is one of the funniest films i've thought it's top 10 funny films it's brilliant really

00:12:48.880 yeah reefer madness check it out from the 30s yeah it's is it from the 30s or the 40s yeah

00:12:54.020 yeah yeah it's very funny there's fish called wonder and there's reefer madness

00:12:58.520 but but it's interesting so what you're essentially saying is that it was just a

00:13:04.500 way for the police to guarantee themselves a job yeah pretty much that and um at the time there was

00:13:11.680 a big influx of Mexicans, like refugees from the Mexican Revolution. So people are quite scared of

00:13:17.020 them. So it was easy to kind of, if you kind of attached Mexican immigrants to cannabis in the

00:13:27.080 media, you'd scare like the white working class more and they'd be more likely to support measures

00:13:32.980 against it, which is part of why in America, well here we call it cannabis more, but in America they

00:13:39.400 call it marijuana because it sounds more mexicans like marijuana tijuana oh there you go that's very

00:13:45.140 very interesting that is interesting so so part of it is kind of maintaining the the police force

00:13:50.500 having something to do and part of it as you say is is about uh creating tensions between different

00:13:56.680 ethnic communities yeah yeah uh and uh the united states actually essentially forced

00:14:02.440 everyone else to join in the war on drugs didn't they yeah um it was uh nine like drugs or some

00:14:11.060 drugs were sort of gradually being banned around the world already um so for obviously like china

00:14:17.080 had the the opium wars uh so they took a harsh stance on anything psychedelic but it was really

00:14:23.480 america which got the the un involved and made everyone sign the binding treaty i think there

00:14:29.840 some countries that held out i think like nepal didn't sign up to like the 70s which is why nepal

00:14:36.560 is like such a great destination for hippies in the 60s uh it's known for its hash but yeah it

00:14:44.020 was mostly america but what's what's funny now is that like now america's kind of backing off

00:14:48.920 so like even someone like hardline like donald trump they're like saying that uh cannabis marijuana

00:14:56.020 on illegalization psychostates. History is pretty much staying out of that. He is a douchebag on

00:15:01.860 other fronts, but I appreciate that stance. Broken Clock is right twice a day. But it's other

00:15:09.580 countries like China, Russia, Iran that are fighting the drug war the hardest, I think.

00:15:16.200 And so you've been talking about it. It's essentially jobs for the boys. But can't we

00:15:21.460 all just admit that the drug war has failed it you know we talk about a drug war and essentially

00:15:27.900 it hasn't won it's we filmed this in london if i want to go and get cocaine it will take maximum

00:15:33.660 15 20 minutes that's because you're south american yeah just smell it out venezuelan connection yeah

00:15:39.860 exactly i just called pablo up and he'll bring some around it'll be good quality shit as well

00:15:45.100 but you make good point with hugo chavez's ashes no that is going nowhere near my fucking body

00:15:50.260 That is a dark image right there.

00:15:51.960 But Francis makes a good point, which is drugs are everywhere.

00:15:55.620 Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed around the world,

00:15:58.880 probably more over the time the drug war has been waged.

00:16:01.720 It doesn't seem to be succeeding.

00:16:04.080 Why is it still going on?

00:16:07.140 I think just it's a status quo thing.

00:16:09.920 It's very difficult for politicians to get in front of a mic and say,

00:16:15.140 like, hey, guys, remember that time we spent loads of money?

00:16:19.460 We sent a bunch of you to jail, tore apart your families,

00:16:24.800 started off wars in third world countries for no good reason.

00:16:29.380 Yeah, about that.

00:16:31.120 Like, it's very hard to do a sort of a U-turn on that, you know?

00:16:37.660 Like, any politician that tries to, they're going to be seen as soft on crime.

00:16:41.600 There was one person I met, he was a former police chief,

00:16:48.720 Brixton, I think. His name is Brian Paddock. So he basically... He ran for Parliament, didn't he?

00:16:55.620 He was a Lib Dem candidate. Yeah, he was. He's a peer now, he's the Lord. Oh, is he? Okay.

00:17:00.080 Wasn't he also as well, he ran for the City of London, Mayor? Yeah, I think he might have done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:17:05.580 So you met him when he was working for the police, did you say, in Brixton? No, when he was the Lord already.

00:17:11.400 Oh, right, you met him when he was the Lord. Literally earlier this year. Right, okay, yeah.

00:17:15.480 but um so he had a policy in i think 2002 2003 where he basically told his men to like lay off

00:17:24.400 the weed so if they saw someone smoking like they might give them a citation uh take the ganja off

00:17:31.560 them and then that was it and what happened was it freed up a lot of police time where they could

00:17:36.300 solve real crimes so like i think like the burglary or the street the mugging rate like halved

00:17:42.960 and also like the arrest for uh harder drugs like crack and stuff went way up but then of course the

00:17:49.900 daily mail got wind of it and um yeah he was accused of being soft on drugs and there was

00:17:56.760 like some kind of smear story in the press that he was like a dope fiend himself and he had to

00:18:02.980 abandon the scheme but i think now people are more open to that because now i think especially in the

00:18:10.020 UK, like a lot more local police forces are adopting a similar sort of policy. So I think

00:18:16.280 there's some room for change. And also as well, I mean, we're always told about how our country's

00:18:22.040 broke or the US is broke. It's a guaranteed revenue earner, isn't it? Just for tax. You

00:18:26.760 legalize it, you tax it, let the dollars or the pounds flow in. Yeah, I read, was it last year,

00:18:33.820 maybe this year, that in Colorado where they legalized, I think the amount of tax they have

00:18:39.640 in one year it's hit the one billion dollar mark so imagine now like when they said about what's

00:18:47.300 it like 250 million for the uh nhs we could raise that stone gange man

00:18:53.200 put you in charge yeah you look like you're ready to go man there's a big backpack over there that's

00:19:00.440 ready to roll there is a very serious question there so you were talking about uh former police

00:19:05.440 chief of brixton and brixton is a community uh you know the caribbean community who have been

00:19:10.660 targeted because you know they're especially with rastafarianism you know they smoke it's part of

00:19:16.420 their religion to smoke weed and all the rest of it but that is a community that has been targeted

00:19:20.820 and demonized and arrested yeah constantly for smoking weed selling weed all the rest of it

00:19:27.080 yeah it's uh it's something we see around the world so like you see it with like the arabs in

00:19:31.820 france or like in uh in russia with like central asians and gypsies and i think that create and

00:19:38.020 in america obviously with black people and also hispanics so i think that creates a sort of very

00:19:43.160 corrosive cycle because you're arresting people en masse they go to jail they're not going to learn

00:19:49.260 anything good in jail they're meanwhile their family's broken up their kids like running on

00:19:54.240 the streets without a dad they come out they have like this sort of brought this sort of jailhouse

00:19:58.880 mentality with them so if their kid isn't already in a gang they're probably gonna get fucked up by

00:20:05.240 this point and then we wonder like oh why didn't these communities get their act because you keep

00:20:11.180 throwing them in jail you don't like give them a chance to kind of evolve whereas uh for example

00:20:17.560 the uh the asian community in america hasn't been as targeted and they're flourishing

00:20:25.180 And are the rates of drug use the same in the Asian community in America as they are for others?

00:20:30.960 Not sure. Probably about the same, yeah.

00:20:33.460 That's interesting. Because that would be interesting to explore. I'm not sure how true that is.

00:20:37.220 Because part of it is cultural, as you said, right?

00:20:40.180 Different people from different backgrounds do different things.

00:20:44.480 So in terms of the...

00:20:46.920 Well, actually, let me ask you this.

00:20:48.360 Since you were arrested with MDMA, do you think all drugs should be legalized?

00:20:54.240 I don't think we have to legalize all drugs, but I think we should legalize at least a core of drugs.

00:21:03.600 So, for example, I don't think it's necessary to legalize crystal meth, for example.

00:21:08.320 I don't think that would be a good thing for society.

00:21:11.220 Why?

00:21:12.420 Because it's just insane shit.

00:21:17.280 So what you're basically saying is the consequences of people using that drug are so bad

00:21:22.680 yeah that it shouldn't be legal which i suppose is the argument that people who think marijuana

00:21:27.520 or whatever are bad are also making right uh except it's not factual in my opinion well let

00:21:33.840 me um let me expand on that so basically uh so meth is a stimulant at the end of the day

00:21:39.340 but if you legalized like for example if you made like a legal version of uh cocaine or uh mdma it's

00:21:49.160 it's another amphetamine like crystal meth i think you would take away a lot of the the market

00:21:55.480 for meth anyway you don't also didn't need to lock up the user but you'd also take a big chunk

00:22:00.700 of the market away so for example right now we have this problem with spice right like especially

00:22:05.640 among homeless people and in prisons i never smoked in prison i i only got the i only got the

00:22:12.760 real massively overpriced prison weed but people do smoke it in prison uh but sorry nico can you

00:22:20.800 just explain what spice is because we've got listeners and viewers from all around the world

00:22:24.500 they might not be aware of that and also we have listeners and viewers who don't take drugs

00:22:27.960 they are a small minority of course so spice it's like a kind of fake chemical weed uh which

00:22:36.800 originally came about because like because weed is illegal so people tried uh chemists invented it

00:22:42.360 to kind of get around the law because weed is banned but this isn't yet um so but the problem

00:22:49.580 with that is whereas we've had like decades of research of cannabis we know what it does

00:22:55.060 makes you hungry sleepy your doritos are going to be gone in the morning

00:22:59.340 but uh with spice we don't fully know what it does and could be and in fact usually is like

00:23:05.600 a lot more dangerous like the risk of psychosis is much higher um i don't really know that much

00:23:11.440 about it to be honest but from what i saw of it in jail it looks like nasty shit but people

00:23:18.520 wouldn't smoke that if they had the alternative available if they could smoke cannabis so people

00:23:23.800 not as many people i think uh would take crystal meth because if they're looking for a buzz they

00:23:30.100 could take something safer instead so something uh they could take ecstasy they could take

00:23:35.400 cocaine they could take like a weaker amphetamine yeah so what you're saying is the legalization of

00:23:42.580 certain drugs would take away the demand for these more harmful more dangerous drugs yeah right so

00:23:49.060 which drugs in your opinion should remain illegal other than crystal meth which you've already said

00:23:55.520 um well it depends how you how you define because i think they should be legalized but in different

00:24:02.020 ways so for example like uh something like weed i think like you should be able to sell that like

00:24:07.960 the same you do as alcohol like you have the age checks um getting like special shop or whatever

00:24:12.880 um it's more interesting for something like heroin uh so i don't think heroin should be

00:24:20.180 sold in like waitrose next to the frozen fish shop you know just in little

00:24:24.620 next to the buggies and the fucking screwdrivers or whatever.

00:24:29.600 Can I imagine that?

00:24:31.920 Sainsbury's taste of difference heroin.

00:24:35.400 Every little helps.

00:24:37.180 I can't believe it's not heroin.

00:24:39.540 Oh, shit, it is heroin.

00:24:40.680 All right.

00:24:41.900 But what they've done in some countries,

00:24:44.980 like I think Switzerland and Netherlands and Germany,

00:24:49.760 is they put it on prescription,

00:24:51.740 and you can only get in special clinics.

00:24:53.500 so you go in get your smack shoot up like in the presence of a nurse i didn't think and there's a

00:25:00.180 record or at least i haven't found a record of anyone ever od'ing at these places because it's

00:25:04.360 under medical supervision it's all pure so they don't know what dose they're getting and it's

00:25:09.580 free so they don't have to go around boosting tvs like train spotting so that that's how like um

00:25:16.100 uh heroin would be legalized in my opinion and in fact i think we actually had that system

00:25:22.500 in britain until the 80s when reagan got involved and told thatcher to cut this shit out

00:25:32.400 and i think since the 80s like the number of smack addicts has grown actually exponentially

00:25:38.340 because they also have a motive to introduce get other people hooked as well it's like a pyramid

00:25:43.800 scheme so they're starting to support their habit to get other people's hooked and so on

00:25:49.640 That's very, very interesting.

00:25:51.120 So you're saying that heroin, it should be licensed,

00:25:55.000 but essentially for people who are addicted to heroin.

00:25:57.300 Yeah.

00:25:58.760 What about cocaine?

00:26:00.000 Because with cocaine, it's very interesting.

00:26:01.600 You have cocaine, obviously the powder, but then you have crack.

00:26:04.120 Yeah.

00:26:04.300 And they are two completely different types of drugs.

00:26:07.360 Would you legalize both or just legalize cocaine?

00:26:09.500 They're actually the same drug.

00:26:10.840 They're the same drug.

00:26:11.660 They're consumed differently, but fundamentally it's the same drug.

00:26:14.400 But the hit that you get from crack is a lot.

00:26:16.780 Well, I defer to your expertise on that.

00:26:18.960 well that's what the customers have been saying that's uh that's a good question i'm not i'm not

00:26:26.740 fully sure about cocaine because like i think it's one of the most like uh like next to alcohol

00:26:32.480 actually it's one of the most dangerous toxic things you could put in your body is it really

00:26:37.660 like more so than heroin like if you took pure heroin like they do at those clinics every day

00:26:43.280 for 20 years you might get a bit constipated but like you won't really suffer any long-term

00:26:48.860 damage whereas if you're drinking every day or if you're snorting a lion every day you'd have

00:26:54.020 some serious heart problems liver problems um so yeah it's a coke's an interesting one because it

00:27:00.260 does make people some people act like dicks um it's a mild understatement i don't i don't have

00:27:07.520 the answer to that one but i'm sure there's like some some middle ground i think that definitely

00:27:12.480 coca tea which they have in south america which is legal in a lot of south america which is

00:27:19.060 basically like a cup of coffee i think that's i think there shouldn't be any restrictions at all

00:27:24.900 i mean in theory you could go to like asda buy like 30 kilos of coca leaves and make like one

00:27:34.760 gram of coke but i think you know if you are that determined fair play to you but but it's also as

00:27:41.520 all because i mean london has a huge cocaine problem it is like i saw it's like in the top

00:27:47.900 maybe it's the top city in europe for cocaine consumption i don't remember there was a headline

00:27:52.360 last week yeah that would make complete sense yeah so do you not think it would it would it

00:27:57.680 would it's just better if we just go look you can buy it you know the government will regulate it

00:28:03.580 they'll instead of what happens now which is quite literally you go to a toilet in a pub and you have

00:28:08.660 to wait 10 minutes because someone's snorting coke in there just take the toilets out of the cocaine

00:28:14.360 room man problem solved nika i wanted to ask you about uh kind of crime and prison and the kind of

00:28:24.200 the drug dealer mindset if you like like when how did you get into selling drugs um well i'm not

00:28:32.240 gonna lie i am disgustingly middle class uh so i guess i was also kind of very insecure i was quite

00:28:41.160 a weak person i guess so i kind of i always and i got picked on a lot for being like always being

00:28:47.280 the new kid for being the foreign kid so i kind of wanted to prove myself but i was too much of

00:28:53.460 like a little bitch to be like a real gangster to just like rob people and stuff so i thought like

00:28:59.300 if i did like drugs i'd have like some more respect i'd have more friends i'd have more

00:29:05.700 money it just seemed like an easy way out if you keep bullying russians i'm gonna start dealing

00:29:11.360 drugs mate and this podcast will become profitable yeah but how did you what i mean is like okay

00:29:17.060 that's that was your situation as a kid how do you go from that to suddenly you're selling

00:29:22.380 drugs to people because you have to go and buy them from somebody yeah you have to like be like

00:29:27.000 okay i'm a drug dealer now do you know what i mean i kind of got into like my sort of um

00:29:32.000 my door my door um i got my foot through the door through um illegal rave parties so there's a lot

00:29:40.300 of that going on and also legal rave parties a lot of that going on in bristol i'm not gonna

00:29:45.800 name the clubs or the place involved but they're not hard to find um so bristol has like a huge

00:29:52.380 drum and bass scene uh also perhaps coincidentally a huge ketamine scene um like a huge sidechamp

00:30:00.260 scene so i just kept going to those uh eventually i got introduced to people and there from there

00:30:06.020 it's quite easy so like you meet people then you meet more people and it's like a mushrooming

00:30:11.720 network you know so i started out very much uh selling xd at rave so i was like i was the dodgy

00:30:17.720 guys in the corner going weed pills weed pills right and um yeah eventually that moved on to coke

00:30:27.900 and is there i mean i i don't mean this to sound judgmental i'm just trying to understand

00:30:33.380 is there at any point a part of you that goes what i'm doing is wrong not really like the time

00:30:41.540 when i did see afterwards like i did see like the misery of addiction and what drugs can do

00:30:47.280 to people that was only afterwards and i was proactively looking for that stuff in my book

00:30:52.520 like it's not all sunshine and roses like i had to i actually met um met a guy called um

00:31:01.500 ray i forgot his surname the surname uh surname evades me but um he's a he's a former teacher

00:31:11.140 from the Isle of Man

00:31:13.240 and he lost

00:31:15.220 both his sons to ecstasy in one night

00:31:17.440 which was pretty

00:31:19.380 fucked up. They went to a football game

00:31:21.680 and they didn't come back

00:31:23.220 and it turns out that

00:31:25.140 they were later found on the second

00:31:27.260 floor of a pub

00:31:28.020 and they'd taken like

00:31:31.120 six times the lethal dose

00:31:33.180 of ecstasy

00:31:33.840 and that was like a very shocking

00:31:37.060 that story really stuck with me

00:31:39.100 because it shows you what this stuff can do.

00:31:44.040 But when I was meeting Ray,

00:31:47.540 I had this sort of really tight feeling in my stomach

00:31:51.240 because I thought he'd be the kind of guy who'd hate my guts,

00:31:54.780 but really has the same standpoint as me.

00:31:59.520 Because when you're buying drugs, even from someone like me,

00:32:03.360 you don't really know what you're getting.

00:32:05.380 There isn't a warning label saying, you know, it may contain nuts.

00:32:08.160 like that's the biggest problem yeah so like if they knew what they were getting if they knew

00:32:16.620 the exact dose and what the the health like the healthy dose for other people was and if they got

00:32:22.960 it from a shop or whatever like a licensed shop they could check the ingredients they'd still be

00:32:27.040 alive today yeah so his standpoint was essentially the same as mine and where do you stand on you

00:32:33.840 know because you were talking about you know you started dealing in illegal raves illegal raves

00:32:37.860 I'm sure that you probably did it, like you said, at certain nightclubs.

00:32:41.280 Where do you stand with the whole, what the police do,

00:32:44.700 which is they shut a nightclub down if drug dealers are found to be operating there,

00:32:49.460 as to happen to Fabric earlier this year?

00:32:53.300 Well, they'll just go somewhere else.

00:32:55.060 People just go where the party is.

00:32:57.020 So what, are you going to shut down all the clubs in London?

00:32:59.380 Okay, people are just going to throw warehouse parties

00:33:01.720 or parties in fields like they did back in the 90s.

00:33:04.600 like it's um it's called the balloon effect so you crack down on drugs in one place it just pops up

00:33:12.800 somewhere else so i see pavel escobar got killed in what 92 93 a great man

00:33:19.440 colombian cartels came tumbling the short time after the cali cartel went down then what happened

00:33:27.840 like the drug business just moved to mexico mexico is now the the most important nation for drug

00:33:33.780 trafficking in the western hemisphere so and and but why do you think we we need to take drugs

00:33:40.780 because surely you know there's that's quite a loaded question i'm not sure we necessarily need

00:33:45.600 to take drugs the question just to make this podcast entertaining that's that's how it works

00:33:51.360 but i think i think people do need to i mean they do need to take drugs how many people take drugs

00:33:58.840 on this planet and it's more than the people that doesn't mean they need to it might mean that they

00:34:02.900 are genetically predisposed to or they might feel like taking them doesn't mean they need to

00:34:08.420 you need to breathe oxygen you don't necessarily need to take drug the message of trigonometry is

00:34:14.080 not that you need to take drugs is what i'm trying to say i'm trying to preempt all the

00:34:18.840 fucking libel suits or whatever that's going to come after this shit well that's actually um

00:34:23.880 especially in the last two years there's been quite a lot of research that in some ways uh

00:34:28.700 some drugs in some ways can be good for you like right now there's a lot of research in america

00:34:33.040 about um using mdma for treating ptsd so they're trying it now on uh war veterans people coming

00:34:39.680 back from iraq afghanistan and i think uh the the organization is called maps i forgot what

00:34:46.400 it stands for but it's called maps you guys can look it up and i think they had like an 81 percent

00:34:51.980 success rate for treating PTSD. So that's quite good. And another avenue that's being explored

00:34:59.860 now is psychedelics and how they can kind of change your way of thinking and thinking around

00:35:06.800 the box. So when I came out of prison, because like I said earlier, it's very easy to fixate

00:35:14.160 on certain things in prison. So I became fixate of this one girl that I knew and I basically became

00:35:19.860 a stalker for a bit um and flash forward like two years later i'm uh i'm in the amazon about

00:35:28.180 two hours away from any anything that could be described as civilization i'm in like a hut with

00:35:34.260 a shaman and he gives me this uh well they call it a tea but it just tastes like ass it's uh

00:35:41.940 it's called ayahuasca it's like it contains dmt which is like the most powerful

00:35:48.360 psychedelic in the history of man so i drank that um a lot of shit happened i won't go into all of

00:35:57.020 it but um i went to kermit land kermit the frog took me on like this odyssey down the river

00:36:04.060 um it makes you throw up a lot and i turned to throw up and into a bucket the bucket was actually

00:36:10.960 there that wasn't me tripping but who was holding the bucket but rafiki from the lion king and he

00:36:16.980 was looking at me like you'll come with Rafiki he know the way and I just vomited and then I saw

00:36:23.160 there like a million jaguar face in the bucket going in a spiral they didn't look happy at what

00:36:29.020 I've just done but it also made me like reassess my life from a lot of points of view and it helped

00:36:37.860 me get over like a lot of my kind of not sure if that's the word but like my trauma or my fixations

00:36:43.940 from prison and it's not an issue for me anymore because it helped me see outside the box that I

00:36:50.600 kind of put myself in my mental cell as it were well I guess the question you were really asking

00:36:57.100 before I rudely interrupted you just to make a joke was why is it that people are drawn to taking

00:37:02.960 drugs what like there is Johan Harry who talks about the fact that it's a way of dealing with

00:37:07.660 trauma uh what what happened what do you think drives people to take certain drugs uh do you

00:37:16.180 mean like drives people to just use drugs or drives them specifically to like addiction and

00:37:21.240 bad stuff i guess both you can take them one at a time uh well just drugs it's the same uh same

00:37:30.040 reason for us um drinking a cup of coffee or like smoking a cigarette talking with your friends

00:37:38.280 going for a walk playing sports or whatever it's just uh it's just something to do it's just the

00:37:43.400 way to be sociable to be happy um having a drink it's the same thing what happens with addiction

00:37:51.600 is so obviously like thousands of people snort lines across the whole of london every saturday

00:37:58.920 night right but only like a small portion of them go on to do it like compulsively where

00:38:04.360 it's like 5 a.m on a Monday and they're still doing coke so like I think with a lot of those

00:38:12.740 people like one a friend of mine she can be described as let's say a problem coke user and

00:38:21.340 she got raped a lot when she was a kid she was like six to nine years old i think she was

00:38:28.960 repeatedly raped by a family friend so i think like for a lot of people i get addicted and the

00:38:34.740 same with hard drinking they're kind of trying to numb the pain in their lives trying to get over

00:38:39.620 something um some hang-up they have some trauma they have and i think that's eventually that's

00:38:46.540 where kind of the chemical hooks gradually set in and that's when you start having a problem

00:38:51.540 and do you think that when you look at let's say like let's take a drug like cocaine right so you

00:38:58.680 have to go to a drug dealer to get it you buy the drugs you then have to find a place where nobody's

00:39:03.640 seeing you in order to take the drug and then you know the entire process make it gives a sort of

00:39:09.380 glamour to it doesn't it a sort of dark dirty glamour that if you went and you just bought it

00:39:14.900 in a shop somewhere, a licensed shop.

00:39:17.180 It just wouldn't have.

00:39:18.580 Yeah, it feels a bit naughty.

00:39:20.100 Yeah.

00:39:20.820 And do you think that's part of it,

00:39:22.180 that people feel it's naughty,

00:39:23.780 therefore they want to do it more?

00:39:26.320 I think there could be something to that

00:39:28.780 because if you look at the Netherlands,

00:39:30.840 look at Amsterdam, all their coffee shops,

00:39:33.420 the Bulldog,

00:39:34.880 Dutch people don't actually smoke that much weed

00:39:37.460 compared to us.

00:39:39.060 I'd say most of the people smoking weed in Amsterdam

00:39:42.500 are Brits and a stag do

00:39:44.780 and French teenagers.

00:39:48.460 So yeah, there's something in that

00:39:50.760 sort of forbidden fruit appeal.

00:39:54.880 There's also kind of, I think here in Britain

00:39:56.920 we have like highest rates

00:39:58.900 of like binge drinking on the continent

00:40:00.660 or at least in Western Europe

00:40:03.200 like Russia's a whole other mind.

00:40:06.700 But like somewhere like in France

00:40:09.180 they don't really have that problem

00:40:10.500 because people just drink, have a glass of wine with their parents

00:40:14.320 when they're like 13, 14, and they're kind of eased into it.

00:40:18.620 They know not to overdo it from an early age.

00:40:21.780 So I think, yeah, I think there's something in that, definitely.

00:40:24.680 And what about, I just want to come back to the start

00:40:29.520 of your kind of drug-dealing career

00:40:31.540 because it doesn't occur to you that any of this is wrong.

00:40:35.140 You're selling these drugs.

00:40:36.620 Do you have, like, you obviously have to avoid the police.

00:40:39.260 you have to think about that stuff even at that point it doesn't it doesn't cross your mind and

00:40:44.300 again i don't mean this in a judgmental way i'm just trying to get into the mindset it doesn't

00:40:48.180 cross your mind that what you're doing is wrong yeah like it obviously i i know it's illegal but

00:40:53.920 i don't see it as um as wrong as like a bad thing as like an immoral thing because for me there's a

00:41:00.220 big difference between uh what's moral and what's legal yeah so for example like um the people who

00:41:07.640 and frank during world war ii they were acting illegally under the german occupation but i

00:41:12.240 wouldn't say they were acting immorally obviously i'm not comparing myself to that but like let's

00:41:18.120 say um like a rum runner during the prohibition uh during the american prohibition someone who

00:41:24.060 smuggled whiskey in from canada like it's illegal the government says it's wrong but

00:41:28.960 you know everyone drinks all your friends drink like it doesn't really occur to you that it that

00:41:35.960 it's like an immoral bad evil thing all right and then you get arrested yeah and what happens

00:41:42.100 mentally at that point for you that was that was a big shock to the system because

00:41:47.640 no one ever thinks they're getting caught otherwise they wouldn't do it that's why i

00:41:55.020 think like things like the death penalty doesn't work because no one thinks they get caught in the

00:41:59.080 first place there's a lot of evidence for that actually that it's not the extent of the punishment

00:42:04.600 but the certainty of being the likelihood yeah yeah that has a much bigger effect on offending

00:42:10.160 so people think that they're gonna get a slap on the wrist but it's a hundred percent they're much

00:42:16.300 less likely to do things yeah then if they're gonna get a really bad punishment but it's like

00:42:20.660 10 chance of it happening yeah yeah so you didn't think you were gonna get caught like most people

00:42:25.000 no and then bam you get caught yeah also for a while uh i feel like by being like a sort of white

00:42:31.800 middle class student i'd been in a few situations with the police before where i did either get just

00:42:38.080 a slap on the wrist or they didn't even suspect me to begin with so that kind of made me more

00:42:43.660 kind of arrogant i guess or careless i don't know what the right word here would be but when i

00:42:49.340 actually did get caught it's just like there's a once that metal door slams shut you think like

00:42:57.320 oh shit oh shit what do i do now what do i do what do i do what do i do

00:43:00.740 and for a while like i was pretty not calm but like my mind didn't really accept it

00:43:10.340 uh except that this was real until i actually got sent down for two and a half years

00:43:16.660 and then uh then i went a bit insane because i was like okay i'm here now no one's gonna

00:43:24.840 to rescue me batman's not gonna come busting through the window and then i immediately start

00:43:31.900 thinking of things to do and like i calculated my sentence down to the second and i started like

00:43:39.220 counting down like one million nine hundred thousand ninety nine and so on and then i

00:43:47.220 eventually i gave up after about an hour when i realized this actually wasn't making time go

00:43:51.480 it was making it a lot a lot slower right and do you think what from your experience which prison

00:43:58.880 were you in i was in two prisons first i was in uh hmp temp side which was all right you know

00:44:05.040 we had you'd recommend it yeah five stars yeah better than a travel lodge yeah and then the

00:44:11.020 other one it's the hilton the prison and the other one was right next door is the appropriately

00:44:16.620 named hmp isis which was just a shitbox we called it crisis right okay now so you you had you had

00:44:26.080 you spent a significant amount of time in prison does it work as a way to rehabilitate offenders

00:44:32.040 from what you saw

00:44:34.800 nah

00:44:39.380 I think maybe with sort of like

00:44:41.960 medium term offenders maybe

00:44:44.140 actually I don't know because

00:44:47.300 while I was there I'd sometimes

00:44:49.920 see people get released and I'd see them come back

00:44:52.040 out come back in

00:44:54.040 come back in come back in sorry

00:44:55.840 yeah and it was just it was just the

00:44:57.880 stupidest shit I mean no

00:44:59.780 like some people do take the opportunity

00:45:01.860 to change their lives around

00:45:04.140 but you really have to be kind of determined to do that because when you're in jail everything

00:45:11.800 is actually against you're surrounded by your fellow co-conspirators you make new links

00:45:18.680 especially in ISIS which is an offender's institution there's a lot of street gangs

00:45:23.160 like postcode wars and stuff so it's very easy to get drawn into that

00:45:27.400 um yeah i think uh apart from like vile like violent offenders and kitty fiddlers i don't

00:45:36.000 think people should really be sent to prison as much as they are now it seemed to work for you

00:45:40.640 though well i got a bunch of new material yeah no but my point is you're doing something very

00:45:46.460 different now to what you were doing before right that is true and it sounds like prison

00:45:51.220 was for you a wake-up call is that fair to say sounds like a no to tell us what it was like

00:45:57.820 i think it's more uh in my case it's because i had a have a strong family so my family still

00:46:04.160 supported me but i think if i didn't think if uh what my mama thought of all this wasn't constantly

00:46:10.260 on my mind as well i think that i could have very easily gone back and being a bigger drug dealer

00:46:16.460 I've got links to like Russia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Bulgaria now, all over the place.

00:46:24.780 Like if I didn't have, and a lot of the people in prison, they come from either one parent households or sometimes no parent households.

00:46:34.040 So I think for them, it's a lot more difficult.

00:46:37.960 And were steps taken to try and rehabilitate you, to try and give you other skills that you could perhaps use on the outside?

00:46:46.060 or were you just sort of left to it well for me i was already doing my masters by that point so like

00:46:52.380 that sort of little bullshit it class that i did on the side didn't really help much i just used

00:46:58.620 that for uh writing and printing off letters because i was too lazy to write them in my cell

00:47:03.100 um but one thing that's interesting the um painting and decorating course is very popular

00:47:11.380 so i bet i'm gonna say that some like nine out of ten paints and decorators in this country are

00:47:17.780 probably ex-cons really really wow i'm now having my house redecorated again i'm just messing but

00:47:26.220 um what so you you talked about how when you are in prison you have a lot of time

00:47:32.160 to think about stuff uh is the environment that you're in a big factor in why we see that

00:47:40.480 the mental health epidemic is so so so prevalent and so terrible in jails yeah absolutely i mean

00:47:49.320 especially now like in the last few years because of all the cutbacks so i even when i was in i think

00:47:55.660 2016 that's when they really started kicking off but even when i was in prison like the officers

00:48:00.360 were warning like there's going to be riots when they start buying tobacco they start doing cut

00:48:04.420 back so um our prison isis they basically cut half the stuff wow so that means that they couldn't run

00:48:12.820 half the prison effectively at any given time so half the prison was shut down so we could be in

00:48:17.460 ourselves for up to 23 and a half hours a day like they let us out for our like compulsory exercise

00:48:22.740 and that's it and what will affect is that like mentally being in the room for 23 and a half hours

00:48:29.680 well i'll tell you jeremy carl gets boring real quick um so you do have a tv and stuff but it

00:48:37.500 yeah yeah you have a tv uh if you behave yourself you get a tv i think the tv is a good thing

00:48:43.040 because if it wasn't there we'd have a lot more rights that's how strange ways happen pretty much

00:48:48.740 because people are just like you see people in newspapers say yeah it's toughen up our prison

00:48:53.300 it's just a holiday camp i think those people have been taking the wrong holidays and i also

00:48:58.480 think that

00:48:59.260 that's how

00:49:01.880 riots happen

00:49:03.040 like when you

00:49:03.500 toughen up prisons

00:49:04.220 you don't make

00:49:05.180 people learn their

00:49:05.960 lesson

00:49:06.320 you make people

00:49:07.300 more mentally

00:49:08.780 deranged

00:49:09.400 you get this

00:49:11.460 sort of

00:49:11.960 weird thinking

00:49:13.120 about time

00:49:13.900 that you don't

00:49:14.540 have on the

00:49:15.020 outside

00:49:15.360 you're always

00:49:16.000 counting down

00:49:16.860 so you're always

00:49:17.760 thinking like

00:49:18.280 okay now it's

00:49:19.140 12 o'clock

00:49:19.940 I'm gonna have

00:49:20.800 lunch in an hour

00:49:21.540 or whatever

00:49:22.060 6 o'clock

00:49:23.780 Simpsons gonna be

00:49:24.560 on channel 4

00:49:25.520 10 o'clock

00:49:26.860 I'm gonna go to bed

00:49:28.160 five more days of this then it's the weekend i get more visit two more weeks till the end of the

00:49:35.680 month three more months till the end of the year one more year till i'm released like you don't

00:49:41.700 think about that in the real world you don't think of time that way and that can really really fuck

00:49:48.060 with your mind and one other one other thing i wanted to ask you about obviously a lot of our

00:49:53.180 impressions about prison are actually taken from american movies yeah so it's the shawshank

00:49:59.540 redemption there um what's the one with the green mile the green mile but what's the one with edward

00:50:05.080 norton um so american history x right so it's all about violence sexual violence etc what is

00:50:13.760 the situation like for someone like you who as you say is a white middle class kid going in on a

00:50:20.020 relatively short stint compared to maybe some of the other people in the prison uh in terms of you

00:50:25.280 know being assaulted being beaten up and stuff like that actually no i was fine um i used to

00:50:31.500 work out a lot more back then so i was a lot bigger um i don't i tried to be like respectful

00:50:39.080 to anyone i wasn't involved in any of the gang stuff so i was fine pretty much but i did see

00:50:45.360 like a lot of stuff go down um saw one guy get hit in the eye with like a tuna can in the sock

00:50:52.240 and he was walking around looking like two-faced from batman for about a week

00:50:56.420 um there's a lot of um i think we've told people enough illegal shit for the podcast there's a lot

00:51:02.480 of uh stabbings with let's say sharpened toothbrushes like toothbrushes with uh little

00:51:08.120 razor blades attached melted into the thing yeah yeah yeah uh i'm not gonna tell you guys how to

00:51:14.800 do that no but but the reason i ask about it what i mean is is there a lot of that going on

00:51:21.960 yeah and why is it going on you mentioned like the gang stuff so if you as a person you you're

00:51:27.700 in prison you're not part of a gang are you generally going to be all right as long as you

00:51:31.480 don't if you're not being addicted to people or whatever i think uh yeah especially in like the

00:51:37.220 the big man jail. So I was in ISIS is a young offender. So 18 to 25. There was one 28 year

00:51:44.940 old there by mistake. He wasn't happy. But again, an adult prison, I think most people just want to

00:51:51.120 kind of do their time and get on with it really young offenders. It's different. You have a lot

00:51:57.840 more bullying or more intimidation. Just because that's just full of young wannabe gangsters want

00:52:04.060 to prove themselves but yeah generally it's not as bad as as they say but it's still it can be

00:52:11.840 pretty bad it can so your way of getting through it was essentially keeping your head down did you

00:52:20.000 make any sort of connections there did you did you meet people or is it something that you just

00:52:26.040 literally went i'm not going to talk to anyone it's going to be a year i'm just going to have

00:52:29.560 tunnel vision every day i'm just going to keep my interactions that's impossible you'll go crazy

00:52:34.160 from that uh now i try to make friends there's always like a couple of cool people in each wing

00:52:39.480 um i remember there was one group which everyone called the russians

00:52:45.060 which was basically consists of me the only actual russian about six lithuanian guys

00:52:54.800 who get really pissed off

00:52:56.860 he called them Polish

00:52:57.880 and then one Uzbek guy

00:53:00.620 everyone just called us Russia

00:53:03.000 because they didn't bother with geography

00:53:04.920 but that also means

00:53:06.740 when someone shouted Russia across the wing

00:53:08.560 about 8 people would turn around

00:53:10.100 yeah they were cool

00:53:12.120 just played cards all day

00:53:14.420 really

00:53:15.020 yeah

00:53:16.800 oh

00:53:18.340 met the guy who stabbed Professor Green

00:53:21.120 he was an interesting character

00:53:25.000 The Uzbek guy, he stole, I think, three million pounds,

00:53:30.380 sending viruses to banks and then siphoning off the money.

00:53:34.840 But he fucked up when one day he forgot to turn the encryption on his laptop,

00:53:39.180 so he trace-thold his IP address.

00:53:41.800 And, yeah, he got done for, like, fraud, money laundering, all kinds of shit.

00:53:47.700 That's really interesting.

00:53:49.120 So it's almost, you know, it's survival, isn't it?

00:53:52.200 You go in there, and then you kind of meet like-minded people.

00:53:55.780 Yeah, you have to.

00:53:56.860 You have to, and that's the way you get through it.

00:53:59.280 But you don't think it works for the vast majority of people.

00:54:02.680 Really, it should be about rehabilitation.

00:54:04.300 It should be about bringing someone in, trying to do your best to fix and give them skills

00:54:09.880 so that they can survive in the outside world.

00:54:12.540 That's what they do in Norway, actually.

00:54:15.120 Norway has a really good prison system.

00:54:19.160 I think they even have internet there.

00:54:21.220 I think Anders Breivik isn't allowed internet.

00:54:23.960 He can't, like, go Instagram his fellow Nazis.

00:54:27.160 But most prisons, they're allowed internet.

00:54:29.980 It's like school library internet, so, like, obviously a bunch of stuff is filtered.

00:54:34.820 But, yeah, you can still talk to your family.

00:54:38.960 Their sentences are a lot shorter, I think.

00:54:42.940 Some prisons, like, you can just walk around.

00:54:46.000 You don't have to be, like, bang up 6 o'clock in yourself for the rest of the night.

00:54:50.420 And I think their re-offending rate in Norway is something like 15%,

00:54:56.560 whereas with us, I think it's something close to the half.

00:55:00.380 Wow. So every other person who comes out of prison is going to go back in.

00:55:04.960 Yeah. Don't quote me on the exact statistic, but it is much higher than Norway's.

00:55:08.740 More or less.

00:55:09.320 Maybe a third or 40%, something like that.

00:55:12.320 And you must have encountered people where you just looked at them

00:55:15.140 and they just thought, look, we need to rehabilitate people.

00:55:18.440 We need to give everyone a chance.

00:55:19.700 But you must have met the odd person who was like,

00:55:21.460 there's no fucking way you should be outside.

00:55:23.960 Oh, man, there are these two guys.

00:55:28.140 What are those two French cartoon characters?

00:55:34.320 One of them's big and the other one's small

00:55:36.420 and they fight the Romans.

00:55:38.020 Asterix and Obelix.

00:55:38.980 Yeah, there's all these two guys

00:55:40.620 that looked exactly like Asterix and Obelix.

00:55:43.500 And the big fat one, he was a fucking psycho, man.

00:55:47.340 like i i was cool with him but like some people don't need to be in jail and some people need

00:55:54.380 to be in jail and he definitely needs to be in jail and why was sorry astro let's hope he never

00:56:01.660 comes out and finds out and starts watching trigonometry um thanks for coming nico i recommend

00:56:06.400 everybody get this book and read it it's uh it's a great read and like i said it weaves his personal

00:56:11.720 story when with a lot of facts and research into the drug war it's a really good read uh thanks

00:56:17.100 for sending us a copy um and uh as always follow you're on twitter but you're not very active on

00:56:23.120 there right or are you my twitter game is weak yeah your twitter game so don't follow him on

00:56:27.040 twitter but follow us and we'll see you again in a week from now with another brilliant episode

00:56:31.000 take care see you next week guys

00:56:32.820 thanks for watching guys as always subscribe to the youtube channel click the bell button

00:56:39.200 next to subscribe button so you get notified when a video comes out and follow us on all the social

00:56:43.740 media at triggerpod. And also leave us a nice review on iTunes and spread the word.

TRIGGERnometry - February 12, 2020

＂What I Learned From Going to Prison for Selling Drugs＂

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