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March 18, 2025 12 mins

Greg and Clayton welcome you back to The War on Drugs Podcast with “Stories Matter.”  This Season, you will hear notable voices from across the cultural spectrum on their personal, lived experience, and how the failures of the War on Drugs policy continue to affect people’s lives, even as progress is made at the local level.  

A new episode of The War on Drugs will be available every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.

The War on Drugs is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts and Stand Together Music in association with Signal Co. No1.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lava for Good and Stand Together Music Present The War
on Drugs Podcast Season two. This season, we're diving deeper
into the real stories behind the War on drugs, its impact,
its failures, and the people offering a better path forward.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
All right, welcome to season two The War on Drugs.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Man. Yeah, we're back at it, Greig English.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yes, man, we've been traveling quite a bit.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yeah, we've been going independently and together.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, to do some of these interviews.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
So yeah, yeah, a lot of what this season's going
to be. You know, last year we are much more
in the studio kind of setting that basis.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
For what the War on Drugs was and what we think.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
And I think you summarize it so well when you
said that term, just like, it's not war on drugs,
it's a war on people.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Right.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
The first season we kind of focused on the war
side of it, in the drug side of it and
the policy side of it, and of course we had,
you know, actual people who are affected by this. But
I think we lean a lot more into the people
with this season.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Their trials, their tribulations, them going through their own war
on drugs, either through the criminal justice system, the healthcare system.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's musicians, it's athletes.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's just a wide swath of people and really interesting
folks that you're going to hear a side of them
that you probably didn't know about before. Yeah, we kind
of want to bring that after all the doom and
fucking gloomy brought.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
To Yeah, with the war on rugs, it's hard to
avoid the impact it has, and you know that's a part.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Of it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
You know, we talked to Liz Carmuch. She was a
veteran MMA fighter, just stone cold assassin.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Her nickname is Yeah, she was, she was amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, and she uses CBD as part of her recovery process.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
She was explaining how it helps with inflammation.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
And that is illegal in some places, like hemp is illegal.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Uh still and yeah, and I remember last time we
were talking about how the reclassification of the scheduling of
marijuana would kind of open up more things that we
could kind of see what would work in these places.
Nobody's really taking what they're learning from the state, each
individual state and applying it to the federal level.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
How do you think that would change?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, it's it's kind of this thing where they both
work off each other, Right, So, for those who don't know,
if the federal government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule
one drug, which means it is the highest level of scheduling.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It is the same with coke, is.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Actually now right, yeah, which is yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
So it's nothing.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Unless you do cocaine. Maybe you think it's right where
it needs.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Ye yeah, yeah that's fair. Yeah, that's that looks about right.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough, good job, right, But.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, so cannabis is scheduled there with heroin.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
It says it has no medical value and it is
a highly likely to you know, for abuse, and so
that's what it says. And so there has been a
big effort at the federal level to deschedule completely where
the Feds would just almost like alcohol is where they
would regulate it, but on like the food side to
make sure there's lot poison, not like you know, on
the other end of like criminalizing it, just regulation. But

(03:15):
what they're going to do is what the government does
all the time is like try to hit this middle
road of rescheduling it, make it schedule three. Schedule three
is a lot of like you know, it's if you
get cough medicine with coding, you know, you need a
prescription or some sort of verification.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
You can't just get over the counter or have it recreational.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
So but it says, hey, there is some medical value here,
there's some risk of abuse. So this is where it's at.
And so the issues with all of that is one,
when it's completely Schedule one, it's a criminal offense to do.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Anything with anything around it.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Around it, so all the business aspects to it. If
you're a plumber that wants to work on the toilet
in in a cannabis shop, like you could potentially be
like you know, it's all these things, banks all you
can't put your money in there, like all these different
things that impact it. Because the Feds still say that right,
research all of that stuff. So even if you're a
voter and you're in a community, we say this is

(04:08):
how we want to live and this is what we've
looked at. We have medical prescribe with all that stuff,
the Feds can say this is all legal, because it is.
They're all living in crime right now. You know, we
talked to you know be Real from Cypress Hill, who's
not only amazing rap artist, still his amazing entrepreneur in
the cannabis industry and has different places in different states,
and we talked about the complications and not only just

(04:30):
so much running in LA, but running another you know,
it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Because there's no uniform way to do the packaging has
to be one way here, it has to be another way, yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Right now.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
And it's not only the cannabis aspects that we're seeing.
You know, we talked a lot about psychedelics. We're talking
a lot. There's been a lot of you know, great
movement there, but there's also been some setbacks and we
have some great conversations with people that have experimented with
them and experienced some amazing results, and we get into
all that this season too, But also how you know,
the policy is still kind of pushing this down and

(05:02):
we're not going to see the full benefits of maybe
some of the medical things that we could see. You know,
we have so many soldiers come back from war right
now with PTSD and you know, post COVID and all
these things where treatment could be incredibly beneficial and again
a step back.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
That's a big part why hearing these stories is important, because,
like you said, you can hear the information and you
can see it and it's easy to just oh, well,
these people just want to get hide. This is right,
this is one thing. But when you actually hear people's
experience and how it's helped them and how it's benefited
them and how they've been able to help other people,

(05:43):
it changes your whole perspective. And I think it's got
to be respected, just because these are people that we
say we care about and that we look up to,
and I think people just try to always go to
the back, to the reefer madness. It's people that want
to get hide at once to abuse drugs. And yes,
I'm sure there is that, and that's never not going

(06:06):
to be a thing. It doesn't matter if you change
the laws on that. People are still gonna find a
way to go around the legal things. But if you
have a chance to actually help people that need the
help and it doesn't change anything on the other side,
why would you not do that?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I totally agree at least get it out there to
let's just lay it on the table, like what works,
what doesn't.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like these are people's lives.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
And you know, one of my favorite experiences on kind
of our tour here talking to people was speaking to
John Osborne.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
You know from the Brothers Osbourne. I grew up in
an Apples, Maryland.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
He grew up, like, you know, thirty minutes south of
me and deal and just seeing this big, old, scruffy
dude with like the lowest voice in the world, you know,
talking very generally about you know, suicidal thoughts and psilocybin
and how reached out to a friend helped him and
a real amazing moment for me.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
And I hope you all listen to that episode.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Was anything like from the tour, like anything that stood
out to you, I mean, not given too much, but.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
You know, yeah, yeah, I got to listen to him
hit the actual details.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
But just.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
Like Ricky Williams sitting down with him, that's somebody who's
had his story told by other people. And I didn't
see this when I watched all the stories about him.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
He quit because of weed.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
He wanted to smoke someone, and his thing was he
just had to be He wanted to be honest about
what was going on and how it was going on.
And he said once he started doing that, it freed
up a lot of stuff for him.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I'm so jealous.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
No, and being honest from all directions is where we
really want to take it, not only the benefits, but
what are the risks?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
What is safe practice? What does that look like? Who
do you need to talk to?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Like all these things are important because really when things
get out there and it's like, oh, this is all great,
everything's wonderful, you can do whatever you want, that's when
we see these slide backs because people weren't being honest
the other way too, and so like it takes everyone.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
The effects of it. Yeah, as you wanted it to
appear a certain way. And so if everybody's just like
like you said, like Ricky said, be honest, or like
other guests, be real.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Be real, just be real man.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Be real is the coolest man I've ever met of mine.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, and I think you know you're talking about be honest,
and there's no one more honest than with you than
like your friends and family. And you know, we talked
to two people that went through struggled with addiction, still
are going through their things. To musicians Brent Smith and
Marcus King. You might remember Brent Smith from Shining Down, Uh,
from BacT just an amazing artist. We had a conversation

(08:36):
with him, really cool just to hear like his story
of recovery and where he's at. And then Marcus King,
you know, kind of talking about what he calls and
what people call like California sober, which you don't do
anything else, but he does smoke cannabis. So it's interesting
and we want to tell these stories from people that
struggled with substances are trying to you know, work their

(08:56):
way and recovery and what that looked like and what helped.
And like I said, the be honest, it's their friends
and family. The community that was around them that you
see was what helped the success. It was a teacher
for Marcus, it was you know, Brent's managers, these people
around them that if they weren't there and that social
network wasn't there, who knows where they'd be. It wasn't
getting thrown into a tank and being told like sober

(09:18):
up and clean up and then make things that are
going to be okay. And so I just thought those
conversations to show you know, what addiction is, how people
are dealing with it, and how important it is to
have those people around you have honesty, love, respect, the
things that we all need for everything.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
People always think we're advocating for drugs right. And when
you hear advocating, you think advocating for drug use, but
it's not advocating.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Once again, we're back to the people.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
We're advocating like, yes, if people need cannabis, yes, but
also we're advocated for people when they're trying to get
off of drugs, when they're trying to get off of
a substance, when they're trying to recover, when they're trying
to rehab well. I think it can easily be looked
at by people that don't want any progress to be well,
they just want people to have drugs.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yeah, And it shows how our solutions of you know,
are this one size fits all approach and what's good
for me is not gonna be good for you and
hitting it at the right time. And there's no way
that we can have that type of you know aspects
with some one size fits all approach that we've been
kind of pushing on this and having a right and
a wrong. There's just this array And I hope that

(10:31):
comes out in a lot of these interviews and hopes
that opens some people's eyes to be like, hey, these
are people like you said, I trust and respect, and
I get to hear their stories and it's not just
like you said, advocating for use. Like you know, we
try to hit a lot of different parts of this
as you can tell, Like there's a lot of moving aspects,
but it's it's.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Going in the right direction and hopefully we can shine
light a little bit on that.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, that's all we're trying to do here.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, the whole thing about this is about hearing from
people how it's going to affect people and the benefits
that it has for people. Man, were really excited for
y'all to hear it, and yeah, let's get into with it.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
I can't wait.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
The War on Drugs is a production of Lava for
Good and Stand Together Music and association with Signal Company
Number one. Stand Together Music unites musicians and their teams
with proven change makers to co create solutions to some
of the most pressing.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Issues in our country, including.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Criminal justice, for foreign addiction recovery, mental health, education, free speech,
and ending the War on drugs. Learn more at Stand
Together Music dot org. Be sure to follow Lava for
Good on Instagram, Facebook, and threads at Lava for Good.
You can follow Clayton English on Instagram, n X at
Clayton English and You can follow Greig Laude on Instagram

(11:46):
and on x at Greg Latt. Executive producers Jason Flam,
Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis, and Collette Wintraub. Senior producers Kelsey Stenecker,
Zak Huffman, and Nick Stump. Post production by ten ten,
Audio talent booking by Dan Resnik. Rez Entertainment Head of
Marketing and Operations, Jeff Clyburn, Social Media director Ismati Gudarama,

(12:10):
Social media manager Sarah Gibbons, and art director Andrew Nelson.
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