Steve Rolles on Legalizing Drugs

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
views expressed here do not represent those of my Heart Media,
Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed as

(00:23):
an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
even represent my own and nothing contained in this show
should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. So today's a

(00:45):
big day for me because this will be the concluding
episode of season two of Psychoactive, which means we've put
out eighty episodes since the summer of plus a whole
bunch of bonus episodes, And so I thought this would
be a good time to really take the opportunity because

(01:06):
I'm not sure if and when Psychoactive will be returning
and in what form to thank a number of people.
Let me start with Darren Aronovski and maybe of you
know him as the famous movie director. Um. He and
I met about twenty years ago. We were introduced by
phone named Gonga White who took each of us not
together separately on our first Ayahuaski experience. But Darren emailed

(01:29):
me back in June and suggested the idea of my
hosting of podcast on psychedelics, actually he thought, and my
response to him was, I'd actually rather do one on
all drugs, and he said, let's do it. So first, Darren,
thank you ever so much for initiating this project and
for having the confidence in the faith in need to

(01:49):
make this happen. And then next let me thank the
producers who have put in the most time and effort recently.
That has been no him Osband at Protozoa and Josh
Stain at My Heart, and then their predecessors who got
this going Catcha kum Coova at Protozoa and Benjamin kubrick
Um also at Protozoa. I mean, at the top of

(02:10):
the list, Dylan Golden, my key collaborator over there, but
also Ari Handel and Elizabeth Geeseus and a Vivit Barrio
sph and Eric Watson, and over at my Heart there's
Alex Williams and Matthew Frederick and of course the head
of the whole enterprise, the Bob Pittman, and of course
Robert Beatty, who came up with a wonderful logo for Psychoactive.

(02:34):
So thanks to all of you. It's been wonderful working
with this team. And I apologize to those whose names
I've forgotten who are working more behind the scenes on
all of this. But what I can tell you is
the levels of professionalism and time and commitment and good
times with the folks at Protozoa and I heart the
co producers of Psychoactive has just made this whole experience

(02:54):
a real pleasure. Next, I want to thank you the listeners.
Of course I don't know exactly who all of you are.
Some of you do tell me, but I can tell
you this about the data that we collect. Most of
the listeners maybe have been in the United States, but
there have been listeners in over a hundred seventy countries

(03:14):
and territories around the world, so the audience truly is global,
and I want to thank especially those of you who
are listening in countries with fairly oppressive governments, where these
sorts of conversations that we have on Psychoactive would not
be so well tolerated in your own countries. I hope
these conversations have been a source of inspiration and enlightenment

(03:39):
for all of you. Now, as I said, I'm not
sure what the next incarnation of Psychoactive will be or
when I am going to take a break for a
while at least, but I would welcome your feedback. So
contact me through Instagram or other social media, or email
me directly at Ethan at Napleman dot net. That's Ethan

(03:59):
at Napleman dot net. I can't promise to get back
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critical ideas for the future. Please keep posting your comments,
whether it's on iHeart or Google or Apple or wherever
you listen to podcasts. The episodes will remain up for
the foreseeable future on all of the platforms, so please

(04:21):
keep listening. And so with this let me launch into
episode number eighty. And for number this one, I decided
to ask somebody who has been a long time ally
and friend of mine. His name is Steve Roles. He's
based in the u K's British. He has been the

(04:43):
senior policy analyst at the British Drug post Reform Organization
TRANSFORM almost since its inception, since that organization was founded
by Danny Kushlick in the mid nine so he's been
there for twenty five years. He's widely regarded, but not
US as an expert in the UK, but perhaps as

(05:03):
the single most knowledgeable person when it comes to thinking
about the legal regulation of drugs. I mean that means
that he's been a consultant to governments from Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Jamaica, Malta, Mexico,
uh Uruguay, really almost every place except the US when

(05:23):
it comes to legalizing cannabis. It means he's been a
recent advisor to the Petro government in Colombia on their
proposals for legalizing coca cocaine. He's been dealing with the
Dutch on the issues of legally regulating M d M A.
Uh So, Steve, thank you ever so much for joining
me on the last episode of season two of Psychoactives.

(05:45):
That's my pleasure, Ethan, It's great to be him. Well. So,
we have so much to talk about, from models of
legalization to the actual realities of legalization. But let me
just begin um by by asking you. I mean, you know,
I think some of our listeners will know. I've been
involved in this issue since the late nineteen eighties. Now, Steve,

(06:06):
you've jumped into this about a decade later, in the
mid to late nineteen nineties. But when you look at
this evolution in the twenty years you've been involved in this,
what most jumps out at you, Well, I mean, I guess,
like like you, Ethan, it's been a remarkable, fascinating journey
because what what started, as you know, discussions amongst reform

(06:30):
advocates like us, has moved from the sort of theoretical
space into the real world, and things which were seen
as outrageous, sort of extreme heretical views, um when when
we started are now very much mainstream political views and
supported by a majority of the public um. And you know,

(06:54):
they are happening on the ground on every continent on Earth.
So things which were impossible, not not even twenty five
years ago, even ten years ago. You know, if you
think about it, Colorado and Washington and Uruguay, that that
all happened in two thousand and twelve, So that was
only just really ten years ago. Um. And before that

(07:14):
it was just still all theoretical. It was things that
we were hoping for, I mean, there were some things
happening with medical cannabis and so on, but when you
get into the non medical recreational drug legalization regulation, it's
really very much you know, modern history. UM. And So
for a long time, we were you know, making the case,

(07:35):
we were writing our reports, we were developing proposals, UM,
we were advocating, we were trying to change the framing
of the debate and try and influence key political discourses
in the media and in in in in professional forums
and in political forums. And sometimes it didn't feel like
we were getting anywhere, um, But clearly we were, because
at some point a threshold was passed and reform became

(07:58):
not just a possibility but a reality. And since those
since two thousand and twelve, there's been a kind of um,
cascading domino effect. Uh. And and you know, from from
two states in the US to now twenty one from
from just Uruguay, we're seeing cannabis reforms for nomenical cannabis

(08:19):
on on every continent now except maybe the Arctic. And
and and we're seeing, as you've already said, we've seen
the debate move beyond cannabis into psychedelics and and cocaine
and coca and m D m A and other stimulates
and other drugs, and so the things that we you know,
the things that we have been advocating all of this time,
are becoming a reality. And that is both interesting and

(08:41):
fascinating and historical view, but also you know, satisfying from
professional view to sort of things that we were convinced
that we were right, but everyone was telling us we
were mad. It turns out that actually we were right
because we've been vindicated by history, and you know, the
evidence is coming in and showing showing that we were
what we were saying was essentially right, and you know,
here we are. We're still a long way to go,

(09:03):
but I feel, yeah, satisfied that that we have you know,
we haven't. We weren't just some cranky kind of tinfoil
hat nutters and heretics and that you know, history, we
are on the right side of history. M hm no,
I mean, Steve, I'll tell you. Part of what kept
me going all those decades of being involved in the advocacy,

(09:26):
and you know, when people would think this was just
a quixonic enterprise, was the sense that we were right
in policy terms, We were right from a justice perspective,
we were right from a perspectives of individual and broader morality,
and that it just seemed inevitable that somehow this but
that on some level, this bubble of a kind of
um prohibition, this policy, the notion that you could somehow

(09:49):
control global illicit commodities markets through policies of repression repression
was somehow gonna work. But I want to ask you this.
You know, I've oftentimes made the point that if you
ask the question, how and why was it that the
United States, which for almost a century, really from the

(10:10):
early twentieth century until basically the second term of the
Obama administration, really was the global champion of the war
on drugs, right exporting and modeling and coercing other governments
to adopt, you know, fairly punitive prohibitionist policies. How was
it that we nonetheless became the leader when it came

(10:32):
to the legal regulation of cannabis. And I've answered that
question the US context by saying it really goes back
to medical marijuana, goes back to that first medical marijuana
ballot initiative victory in California six It was the one
that afforded the first opportunity to bring marijuana markets above
ground with the medical marijuana dispensaries. It was the one

(10:52):
that gave people an opportunity to feel like what regulating
marijuana would be like? Right, and it helped, you know,
in every set, transformed that dialogue in a way that
opened up the door, shifted public opinion, shifted government thinking
to imagining a world in which the legalization of marijuana
not just for medicinal purposes, but more broadly for all
at us was possible. But the question is for you

(11:16):
in the UK, and looking at this globally, to what
extent was that the model elsewhere? First? Secondly, to what
extent was what happened in the US kind of the
inspiration or the instigation without which reform would not have
happened elsewhere, Because we always look at the Dutch coffee
shop system is being you know, one of the actually
pre models to the US medical marijuana model. And to

(11:38):
what extent has this happened in some countries actually totally
independently of medical marijuana being the stepping still, I mean,
that's a great question. Um Uh, there's certainly. Um I
think the fact that the US, for the reasons you've
you've you've you've touched on the fact that the US

(11:58):
did go first, snificantly went first. I mean, I don't
want to you know, erased Uruguay from history here, because
Uruguay was the first member state and kind of happened
around the same time as Colorado and Washington. But well
sort of right because in a way, Uruguay legalizes as
the end of twenty thirteen, so a year after all
after Colorado Washington. In fact, I've sometimes wondered whether or

(12:21):
not Uruguay would have happened in Colorado and Washington, and
that kind of for sure. But the process was unfolding
from about two thousand and eleven, and there were bills
being tabled, and it was a very active public debate.
There were expert consultations going on in two thousand, two
thousand and twelve that TRANSFORM and myself and others UM
were involved in. But I think the thing that was

(12:42):
very significant in terms of the US for the global
debate was really what you say, I mean, the fact
that the US had been the kind of drug war
sort of bully of the world for for all these decades,
going all the way back to you know, um the
drafting of the the you know U Single Convention in
the forties and fifties and Harry Ainsling and all that,

(13:03):
all that ghastly history. Um. The fact that they then
did become these world leaders in the cannabis legalization regulation,
it did create space for the debate to blossom elsewhere
in the world. Just because of the US is hackmonic
role in geopolitics generally and in drug policy specifically. Um,

(13:27):
they kind of lost their authority to bully other countries
on cannabis regulation when US states started legalizing. And you know,
when when the US does stuff, it becomes okay to
talk about it in other places in the world. And
you can look at other things like equal marriage. For example,
when the equal marriage stuff happened under Obama in the US,

(13:48):
suddenly that debate, which had been completely off the table
really in the UK, suddenly that debate opened up and
within a year or two we'd we'd we'd legalized equal
marriage as well. Um, just because it's sort of somehow
made it okay, uh to talk about it, kind of
normalized the debate. So what happened in the US has

(14:09):
been immensely important, and they've you know that the models
that have been adopted have been quite different in many
of the states, so that there is also this interesting
laboratory of change in the US that you have all
these different models and we can look at what's working
and what's not working. And other countries have looked at that,
and they've looked at the successes and failings of US
legalization and learned from it and developed that move move forward.

(14:32):
But I think the political power of the US doing something,
even though it didn't happen at a federal level, it
still created a political environment in which it became okay
for other countries and other political forums to to start
discussing this, and it became more difficult for the US
to sort of try and stomp on other reformers because

(14:53):
you go back a few years before Colorado and Washington
and the US was, you know, giving uh, the Dutch
a hard time about the coffee shops for decades, and
then suddenly the US is doing it themselves, and it's
kind of like, wow, that's that's a real change. And
I suspect the things that are happening with psychedelics, with
magic mushrooms and psychedelic plants in Oregon and Colorado and elsewhere,

(15:15):
and things that are happening with krat Tom and so on.
I think that will probably help open up the debate
for psychedelic regulation around the world as well, because it's
sort of just becomes okay to talk about it. The US,
their historical historical position, their hegemonic position in geopolitics. It
just creates a sort of safe space for other nation
states to engage in those debates, which just simply wasn't

(15:38):
there before. Yeah, No, I think I think that makes sense.
But I'll tell you it's funny when you we talked
about Uruguay, right, Um, you know, when when President Mohican
Uruguay sort of proposes and as you said, there have
been conversations going on, and folks in the US have
been engaging, and then you have you know, not just
transformed but also i DPC International Drug Policy Consortion. So

(15:58):
there are conversations had um. But what I oftimes think
about Uruguay is that it was a country where the
medical marijuana thing had not really developed separately in the
way ahead in the US. Right So the US opening
on medical marijuana, you know, beginning in ninety six, and
then Colorado, Washington obviously opened up space. But Uruguay was

(16:19):
an example of a place which moved forward without having
ever done that intermediate medical marijuana step. As far as
I know, yeah, that's true. I think. I think that
the one of the differences between reform in Latin America
and in Europe and North America is the key driver
UM of the reform narrative in Latin America has generally

(16:39):
been security issues, so it's much been more been about
the cartels and violence and insecurity. UM and President Mohica
of Uruguay his his sort of discourse around the need
for cannabis reform, but his discourse was very much around security.
I mean, he didn't want to see what he called
the columbian Ization of Uruguay. Didn't want to see Uruguay

(17:01):
become a kind of you know, moved towards narco state
type status. So he drove what I mean, you know,
how much organized crime activity was involved in the domestic
cannabis industry in Uruguay is moved, but that that was
still his driving force rather than um, you know, economic
opportunities or social justice or public health. I mean, those

(17:23):
things all came into it, but the driver and the driver.
I think similarly for the Coca cocaine regulation debate in
Colombia now and the Petro is is very similar. It's
it's driven not by you know, and the overdose crisis
or by over and you know, mass incarceration and social

(17:44):
justice stuff. It's driven more by issues around security and
cartel activity and undermining institutions and you know violence. That
dynamic is all now beginning to unravel, you know, as
as the global South is becoming more potent politically, more
confident on geopolitical stage, more willing to stand up to

(18:06):
the US and some of the kind of hegemonic powers
of the of the global North, we're seeing a great
a lot more confidence um in those countries like Colombia,
you know, and and and like Uruguay to say no,
we're not We're not going to play this game anymore.
We're gonna we're gonna plow our own foreign and do
our own thing because the war on drugs just has

(18:27):
not worked for us. We've been fighting your war on
drugs for generations and all it's brought to us is
misery and degradation and and and violence and death. And
we're just not going to do it anymore. Let me
stop you right there, because before I want to go
back to the Uruguay thing and some of the Latin
American context and I both want to Although I agree
with most of what you said, I do want to
challenge you in a few things and also provides some

(18:47):
context for our audience. So when we're talking about the
former president of Uruguay, President Mohica, you know he was
at all leftist Gorilla Tomorrow guerrillas back in the seventies
or whatever, who became this one term president. Part of
what at him successful, of course, was that Uruguay they
never had more than forty of the public supporting the
legalization of cannabis, but they had a leadership, as you

(19:08):
pointed out by President Mohika, and a very strong tradition
of party discipline which enabled this to happen, for Uruguay
to pass a law legalizing cannabis a year after Colorado
and Washington had done it. Now you talk about securitization,
I think they're The big issue was that Uruguay was
importing most of its cannabis from I think Paraguay, which
is the leading producer of cannabis um in the southern

(19:31):
part of South America and where organized crime is inevitably involved.
But just to complicate it a bit. I mean, I
think if we look obviously talking about the bigger issues
around coca cocaine or heroin, opium in other places, security
is a big issue. But if you look elsewhere in
Latin America, I remember, we were perpetually frustrated at you know,

(19:52):
more and more people Latin American especially that American elites
understood the extent to which US inspired you know, drug
war policies, drug war pressures, prohibitionist frameworks were absolutely disaster
for their country, sort of like you know America during
alcohol prohibition times fifty or times a hundred in terms
of creating you know, violence, crime, corruption, all that sort

(20:13):
of stuff. But we also saw virtually nothing in the
way of progress on that front in response to the
security issue. And where the progress did happen in recent years,
for example, in countries like Columbia or in Mexico or
even elsewhere, it was typically medical marijuana sort of sticking

(20:33):
its nose under the tent. Right in Mexico and Colombia,
you have these mothers, these parents of you know, of
infants and children, are that terrible Dravette syndrome, that epileptic syndrome,
that you know, where cannabis is the only thing that
really helps to reduce seizures, and they become this kind
of inspirational force in a way. So much similar woul
happened the United States. So it seems that even in

(20:54):
that Latin American context, where security is such a major
issue and organized crime and the violence and corruption of
such a major issue, that nonetheless, apart from Uruguay, it
did seem like medical marijuana was the key elements sort
of opening things up. Yeah, I think I think I
agree with you on that medical cannabis has you know it,

(21:18):
as you say, it does help normalize, um, the concept
of a regulated cannabis market, and it does kind of
detoxify the idea of cannabis as this as this as deadly,
this deadly drug in the in the public perception that
certainly has played out um in most countries, and it's
happening in Europe now. Um. I think the thing with Uruguay,

(21:40):
I mean, one of the things is that cannabis was
never really criminalized in Urugua any In fact, drugs possession
generally was never criminalized in Uruguay. So right, and as
we forget and we talk about Portugal, and you know
with its decrem model that it brought in about twenty
years ago, and we think of them as the pioneer,
and in many of the sects they were. But from
a legal perspective, Uruguay already had something of the Portugal

(22:05):
model for decades. Yes, and they were they were clearly, um,
quite pragmatic. I mean, I actually I met Mohika when
we were working there. Because it's quite a small country,
so your access to the politicians is a lot easier
than if you're in a huge country like the US.
You can just get to meet the president and so
we we went and met him and it was quite

(22:26):
an amusing meeting UM. But I sort of asked him,
I said, are you worried about you know, America breathing
Danian neck and giving you heat for legalizing cannabis? I mean,
are they gonna are you wired? They're going to come
down on your hard And he was like, he was like, look,
I was imprisoned down a well for three years and
the tortured. Um, I don't he basically that I don't

(22:48):
give a shit about the US, and and it was
it was just so refreshing to see just someone literally
doing leads because it wasn't just cannabis. I mean, this
is a guy who also legalized gay marriage and abortion, which,
like cannabis, none of them had a popular mandate. He
just thought they were the right thing to do. Um
And you know, he got away with it because the

(23:10):
public respected his leadership even though he didn't he didn't
have a popular mandate for any of those issues. But
you know that was just genuine leadership. I mean, that's trusty.
But you know, I'll also say, you know they had
and I remember, you know, he had a right hand guy,
Diego can Yet. I think, who was, you know, one
of our key liaisons. And I remember talking with him

(23:31):
when he had come to the US, and I think
some of the story can be told now, but they
were to some extent concerned how the US respond because
the US in the past had been so you know,
beating up on Canada if they talked about doing harm reduction,
or beating up in Australia, if they thought if they
were going to you know, or you know, Netherlands or
whatever country wanted to move forward. And what he told

(23:52):
me it was that there had been a discussion with
folks in the White House and he he wasn't precise
who it was. I speculated that it might have been
Vice President Biden, but who had essentially said at that
point that listen, um, so long as this is entirely
a domestic issue in Uruguay, so long as you're not

(24:13):
exporting this stuff to the US, so long as you're
not talking about legalizing drugs other than cannabis, then we
don't have to see this as affecting American national security
or other political interests whatsoever. In other words, it was
a kind of tacit qualified green light to saying we're
not going to respond to you the way we have

(24:33):
in the past. And I think the U. S Ambassador,
you know, follow that line. And then there was a
very another pivotal moment. There was an Assistant Secretary of
State for International Arcotics International i n L the State
Department Arcotics and Law Enforcement Office, and he was a
highly respected diplomat, William Brownfield, and he was something of
an old drug warrior, but he had been a very

(24:55):
respected former ambassador to Chile and Venezuela, Colombia. He'd become
the head of the Narcotics and Law Enforcement Office in
twenty eleven. Then Uruguay and Washington legalized in twelve, and
the Obama administration is in a bind, like what do
they do about Washington? And Colorado's is in clear violation
of the federal law, and clear violation in seventy Control

(25:15):
Substance Act, and clear violation of the U N Conventions,
And they kind of toss and turn and finally, and
I think the summer Fall often come out with what
becomes known as the quote unquote brown Field doctrine. And
that Brownfield doctrine essentially reverses um, you know, almost a
century of US kind of mono prohibitionist policy. It basically says,

(25:40):
we are no longer going to be intolerant of diversity.
We are going to be open to other possibilities and
debates so long as countries keep collaborating on the basic
efforts to crack down around drug later organized crime and
trafficking and all this sort of stuff. Right. So, I mean,
as an American, I saw that, you know, Colorad Washington
lead to the Obio administration have to rethink how they're

(26:02):
gonna have to deal with this domestically, and that inevitably
leads to some rethinking of how to deal with this
stuff internationally. Now, how did all this look from where
you're sitting, you know, advising government sitting in the UK
looking at this from outside the US perspective? Well, I
mean the Brownfield statement was was huge. I mean it
was you know, it was huge within drug policy circles.

(26:23):
It didn't I mean, it got some media coverage, It
didn't particularly reverberate around the world outside of drug policy circles.
But you know, it's you know, it's still being quoted today,
and I think you're absolutely right it was. It was
a pivotal moment because it was basically the US acknowledging
that the global consensus on on prohibition of all drugs

(26:43):
was you know, crumbling um and they needed to be
tolerant of because the brown Field wasn't. He didn't just
talk about cannabis as well. He talked about the legalization
of of all drugs or or other drugs jet drugs only.
I can't remember the exact wording that he used, but
that was really really significant too, and it create did
the context. I think the debate that has unfolded subsequently.

(27:04):
I mean, it's going to be really interesting to see
how the what's going on in Columbia, with the debate
around coca leaf and cocaine regulation, is going to stress
test that. You know, how how far can countries like
Columbia push things before the US. That starts to get
pretty jumpy. And I suspect um, since Petro's election, they

(27:27):
have been going or hang on a sec this this
this guy, this new president Columbia is actually talking about
legalizing cocaine. And you know, I've been working on this
bill that you mentioned in your introduction around the regulation
of coca leaf that includes a pilot for a legally
regulated cocaine market for for non medical youth, very strictly

(27:48):
regulated and go to the details if you want, but
it's in that bill. And one of the people who
was on the committee that worked on that that that
worked on that bill was Petro and he is now president.
So he's spoken favorite, it's a favor of it's on
the record, he's voted for it. Um, it's all on
the record. And you know when The Economist did there

(28:08):
a feature on cocaine regulation back in November, he then
tweeted it. Um. You know the screen grab at the
full the full editorial that was saying, you know, Biden
should legalize cocaine. They need to go further than just
partnering a few people for for cannabis. So it's going
to be interesting to see how the US actually reacts
to that. But um, you know, if there was, if

(28:31):
there was a stress test of the Brownfield doctrine, I
think what's happening in Colombia is going to be it.
And it's gonna be really fascinating to see how that
plays out. So, you know, I should tell our listeners
that that Steve has been the lead author on a
number of very important publications. The first one that they wrote,
maybe almost fifteen years ago, was basically a blueprint for
legal regulation of drugs called Blueprint for Regulation. But he's

(28:53):
also been the lead author on a volume called How
to Regulate Cannabis, which is now in its third edition.
More recently, a couple of years ago, they published How
to Regulate Stimulants, which included this issue that Steve's talking
about now, around cocaine, cocaine and around emphetamine and I
think as M D M A. And they're currently fundraising
to produce a volume about how to regulate psychedelics. Now

(29:15):
this Steve, what I want to go on this coca
cocaine thing. I mean, obviously, coca has been legally produced
in Bolivia and Peru for many decades, right, there was
always an exception within the UN conventions on that allowing
them to produce it for you know, local purposes, but
never allowed to export any cocaine except for the kind

(29:35):
of decocon allized coca leaf that's used as part of
Coca Cola's flavoring and such and some and some tiny
bit that's used for pharmaceutical purposes, because cocaine still does
have limited medicinal pharmaceutical purposes. But when we look at
what's going on now, right, I mean, there's obviously the
issue domestically about how do you regulate this um. But

(29:57):
before we get into that, one of the big elephants
in the room always is the United Nations, right, the
United Nations the anti Drug conventions going back, you know,
not just to the Opium Conventions the early twentieth century,
over a hundred years ago, but to the ninety six
Control Convention, the sixty one Single Convention, the subsequent ones

(30:17):
in sight eight um. That was always seen as a
barrier to any form of states legalizing markets beyond the
research are strictly medical. Now to go back to Uruguay,
I mean, obviously, when Uruguay does this, the United Nations
about un we should specify there's two major there's three

(30:39):
major U n. Drug agencies. Right, There's the U n
Office on Drugs and Crime un O d C, which
kind of funds programs around the world and whose head
is a semi public figure on drug control. There's the
Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is a grouping of all
the various governments that meets, you know, periodically in every
spring in Vienna. And then there's the i n c B,

(31:01):
the International Our Cartage Control Board, which has sort of
been a watchdog of the conventions. Now when Uruguay is
moving forward and Mohicas saying we're going to do this
and we don't give it damn and the i n
c B reportedly sends a nasty letter to Mochica saying
you can't do this. Well, what happened there? I mean,
obviously they just did it. Anyway. The thing about the

(31:23):
i n c B, which is, you know, like like
you say, they're the kind of they're kind of watchdog
of on compliance to these prohibitionist tenants within the within
the treat with the within the three treaties that you mentioned,
is that their their enforcement power is quite limited. I mean,
they can in theory make recommendations two more senior bodies

(31:44):
within the within the U N and that could ultimately
result in sanctions or some some other kind of uh,
punitive intervention. But that's never actually happened. I guess one
of the reasons that never actually happened is because until
you're agin country it ever, you know across that line
in the sand. You know, Uruguay was the first country

(32:06):
essentially to make a kind of hard defection from the treatise.
You know that the consensus around global prohibition, including cannabis prohibition,
had held for a long time, and the strength of
the treatise is essentially based it's rooted in the fact
that member states agree to to abide by them. You know,

(32:27):
these that they're they're quite difficult to enforce against non
compliance or breaches in in treaty commitments. And when Uruguay
moved forward with this, it's true the the I n
c B did did send them sort of snarky letters
and that the head of the then I n t
B actually referred to Uruguay as pirates, which was incredibly undiplomatic,

(32:51):
an inappropriate language for a UN agency to be referring
to to a member state ads UM. But they they
made an argument that uh, they were make doing the
reforms in pursuit of the human rights and public health
of the citizens of Uruguay, and their commitments to those goals,

(33:13):
the higher goals of the u N Charter Um superseded
technical compliance to you know, one or two articles in
these in these creaky old drug treaties. That's you know,
it's worth reminding people the treaty which it's sixty one.
You know, this is this is like more than sixty
years old now and was being drafted in the nineteen

(33:35):
forties and nineteen fifties, an era which is completely different political, economic,
social and cultural landscape to the one we live in now,
particularly around drug use. I mean, you know that the
sixties hadn't happened, and you know in the al Capoma
was still alive. This is when those the foundational bedrock

(33:57):
of global prohibition was being drafted and the urguins based
similk this creakial treaty. It's no longer relevant. We think
that the our commitments to peace and security and health
and well being a mankind that are enshrined in the
the overarching U N Charter are more important than technical
appliance to these creakial treaties, and we are going to essentially,

(34:19):
they said, we're just going to ignore them, um and
we we will engage in a constructive debate how to
resolve these tensions. And that kind of created the blueprint
which Canada followed. I think the difference between Canada and Uruguay,
because Canada became the second country to formally the second
member state to formally legalized cannabis and no medical uses,

(34:41):
Canada was a bit more bold. They actually acknowledged that
what they were doing was in non compliance, but and
they essentially made the same argument. They said, look, this
is in the interest of our citizens. You know, we
are following the guidance of the UN Charter in terms
of peace and security and health and well well being
of our citizens, and we will engage in a constructive

(35:02):
debate in the relevant forums to try and resolve these tensions.
And they kind of left it there, and now NTB
got a bit pissy and sent a few snarky letters.
Both Uruguay and Canada and other countries now that are
following their footsteps. But essentially there wasn't a great deal
that the I n t B could do apart from
kind of a bit of finger wagging and kind of

(35:22):
you know, naughty noughty and and give them a bit
of a telling off in their annual report. You know,
in many ways that can that prohibitions. Consensus and the
treaties have been remarkably effective at maintaining global prohibition. But
now the cracks are there, the first cracks in the dam.
It's starting to turn into a flood. And now we're
having five or six countries in Europe with seeing Thailand,

(35:45):
South Africa, Mexico and all these other countries. So once
you have multiple countries defecting, then the whole system starts
to to collapse in its own internal connections and something
has to change, you know, either you get a new convention,
or conventions are repealed or the cons amended. Something has
to give, and I think that's the stage right now,
particularly with kind of as issue. We'll be talking more

(36:08):
after we hear this ad see. I mean, Steve, you're
reminding me that you know, back in the old days
when I was first speaking out in the late eighties,

(36:29):
and one of our leading antagonists was the chairman of
those US Congress Select Committee and Arcotics, Charlie Wrangel, very
prominent black politician out of Harlem, and he was when
I was debating on national television all this stuff, and
he does, he does a hearing, and part of his
rhetorical thing is, well, what's your plan? What are you

(36:50):
gonna do? How are you gonna sell it? How are
you gonna I'm kind of imitating his kind of voice
that he had um back back then, right, And I
remember thinking, you know, he is he actually really serious
about wanting to hear proposals? And I don't think he was.
I mean, I sort of took the opportunity, I think,
as you know, you know, back when I was teaching
at Princeton, I put together a Princeton Working Group on

(37:11):
the Future of Drug Use and Alternatives to Drug Prohibition,
had eighteen distinguished academics from about a dozen different disciplines
to try to come up with a basic model of
how do you think about legally regulating drugs? How do
you find the right compromise between individual rights and community rights,
the right compromise between putting a stake through the heart
of the black market organized crime and at the same

(37:33):
time having a non free market public health approach. How
do you balance all of that? But we didn't have
that many models to go on. I mean, we could
look at alcohol in to bacco to some extent, but
it wasn't all that developed. But what I found was
that when we put out our recommendations from the Princeton
Working Group in an article I published in Dentalists thirty
years ago, there was really no market for that. And

(37:56):
what you did with Transform beginning about fifteen years ago
was really one was you put this out with a
level of sophistication and a level of depth that really
nobody had done before. And secondly, in terms of the timing,
there was the beginnings of a market for this. I
mean when you wrote the first blueprint for regulation that

(38:17):
was almost before that time, but you laid the groundwork,
and obviously your volumes on regulating cannabis and stimulants are
are ever more timely in this front. Now, all of
this goes to say that background issue of the United Nations.
What I remember, that's all I want to ask you about,
is five six, seven years ago there was this vigorous

(38:38):
and sometimes almost personal debate happening within the international drug
reform community about how we should think about the conventions.
And I remember there are people saying we have to
focus just on getting rid of the conventions entirely and
replacing them with something like maybe the w h O
Framework of tobacco control. And others would say that's a

(38:58):
realistic let's focus on revising the conventions and removing cannabis
and maybe coca from the conventions. And THEOS would say, no,
just let's just do what the President of Olivia Able
Morales did, were they withdrew from the conventions and then
rejoined making an exception. And the others say, let's just
do it. Mohican did, let's just let's just ignore the
conventions essentially. But what's your take of years after the

(39:21):
fact now and that whole debate among the reformers and
whether it was a productive debate or whether it really
actually resulted in something concrete. Well, I mean, I think
the first thing to say is that it was really
important to be having that debate, and it was to
be to laying out these different potential pathways for reform
of the u N system. Um, you know, nothing really

(39:43):
has significantly changed at the u N. It's since Young
Gas in terms of the actual you know, the legal foundations,
I mean, the treaties are all still in place. There's
been one minor tweak too, uh, scheduling of cannabis, which
is now acknowledged to have some medical uses. But that's
basically the only thing that's happened. But what has changed

(40:05):
is that more and more states are saying publicly and
if you publicly, in the u N forum. So these
are things that would only have been said by Uruguay
ten years ago, but now you're getting a ten fifteen
countries standing up and saying these treaties are no longer

(40:25):
fit for purpose, they are not meeting our needs and
they need to be reformed. And more and more countries
are not just saying there is a need for change
at u N level, but they are actually just making reforms,
you know, essentially in breach of their technical obligations under
the treaties. So the water is building behind the dam

(40:45):
and at some point something has to give. Now exactly
what the mechanism of that reform will be is unclear,
but a tipping point will be reached and I think
we're approaching it fairly soon, particul lee with cannabis, but
perhaps with the whole treaty framework more broadly, where there
is just an acknowledgement that the system is no longer

(41:09):
working and more and more and if it doesn't reform,
it will simply collapse. And it's the treat system. It's
important to remind people that it doesn't just you know,
enforced prohibition. It also regulates controlled medicines globally, so you
know that the use of opioids and the use of
um various drugs which which can be misused non medically,

(41:33):
are also regulated by the treatise and that it does
so it does have an important function that we generally
seek to maintain as well. Steve, there was one other
historical thing where we're obviously talking and will go more
into this around cannabis and also was happening now in
Columbia around cooking cocaine. But there was also this little
fascinating story that happened in New Zealand some years ago,

(41:55):
right maybe seventy years ago, right where they were struggling
with what to do about the almost synthetic cannabis, and
where two of the biggest producers of synthetic cannabis essentially
approached the government said, look, we have a mutual interest
in your regulating synthetic cannabinoids. We know that our products
are relatively safe. We don't like all these other you know,

(42:15):
fly by night operations. Putting out these products can be
quite dangerous. And the result was in New Zealand Parliament
passing by like a hundred to one margin a law
essentially creating a domestic kind of like FDA Food and
Drug Administration to regulate drugs that could be sold not
for medical purposes. And there is giving producers corporations the

(42:37):
opportunity to say, we have a product, we want to
put it on the market for recreational purposes, and if
we can prove that it's basically got a high margin
of safety, the government will allow us to do so.
So New Zealand moves forward with this thing. They passed
this law. Unfortunately it never gets implemented. But between the
time it gets passed and and enacted and the time

(42:59):
it never gets him plamented, there must have been some
reaction in Vienna, in the headquarters of the United Nations.
You know, narcotic system and you were going to these meetings.
I mean every year, I think you and many others
were going to the meetings in Vienna than the Commission
Narcotic Drugs. What was the reaction I mean at that level,
because that was potentially a model for broader and I mean,

(43:20):
it's it's interesting that the reaction was incredibly muted because
those synthetic cannabis drugs at the time, we're not controlled
under the UN conventions. I mean, we we have the
same There was the same issue, um that countries have domestically,
which is, you know, as as these novel psychots of
substances are invented, they have to then get uh you know,

(43:44):
essentially they have to get banned, they have to get
scheduled or added added to your the prohibitionist list. And
that that that does happen at the seat at the
Commission Narcotic Drugs. Every year a whole bunch of drugs
are kind of read out and there's votes and they
all get banned. Um. But at the time they weren't illegal,
those New Zealand synthetic caind of annoids, and so there
wasn't really any engagement and and also the UN doesn't

(44:05):
really didn't really have a mandate to to do anything
about it until they were um scheduled, and to be scheduled,
countries have to report them and they have to go
through this process and the w h O has to
produce a report and it all takes quite a long time.
All of those drugs have subsequently been banned, I should
add now, but by that time what was proposing New

(44:25):
Zealand had already kind of fallen to be some I mean,
it's interesting that law did pass in New Zealand and
they do have this it's still there, it's still on
the books. They do have this um really quite good
sophisticated regulatory framework, and I did some work on it
um which it was very welcome in many ways, but

(44:47):
no drugs ever made it into it. So it's like
it's like this empty shell of a legislation. And one
of them it was kind of a daft reason in
the end, because they there to get the toxicology to
establish the safety limits, you had to do animal testing,
and they also had another law that said you can't
do animal testing on on these drugs, so they kind
of that they just got caught in this sort of

(45:10):
legislative catch catch twenty two. And you know, I wouldn't
want to see animal testing done on novel psychoaches substances either,
but it was a bit of a shame that there
wasn't an alternative route. But interestingly, in New Zealand, even
before the Psychoactive Substances Act in I think it was,
they did actually have a system put in place a
few years before that, back in the two thousands, I
think around two thousand and eight, they actually developed a

(45:32):
regulatory framework for a specific drug called b z p
which was a kind of kind of crappy, low rent
stimulant drug, you know, and it was being widely sold
as one of these legal highs, you know, as one
of these novel psychatist substances that wasn't covered by the law.
It became really quite popular in New Zealand, and they

(45:53):
did actually put a regulatory framework and in their legal
system thought for the regulation of this one specific drug.
So for a couple of years in New Zealand, and
this was years before the Psychiatrist substant they did actually
have a regular framework for the sale of this this
crappy similant called called b z p um and you know,

(46:16):
it was sold legally and there was, there was there
was you know, quality control, and you had to have
dosage put on the packaging and a lot of the
things that we'd like to see. It wasn't brilliant, but
it was all right, um. And it was actually the
first that I'm aware of, the first legal regulatory framework
anywhere in the world for a drug outside of the Conventions,
there was a still a synthetic stimulant drug. So that

(46:38):
that happened. It then fell foul of some sort of
political shenanigans and was eventually repealed and and and banned
along with everything else. But New Zealand does have this
sort of interesting history. And they, of course it was
only like two years ago they narrowly missed um legalizing
cannabis by in a national referendum by about you know,

(46:58):
hand a handful of so I think it was about
half a percentage point that their natural referendum. Sadly they
just failed on that. So we're obviously kindabis leg legalization
New Zealand. Not for a few years anyway, but I'm
sure it will happen some days some day. That was
one with the Prime Minister once say which way she
would We wouldn't say whether she was forward or against it,

(47:19):
and then afterwards said, oh, I voted for it, but
I don't want to buy it, and I wish I
wish she'd just said. If she'd said that, probably would
have swung it. But I think it was about sixty votes.
In the end, they just narrowly lost. But you know,
the fact that it even made it to a referendum,
and the fact that it was that close, um, just
just goes to show how, you know, how far we've
come to Let me just let me just interject, Let
me just interject to say that toughs. When people ask

(47:41):
me about legal legalization, how do I define it? How
do I distinguish from decriminalization? I say, you know, legalization
essentially means the legal regulation of this market, like we
have with alcohol and tobacco products, and so in a way,
I look at Mexico and South Africans say, well, okay,
the courts ruled that way. Um, but until you stually
have the government legally regulating shops, or at least stores

(48:04):
being up and selling without being even if they're not regulated,
then being up and selling openly without the police having
any basis to crack down on them. In Mexico and
South Africa, you still don't have stores popping up openly
selling cannabis products um without fear of any prosecution or arrest,

(48:24):
legal transition state in those limbo but but basically Malta,
in Malta legally regulated shops quite not quite so, So
what they did in Malta is interesting in that they
have they have legalized home growing within certain parameters a
certain number of plants if you follow certain rules, UM,

(48:46):
and they've legalized um what in Spain is kind of
called cannabis social club, so not for profit cooperatives that
are membership based, So you can join a membership based
cooperative and then that that there will be UM specific
cannabis grown for that cooperative to be supplied to the

(49:06):
members of that cooperative on a not for profit basis.
But they have not actually opened yet, so they're only
opening for license applications for these nonprofit associations next month,
so that that you can't yet actually go and buy
cannabis anywhere, and even if you wanted to, you'd have
to be a resident of Malta and you'd have to
join one of these associations and then you would be

(49:28):
able to have access to legal cannabis via that route
unless you were growing your own at home. So they're
not going to have any actual retail commercial market as
such a tool and on only these non nonprofit cannabis associations.
So it's kind of an interesting a model, you know.
It's this is a fascinating time for for drug policy folks,

(49:48):
because you're seeing these more commercial models in the US.
You're seeing kind of these state models in state control
models like in Uruguay and certain and state control retailing
in places like Quebec in Canada. But now you're seeing
these European models emerging and this interesting one in Malta
whether it isn't going to be a commercial retail market
at all, only homegrowing and not profit association. So we're

(50:13):
gonna just give me really interesting to see see what
works and what doesn't work with with these models. With
you know, what can we learn from the countries that
follow in their footsteps. Well, No, Uruguay was kind of interesting,
right because they did is basically a tripartite model right
where they said basically you can grow your own up
to a certain point, which is a core element of
what's going on in the US. Then they did some

(50:33):
of the Spanish Canada's social club model, so people could
have a kind of cooperative where people remember and somebody
would grow for the group. And then they did a
pharmacy sort of distribution model. And now that's been going
on for about almost at seven eight years now, Um,
I mean, how is it working out? And and are

(50:54):
we seeing a lot of I mean, is the pharmacy
the principal source? What's happened with the black market there?
I mean the black market that the illegal market is
certainly contracted, but interestingly the pharmacy sales, which were probably
too restrictive, and they have not actually turned out to
be the predominant supply model. So far more people obtain

(51:16):
their cannabis through home growing or through the not for
profit social clubs done via the pharmacies. And I think
the problem really with the pharmacies was that they were
just too restrictive. You have to register as a registered
buyer to get a kind of like you know, digital

(51:39):
pass code things so that you can act you can
buy a certain amount each month, and the cannabis that
they sell is quite low potency, certainly by American standards.
I think you can get seven percent and nine th HC,
which a lot of people would regard as too low
or that if you're used to K plus t HC cannabis,
you probably guard that is too weak. I think they're

(52:01):
looking to now introduce a stronger strain of around fift um.
But it was non branded. There was only these two
varieties you could get to these two potencies, and you
could only get it from a relatively small number of
pharmacies um and you had to buy in person, so
you couldn't do mail order delivery. So for people who
weren't near one of these pharmacies, it was actually pretty inaccessible,

(52:23):
and a lot of people were turned off from using this.
You know, they didn't want to register with the government
as someone who uses cannabis, but kind of unsurprising obvious
reasons people don't want to be on a government database
as people who use cannabis, given given you know, the
history of the War on drugs and persecution of cannabis users.
So actually about ten times more cannabis is consumed from

(52:45):
homegrow and the social clubs than actually the pharmacy sales model,
which suggests to me that the pharmacy sales model was
too restrictive. I think you probably. You know, even for
someone like me who I know Ethan, you're always teasing
me about being a hyper regulator. Um, I think overcooked it.
I mean, I was involved in making proposals and helping
design some of this, but you know, we were arguing.

(53:06):
I was down there with Lisa Sanchez, who's now the
director of um muc D in Mexico, and we were saying, look,
that's just too it's too restrictive. You know, if you're
having a registry of buyers, people aren't just aren't going
to be into it. And I think we were proved
right because it just hasn't proved as popular, I think
as they're expecting, and people were much more drawn to
the idea of these um social clubs and homegrown models

(53:29):
because they don't. They don't. They just didn't want to
be in the system. They didn't want that. They were
worried about surveillance and private But it does seem though
there there, for example, the the import from Paraguay had
dropped rammatically though that people are getting if they're getting
it illusively, they're getting it diverted. They're getting it from
home growths, from friends, or from social clubs or what
have you understand that the stuff that was coming in

(53:50):
from Paraguay was pretty terrible quality staff lots of sticks
and seeds, and it was very low potency, and it
often had pesticides on it. It It was it was pretty
crappy weed, really, And so the stuff that was being produced,
even the low poesy pharmacy stuff UM, and certainly the
stuff from the social clubs was just far far better
and it but it was coming in at kind of

(54:11):
the same price. So the Paraguay imports um and that
whole market yet collapse, and that that's an undoubted positive
in terms of reducing the scale of that the illegal market. Said,
to that extent, it's been a success. I think in
public health terms, it's been regarded as success. Youth use,
which is obviously always a focus of these debates, has

(54:33):
has you know, either stayed level or in many cases
gone down. There certainly hasn't been a jump in levels
of use. Adult use has gone up a bit, a
bit like it has in some other legalization places. But
you know, the the the much dreaded explosion in cannabis use,
and you know, armies of child cannabis zombies walking streets.
None of that none of that stuff happened. Let's take

(54:56):
a break here and go to an egg. So Steve,
we've been friends for twenty years. When it comes to
thinking about legal regulation, we're actually pretty on the big picture.

(55:17):
We're pretty much on the same page that you have
to find ways of balancing public health and public safety
and maximizing tax revenue but protecting young people, and you know,
respecting what communities want to do in terms of where
things can be sold and limiting advertising and all this
sort of stuff. But when it push comes to shove,
we also get into it. And Steve likes to tease

(55:38):
me calling me a libertarian, which of course I am not.
I'm a civil libertarian, but I'm certainly my politics lean
left of center. And I like to tease him about
being a hyper regulating socialist, which of course is probably
more true than anything accuses me of being. UM. But
that's it. Steve and I were recently in late two
at a gathering in the US UM that was very

(55:59):
focused on issues of social equity and racial equity and
how to prevent the growing concentration UM in the marijuana
in the cannabis industry in the U s and elsewhere.
But I mean, Steve, remember I remember teasing you at
this thing, because a couple of interesting things were coming
out of this. One is there were people not just
from the U S there, but from about a dozen countries,
and not just you know, Europe, but the Africa, the Caribbean,

(56:21):
Latin America. And the first kind of you know, kind
of realization that hit that the people coming from Caribbean, Africa,
Latin America, it suddenly occurred to them that they were
looking at the US as a potential market for them
to be exploring their cannabis too, but that all the
folks in the US were going, well, wait a second,

(56:42):
we don't want any exports. We want this to be
all domestic driven. We want to help our small growers.
And the second thing that was interesting was that some
of the activists and small cannabis business owners there, you know,
people of color running small marijuana businesses. If you close
with your eyes and listen to them talking about the

(57:02):
challenges they confronted, what jumped out at me was that
here were women of color running small businesses, caring about equity.
But for the first six key percent of their comments,
they could have been a Trump loving small businessman Republican
right complaining about over taxation, over regulation and realizing that

(57:24):
what was killing not you know, you can hear the
big eyes, the multi state operators, what we call the
bigger cannabis organizations that have operations and lots of states,
complaining about over taxation, over regulation, but to hear the
little guys saying it and sounding like even if our
politics on the left and we care about equity, this
is a major problem. And I wonder Steve in that meeting,

(57:45):
I mean, I mean, you know, you've been a big
advocate for high levels of regulation, taxation and all this
sort of stuff. I mean, was there an aha moment
for you there or anything surprising that jumped out at
you there? Yeah. I mean, well, one of the other
things that came out was that there was a lot
of fear of federal regulation, a federal legalization, which I

(58:05):
was I was kind of surprised at, but I think
there was a I mean, one of the interesting things
I think about the US, the way it's unfolded in
the US, is that because um regulation of cannabis is
operated within states. I mean, you can't have trade between states,
you can have multi state operators, but they have to operate,
you know, within each state. So you've had these kind

(58:26):
of now twenty one, I think it is small scale,
not small scales. Some of them are quite big scale.
I mean, obviously California is huge, but you've had these
kind of like islands of island industries that they can't
trade with each other. But if if federal legalization opens
that up, I think there was a lot of fear
of kind of um corporate consolidation and you would get

(58:49):
these big kind of corporate players and the and the
the smaller medium sized market actors wouldn't be able to
compete with them um on in a national or in
the future international market and they would just get gobbled
up or kind of brushed aside. And I think there
is there was a very legitimate concern about that UM
and didn't really come up with that many answers at

(59:12):
anythink because it's quite difficult. I mean, I think that
there there are potential answers, but it would be it's
important to try and protect the interests of the smaller
and smaller medium sized businesses to prevent the emergence of
oligopolies and monopolies who could sort of distort the market
and consolidate the market in ways that I think would

(59:34):
reduce diversity and reduce social social equity. But there was
also concerns that there was about legal legal federal legalization
having an impact on some of the really cool social
equity programs that have been set up at state level
and that that you know, we are seeing these things
in Massachusetts and now New York and New Jersey and
Illinois and a number of other states, really incredible social

(59:57):
lexuity programs that would you know, give licensing reference to
social equity candidates from impact to communities, that would provide
grants and support um that would you know, could could
really help h build and and support people who from
impact to communities to participate in these markets in a meaningful,
kind of equal way. That the federal legalization could kind

(01:00:20):
of undermine a lot of those efforts if it's not
done in a in a thoughtful way that respects the
interests of some these states state social equity programs. So
I was very struck by that. But I think the
point you made Ethan about the international markets, I think
that's that was really important because even the people who
well actually steve before we get into the international market thing.
I just want to say, you know, since I and

(01:00:41):
my callings were deeply involved in the drafting of many
of the medical merial one in the mirror Metroan legalization,
you know statutes, we look at what you know, what
we were involved in California are again I mean, obviously
we're learning a lot from that. You see in California
vast or illicit market. They continues, you know, because of
over taxation, over regulation, and a host of other variables.

(01:01:04):
So the question about when I look at some of
your writing and your blueprints, right, they still have a
strong regulatory on you know, a strong relatory thing and
tax and all this. Do you think that when you
come out with your you know, fourth edition of regulating cannabis,
how do you think it will be different in terms
of what you see happening on the ground in many

(01:01:26):
of these estates and countries. You know, if you if you,
if you if you read what we've we we've we've
said ethan and I know you have done it. It's
it's I hope it's a bit more nuance. I mean,
I would prefer to have um, you know, localized or
and social controls and social norms dictating a lot of
the things that we that we we talk about, But

(01:01:48):
what we've said is we think that as a starting point,
you should err on the side of a more restrictive,
more heavily regulated model, and then over time, as things
are shown to be working okay, which bits are working,
which bits aren't, you can then relax things. What I
think is problematic is if you start with a very

(01:02:08):
open market, a very maybe unregulated or underregulated market, it
becomes it's much harder than to impose restrictions or regulations
if things aren't if things aren't working, And we've seen
that without con tobacco. I mean, you know, you look
at tobacco now, particularly in Europe, but also in the US.
You know, it's it's been a decades long battle to

(01:02:29):
try and impose better regulation on tobacco in terms of
marketing controls and in terms of information on packaging, and
in terms of you know, smoking in public spaces and
so on. When you've got when you've got a multibillion
dollar entrenched industry lobbying against regulation, it's much harder to
pursue public health goals in that context. So our view

(01:02:52):
is that you you you start with a sort of
public health regulation model, um and and and try and
learn lessons from some of the failings about con tobacco,
and if things are shown to be working, then you
relax it afterwards rather than trying to do it the
other way around. So I'm not I'm not think of it.
I'm not a hyper regulator just because I just love
regulating stuff. I get it. But and I basically agree

(01:03:15):
and and the issue about corporate capture when big alpha
big tobacco, can you know, keep the taxes low and
the regulations low for a long period of time. But
to play devil's advocate on this stuff, right, It's also
the case that if what you're trying to do to
some extent is transition quickly from the illicit market, from
the majority of the industry being illicit to being legally regulated,

(01:03:37):
you want to have a low taxation policy, right. You
want to find ways to induce people, you know, to
shift from both consumers and producers to shift into different
It comes back to what you were this idea of balance.
And one of the issue one of the challenges we
have when we have these policy debates, when we're designing
regulatory frameworks is that you have a range of different

(01:03:58):
stakeholders who have different priorities ease, and sometimes those priorities
are in confit of each other. And public health people generally,
and tobacco tax is a good example of this. Public
health people generally want to have lots of tax keep
the prices of these things high, because most economic analysis
shows if you put the price up, people will consume less.
And we've certainly seen that with tobacco. As you as
you ramp up the tobacco taxes, use generally goes down.

(01:04:22):
But what it also does is it incentivizes illegal market activity.
Now with tobacco, that's generally smuggling from lower tax regimes
and selling it in high tax regimes, but some counterfeiting.
But with cannabis, it means that you have a parallel
legal market that will seek to undercut the higher price,
higher taxed um cannabis products. And you know there's a

(01:04:44):
tension there. You have a tension between the need to
a desire or a priority to dissuade use or certainly
not encourage used by having low prices and dissuade us
by having high prices, versus a desire from people who
prioritize criminal justice outcome to minimize the illegal market. And
there's no perfect answer to that. We just have to

(01:05:04):
decide what our priorities are and try and strike the
right balance, acknowledging that you know, you can't you can't
have it all. Different stakeholders have different priorities, and that
the problem, I think is, and you've touched on this
with the corporate captive thing, is that you know, corporate
actors and commercial actors whose primary goal is essentially profit generation,
they all have a series of um, you know, regulatory

(01:05:28):
goals that may be out odds with the public health goals.
You know that they are seeking to make money and
not to protect public health. I'm not saying all corporate
actors are totally uninterested in public health and and other
things like sustainability and social justice, but generally speaking, they
will prioritize, you know, corporate profits over those other social

(01:05:49):
health and you know, sustainability goals, and there you have attention.
And if they become very powerful, and if you do
get consolidation, and if you do have these billion dollar
corporations you know, flooding the hill with their lobbyists and
all the rest of it, it becomes very difficult for
social justice advocates who don't have the same access to
that kind of political and media and sort of publicity

(01:06:12):
capital and lobby and capital, and you know, pr budgets
to compete with them and it becomes very difficult. And
I actually think it's huge credit to the non government
organizations that they have been able to you know, hold
their own against some of these corporate voices on the market.
You know that whether it's a Drug Policy Alliance or
Transform or people like Sharlie Title at the Parabolus Center, UM,

(01:06:36):
you know, who are making the argument, you know, critical
of of of corporate capture and critical of some of
the kind of over commercialization UM, that they are able
to hold their own against these corporations that have these
gigantic budgets, and you know they are actually funding front
organizations like cep here. I can't even want cep here

(01:06:56):
as an anagram for cannabis. It's got you know, basic,
it's it's funded by the alcohol and tobacco industry as
to promote cannabis legalization that is shaped in in the
interests of the ALCN tobacco industry who want to you know,
move in and profit on on that new industry, and
it's really important that we pushed back against that because
if you have Alcohn tobacco industry money and big corporate

(01:07:19):
money guiding the legislation at this early stage, at federal
legislation and state legislation, it will be made in their interests,
in the interests of corporate profits, and not in the interests,
to quote the U entreaties of the health and well
being of of you know, humankind. And that's a big concern,
and that's something I have to say. It is complicated,

(01:07:42):
remember as this meaning that you're ira both there and
I'm asking, so what are the models? Has More and
more states are embracing more of a you know, trying
to give a headstart and a leg up and assistance
to the nine big players, you know, especially to people
of color, to veterans, to women, two people who have
uh you know, remarkably people who have had a marijuana
conviction getting getting a head start on getting an opportunity

(01:08:05):
to get a license. And if you ask, well, so
what are the best models out there right now? And
the sense I god for some of the conversations was
that there were two models out there. One was a
limited one in Oakland, California with a fairly progressive government
that seems to have found some way to provide you know,
kind of equity preferences. But the other one, fascinatingly was Oklahoma, right,

(01:08:27):
one of the reddest states in America, which is legalized
medical marijuana, and it's now a wild West out there
with almost no regulation. People growers from California moving to Oklahoma,
Oklahoma illegally supplying you know, beginning to supply the rest
of the country. But what's the case there is it's
probably one of the least regulated states in the country.

(01:08:47):
One result of which is that anybody can spend like
two grand or something to get a license, can open
up a medical cannabis shop, and it's very easy to
get a medical cannabis I date. But the result is
is if if you go I'm told, if you go
into a black neighborhood, IDEs are pretty good there's gonna
be some black guy from the community who's got the

(01:09:08):
local dispensary. Right, So there are ways in which the
kind of very low regulation sometimes can advantage to small
guys as well, at least so long as we don't
have federal legalization. I mean, you know, I'm not looking
at that generally. I I frown on that levels of
regulation like that, But that's not that I don't want, um,

(01:09:28):
you know, people who don't have access to significant amounts
of capital to be able to participate in the market,
I really do. I just think you have to use
your equity models to support them. So you have other
other states have grant programs and you know, interest free
loan programs and training programs to help people, you know,
enable them to compete on a more even playing field

(01:09:51):
with some of the more established actors. And you know
the New York. New York just issued its first thirty
eight or thirty six, thirty eight licenses I think last months,
and they all to social equity candidates. Eight of them
were to nonprofit actors, which I just think is absolutely amazing.
And of the tax revenue from the new legal cannabis

(01:10:12):
market in New York is going to go back into
impacted communities in terms of social programs, which I also
think is amazing. In in New Jersey, it's see, the
tax revenue is going to be reinvested in impacted communities. Now,
if you think about it, that is really amazing. That's
really amazing. In the US to have seventy of the

(01:10:33):
tax revenue in in an emerging market be reinvested in
UH communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the War
on drugs. I think that's absolutely remarkable. It it it does
bring up some real challenges of capitalism and how how
how states will I mean look, and I also have

(01:10:53):
a kind of a whole panoply of views on this
under went and very proud. I mean, California, which we
played a major role into acting in twenties sixteen, has
not really pioneered some of these provisions about directing tax
revenue to the communities that have been most harmed, about
giving certain assistance to you know, basically equity actors to
get involved in this industry. And you know, obviously it

(01:11:13):
was my success as a drug policy Alliance who drove
the New York legalization model. So in that sense, it's
very you know, I feel quite proud of what's happened.
But then I asked myself, m if your number one
objective is increasing the amount of tax revenue that's going
to go to communities that were harmed, you want this
industry to grow quickly, right, But the slower you roll

(01:11:33):
it out, the less tax revenue that there's going to
be that. Secondly, the more regulation you have, the harder
it's going to be. I mean, one thing that advantages
the big players and all of this is that they
have expertise in dealing with government regular relation, They have lawyers,
they've often come from other industries where they've been involved
in this, whereas if you're starting up or you've previously

(01:11:54):
been involved in the illegal side of the industry and
not had you know, any any interaction with government regulators,
right then basically these are all barriers to the small
guys getting better, and it depends on the regulation model.
So you know, you that this is one of the
really beautiful and exciting things about cannabis legalization. Regulation is that,

(01:12:14):
you know, we get to design the market structure from scratch,
and we can make decisions around who participates, how and when,
and you can preference smaller actors. You can restrict participation
of bigger actors. You can prevent you know, um emergence.
You can limit the number of licenses that anyone actor

(01:12:35):
can have. You can support and do preferential licensing for
particular communities or participants. You can make these decisions, and
you can reshape the markets in all kinds of interesting ways.
And you know, I genuinely think that it may have
impact on other markets and nothing to do with cannabis,
because you know, imagine if you had sev the tax

(01:12:56):
revenue from I don't know oil being directed into environmental
you know, cause, environmental sustainability. This is you know, I
don't want to I don't want to be sort of
ridiculously evangelic and idealistic about this, but these things do
have the potential to help reshape how we think about markets,

(01:13:18):
um and commerce and entrepreneurship and you know, community participation
in a in a much broader way. I'd love to
see some of these really innovative, amazing cannabis reforms having
a kind of ripple knock on effect far beyond drug markets.
Well we'll see. I mean, I would like to see
that happened too. There's also a major difference though, between

(01:13:39):
talking about where the tax revenue is directed to on
the one hand, and how one is going to regulate
or create opportunities and the interest on the other, And
to some extents there can even be a conflict between
those two things. It's nice to think that this could
become a model for the future, and that it could
even survive federal legalization. On the other hand, we do
know that there is an overall whelming force behind basically

(01:14:01):
the basic nature of capitalism, right capitalism, you know especially,
I mean, look, even we look about, you know, the
illegal markets, those are kind of capitalism and its rowst form.
But when we look at legal capitalism and the different
varieties of capitalism, some social welfare capitalism to chrony capitalism,
to free market capitalism to kleptocratic capitalism, I mean, most

(01:14:22):
of the world is essentially capitalists. And we also tend
to see that some movement towards concentration inevitably happens in
most industries. So let me bring this down to a
very concrete example. You are an advisor and you've played
a role in Canada. Now, Canada doesn't have the types
of state controls I mean in the same way of
limitations that we have in the US. You do have

(01:14:43):
more of a national model in Canada. And what's your
take about how Canada is evolving and what lessons can
be learned for better or words from what's happened in Canada. Well,
I mean that that the state controls are over supply
and trade. The individual provinces the princial controls. I should
say that the individual provinces, um, they they regulate retail.

(01:15:05):
And you do have this quite interesting variation between the
provinces in terms of several of the provinces have government
monopolies on the retail. So Quebec perhaps most high profile,
I think, I can't remember the other one in New Brunswick,
I think, and a couple of them have a mix
of government stores and you know, conventional commercial stores, and

(01:15:27):
so there is actually quite an interesting amount of variations.
Some of them have different age access um, and some
of them, like in Quebec, also they don't allow certain edibles.
They don't allow the gummies and candy based edibles. So
again we have this quite fascinating sort of laboratory of
change where you can look at you, okay, what's working

(01:15:48):
in in each one. I mean, I think if you
look at the Canada, generally, I would say generally it's
been a reasonable success if you look at the public
health outcomes, if you look at the tax revenue. UM,
I think there was certainly a problem with the big
corporate corporate corporates have kind of collapsed in value. There
was probably a bit of a bubble into an investor bubble,

(01:16:09):
which then collapsed um and the corporatization. I was very
worried that we were moving towards a sort of oligopoly situation.
And then there was a point early on where I
think the big five companies they were all measured in
the billions, valid in the billions, and they were more
than half of the total market. But interestingly that is

(01:16:32):
actually shrunk. A lot of them have kind of collapsed
to a certain extent. You're till raise and yeah, I
can't remember what they're all called, but they're they're now
they're like most Let me interupt you on two issues. Then.
One is when it comes to cultivation, can you have
mega cultivation facilities in one province exploring to the rest
of the country. And secondly, and so that seems to

(01:16:55):
me very different what's going on the US right now,
and that means that you would potentially have major concentration
were something like we've had, you know, we're people envision
if you're under federal legalization, that the Central Valley in
California could be exporting too much of them, but we
could we could make the rules. If you're writing the legislation,
you get to make the rules. And if you say
no one company can cultivate more than ex hectares of cannabis,

(01:17:19):
then that is then the law and so it. But
has Canada done that? They haven't. I mean I actually
wish that they did. I recommended that they did, and
they didn't. You know, I work with the Federal Task Force.
I didn't actually draft the law. I understand and what
and what about in terms of corporate you know, corporate
concentration And obviously a lot of these companies grew too fast,

(01:17:42):
they were too full of themselves. They collapsed. But what
prevents corporate concentration. It's another thing that I think that
they didn't do enough. On UM. There has been a
consolidation and corporate corporate capture up to a point. But
as the point I was just making was actually UM
that system, it seems that the market seems to have

(01:18:02):
actually in the last couple of years become more diverse
and not less, which kind of has surprised me. But
that's what the data suggests. UM. I think I think
some of the points you were making earlier, that you know,
one of the things that Canada didn't do well. Was
the was the social equity piece? They really didn't. They've
they've had to kind of retrospectively try and introduce some

(01:18:22):
social equity stuff, particularly related to participation in indigenous groups.
And you know, the regulatory bars to entry to the
market were way too high even for their kind of
micro cultivation. Um you you needed to have literally hundreds
of thousands of dollars um you had to build your
facility before you could even apply for a license, which

(01:18:44):
was crazy. So I think they didn't do some of
the stuff around social equity at all well. But I
get the sense that they've they acknowledged some of those
shortcomings and are trying to kind of retrospectively kind of
engineering some more social justice staff and more social equity programs,
particularly around indigenous participation and micro cultivation. But you know,

(01:19:05):
other countries can see it, can look at what's happened
in the US States, they can look at what's happened
in Canada nationally and at the provincial level, and learned
from that and goal, look, they did this really well.
I mean things like you know, quality control inspections, packaging
REGs and so on. Generally, I think all of that stuff,
health warnings and UM tax tax controls. I think generally

(01:19:27):
was pretty good. And you're seeing about sixty of the
market is now tax and regulated in Canada after four
years five years, sorry um, And you know it's been
it's been creeping up. It was thirty years, or it
was after one year, and then after like two or
three years, and now it's about six and it's still
going up now sixty. You know, it would be a

(01:19:47):
lot better if that was eight, but that's six still
sixty pc tax and regulated as opposed to illegal, untaxed
and unregulated, which is what it was before. So it's
still those age programs. I think generally they've done a
good job, but there were shortcomings. The question you and
I are both mutually interested in, is there any way

(01:20:09):
to kind of get to the point of diversity and
diversification and avoiding the conglomeration of wealth and the album
oligopoli phenomenon, you know, you know, without having the big
guys take over in the first place. And the question
is can that realistically happen? Can it? Can it? Can
it really happen? Given the power of economics in all
of this, and given the realities of politics and all

(01:20:32):
of this, and given the fact that you know, a
big part of the U. S. Government is controlled by
Republicans who don't care about a lot of this type
of thing that you and I are talking about, right
And as you say when you talk about NAPTON, w
t O and all these other sorts of variables. So
the question is, is is can in fact that happen? And
one of the things I find myself saying people who
are pursuing equity objectives, especially at the governmental level, is

(01:20:54):
try to think forward five or ten years. Take everything
we know about the forces that lead to concentration and
to oligopoli takeover, and try to figure out what are
the things that can effectively be blocked. How do you
take a stand in certain areas where you can preserve
things that are meaningful? And I think we need to

(01:21:16):
look at the lessons um from other industries. I mean,
you know, if you look at alcohol. I was just
looking the other day, Steve at which states allow liquor
to be sold in supermarkets, and I think like a
third third to a half of all U S states
now allow liquor to be sold in supermarkets, and they
vary from you know, conservative states to moderate states to

(01:21:36):
liberal states all around the country. There's no kind of
rhyme or reason to that. And I think that in
those states where liquor can be sold in supermarkets, you're
less likely to have small liquor stores, right, small wine
stores and things like that. So I'm curious how much
of you and others are they looking at the viable
models from alcohol control um that makes sense, or if

(01:21:58):
we're looking in the global context looking at the models first,
say coffee production or cocao production, the ones that have
been successful in retaining you know, a real diversity of
participation on the cultivation and the distribution side as opposed
to having oligopoly takeover. Which elements of industry are the

(01:22:18):
ones where you can best resist oligopoly, whereas which elements
of industry are the ones where it's inevitable, and therefore
you figure out how to kind of catalyze, how to
direct that stuff so you can protect the small guys
without ever thinking you can ultimately block it. But in
terms of going forward, and as we think not just
about cannabis, as we think about the legal regulation of cocaine,

(01:22:39):
hopefully cocaine, as we think about m d m A.
Things like how much do you know about people looking
at these other models, whether the alcohol field or the
cacao and coffee field on the production side, is that
thinking happening or not? And if not, one I think
it is. I mean we we've been trying to get
people in the sustainable to element and social and sustainable

(01:23:01):
of element goals, people in the development field UM engaged
in the drug quality debate specifically around you know, alternative
to prohibition and what legal markets are some of these
drug drug drug plant crops would look like, and how
we can build in things like sustainable development and fair
trade principles and you know, protecting traditional growers. A lot

(01:23:26):
of these concepts UM have been thought about. You know,
organizations like the Transational Institute the Netherlands has done a
lot of work, Health Poverty Action in the UK have
done a lot of work. Transform We've been pushing it
UM and a lot of the things that you've already
you've already touched upon, you know, learning lessons from successful
fair trade approaches to other agricultural products. But you know,

(01:23:51):
at a domestic level, I think you can do anti
monopoly legislation, you can do an awful lot with licensing controls.
You know, you can say no individual economic actor can
can take more than X number of licenses, and you
you know, you aren't allowed to have vertical integration, you
can't own production and retail facilities. You can actually do

(01:24:14):
a lot to prevent those things at the initial legislative
slate stage. And if it's if it's if it's hardwired
into the legislation at the outset, it's not something that
will necessarily just get eroded um in time. And of
course legislation can be amended or superseded um. But if
you don't allow the emergence of these you know, ultra powerful,

(01:24:36):
multi billion pound corporations in the first instance, um, then
you know those those power blocks of of of lobbying
and political influence don't emerge either. So you don't have
to then try and retroactively impose responsible regulation and control
like we've had to do with our Cohn tobacco. We've
done successfully to back up to some degree, but we

(01:24:59):
haven't really done with alcohol yet, which is why I
would argue that alcohol is critically underregulated in many ways,
particularly around retail and marketing and corporate sponsorship and so on.
But I just think there's there's a lot we can do.
And if you are actually in the position of making
the reforms and drafting the legislations which shape the nature

(01:25:19):
of the market from the outset, you have the power
to do things very differently. And that's why you do
have the possibility of social ecuty programs that restrict licensing
or preference licensing for for impact to communities, and you
are able to legislate that tax revenue is redirected into
impact to communities, and you can put in place controls

(01:25:42):
that prevent certain actors from participating. You can actually do it.
You can design and and and have markets operate in
a different way at a legislative level from the outset.
And of course then there are also options like state monopolies.
So in a number of as I've already said, in
a number of Canadian provinces, you do have state monopolies

(01:26:04):
on retail. In Quebec, all of the cannabis shops are
run by the provincial government of Quebec um and and
this it's a bit like the alcohol model in some
Nordic countries, which in Sweden, for example, all alcohol retailing
is run but as a state monopoly of the Swedish
government um. Or you can have a very strictly regulated,
effectively a state monopoly model on production as well um

(01:26:27):
as they've done in Uruguay. Or you can have nonprofit
and homegrowing only, as they've done in Malta. So there
are alternatives, there are different ways of doing this. We
don't have to go down um an alcohol tobacco model.
And it used to Ethan. He used to annoy me
when you would. You would talk about, you know, let's
let's legalize and regulate cannabis like we do alcohol, and

(01:26:48):
let's tax and regulate cannabis like alcohol. And I go, no, no,
let's do it. Let's do it better than that. Don't
keep saying that either let's do it, let's do it
better than that. Let's let's learn from all the crappy
stuff we've done with alcohol regulation and not do that
and do it better. And let's let's use cannabis regulations
an opportunity to show how drugs can be regulated and
how markets can be regulated in the interests of the

(01:27:10):
communities in which those markets exist, because rather than in
the in the narrow interests of governments or in the
narrow interests of corporate profits, which is the way that
a lot of markets have gone um up to now,
and that operates at a local level, that operates at
a state level, at a national level, at a regional level,
and at an international level. So we have to be
thinking about these intersecting issues that operate at different scales

(01:27:36):
as well as the issues themselves as social justice and
social equity, is and fair trade or important principles, but
they operate at all different scales, and some of them
maybe tensions between you know, local level initiatives, national evaluatives,
and an international initiatives. This stuff is complicated. You know
that there's a lot of work to be done, even
if we get the principles in place, and even if

(01:27:58):
the political will and intent is there actually delivering these
things effectively UM in ways that can last. You know,
as you say, a lot of these things may be vulnerable.
We can have all these good intentions and then a
few years down the road, you know, corporate capture and
corporate consolidation has eroded a lot of this stuff. We
have to put in place solid legislation that can stand

(01:28:20):
the test of time, deliver stuff that deliver outcomes that
communities want to see and therefore communities and the politicians
that serve that will be supportive of these these initiatives
in the longer term. I mean, I genuinely believe it's doable,
and I think a lot of the examples that are
emerging already, whether it's in Uruguay, whether it's in Malta,
whether it's in some of the better models that have

(01:28:43):
emerged in US states and Canadian provinces, we're doing that already.
We're showing how things can be done better. Because legalization
is a process. Regulation is the end point, but there
is more than one way to do it. You can
do it well or you can do it badly. And
I think advocates such as US you've been pushed in
for a form all these years, we need to be
advocating for for legalization regulation to be done right. And

(01:29:06):
when it's not done right, I think we have to
speak up against it. And it pains me sometimes to
be critical of some of the legalization models that are emerging,
but I think it was it was it in Ohio
where they had this awful model with um well, basically
they were having a constitutional monopoly for the people who
funded the ballot initiative where these ten named people would

(01:29:28):
then get basically a monopoly on the on the legal
cannabis market. And you know, I had to come out
against it, but Stevens said, I did. I did want
to give you the last word on this. But quite funny,
that was a wonderful sonation that you just presented, and
I overwhelmingly of course in the end. You know, I've
I've been on record for a long time as saying
I'm not in this for the bud wise irization or
marlboritization of marijuana. I really believe in the smallest beautiful

(01:29:52):
model and I'd like to see that work, and I
hope that we can actually make that. You know, that's
the next five know we've we've won the first, we've
won the argument against prohibition. That the next battle is
to make sure that the regulation and the legalization regulation
is done in the right way that you know, it's
a supports the principles that on that very optimistic and

(01:30:17):
promising note, I want to bring our extended conversation to
a halt. I want to thank you, Steve for being
such a wonderful ally throughout many decades and continuing into
the future, and a good friend, and for being a
real thought leader, and not just a thought leader, but
somebody who has had an impact on the way government
shapes these policies and bringing the right set of values

(01:30:38):
to thinking about all of this. And also thank you
for being you know, episode number eighties to conclude season
two of Psychoactive, and hopefully it will not be the
last episode of Psychoactive ever. Um, but I'm very glad
that you've got to be the final guest that we've
had in this current incarnation of psychoactis. Thank you then,
it's been it's been a privilege to work with you

(01:30:59):
over all these years, and it's been a it's been
fun coming on the show. And I hope it isn't
the last one. I hope so too. Okay, Steve, thanks
so much pleasure. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your
friends about it, or you can write us a review
at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We
love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to

(01:31:21):
share your own stories, comments, and ideas, then leave us
a message at one eight three three seven seven nine
sixty that's eight three three Psycho zero, or you can
email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find
me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You can also find
contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production

(01:31:45):
of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by
me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by noa'm osband and Josh Stain.
The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus
and Darren Aronotsky from proto Zilla Pictures, Alex Williams and
Matt Frederick from my Heart Radio, and me Ethan Edelman.
Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks

(01:32:09):
to Avi Vi Brioseph Bianca Grimshaw and Robert deep H

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