November 14, 2014 • 46 mins
From the Opium Wars to prohibition and the modern drug trade, human civilization has been irreversibly influenced by wars over drugs. Has it worked? Could it ever?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
writtened with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
and I'm Ben not a cop Bowland, and that over
(00:21):
there is Noel Brown. Ladies and gentlemen are famous super
producer Noel Brown. Could we get some sirens at the
top of your role? Perfect? Oh? Why why are there
cops here? Well, that's one of the reasons why I
said that I am not a cop, but I'm not
(00:42):
so sure about you. Met. Uh. Today, we have some
sirens and some imaginary police officers here to help us
out with a very sticky controversial subject, Ladies and gentlemen,
the war on drugs. Well, let's get right into it.
What the heck is it? Where did it come from?
(01:02):
How did it start? Oh? Yeah, okay, So the phrase
the war on drugs is actually not that old. It
goes back to nineteen seventy one. On June the president
of the time, Richard Nixon, held a press conference, and
this was the day after he had given a special
message to the Congress on Drug abuse Prevention and Control.
(01:25):
So During this press conference, Matt he says that drug
abuse is public enemy number one, and he says that
he's going to devote more money to here. Here's the
first time he was ever said the war on drugs.
So this phrase the war on drugs really just got
taken up by the media and it was used all
over the place. UM. And the way we think about
(01:48):
the war on drugs now in at least when we're
putting this out is a little different than maybe the
way it was presented at the time. In the beginning,
it was is you know, about trying to help people
rehabilitate drug users. Uh, it was about preventing new addicts
from getting addicted. Um. But that kind of that message,
(02:13):
let's say, UM, was kind of put in different places
and we'll go maybe go over some of those other organizations,
but it was focused on just the word war focuses
you on like battle guns, like grenades, all kinds of
crazy things. At least those images are are created in
(02:34):
your head when you hear that phrase, right, Yeah, And
it's also a war on an idea, which is what
what drug use. I guess you could argue that it's
a war on a specific thing, but I think it's
more a war on an activity, which is people using drugs.
And you make a very interesting point about portraying this
(02:56):
as a war sort of criminalizes that people who are addicted,
and in other countries addiction is often treated like a disease. Right. Uh,
But we know, as you said, that the war on
drugs has evolved from its rehabilitative aims that that were
(03:16):
part of it. I mean, they always wanted to criminalize drugs,
but part of it was rehabilitation and helping with community
oriented solutions. But today, guys, the war on drugs in
the United States takes an estimated fifty one billion with
a b dollars of the US budget. That's according to
the Drug Policy Alliance. And for everybody who's listening now
(03:39):
and saying, you guys, don't be shallow, the war on
drugs didn't start in the seventies. It goes way way back. Well,
we know, we looked into it. Oh absolutely, Uh. The
US has always had an adversarial relationship with drugs because,
you know, we we think of drugs as a bad thing,
(04:00):
an immoral thing to do, at least in the moral
code of let's say, Christianity. Just as one. Yeah, as
one example, Um, something you're not supposed to do. So
the first drug laws actually surfaced way back in the
eighteen sixties. Yea, all those books, Yeah, those were opium related,
I think, um, and those were local as well. Right.
(04:22):
Then the first law that restricted drugs on like a
national level was the Harrison Narcotics Act of nineteen fourteen,
and that was related to again, opium, was trying to
tax opium as well as cocaine. Yeah, and at this
time we see cocaine being illegal unless you are an
individual or a company with a license. Now I have uh,
(04:48):
I have no real idea and full disclosure, Matt Noel
and I are not drug dealers, nor to my knowledge,
drug addicts. Well, I got caffeine. I got a caffeine monkey. Yeah,
I've got several that are currently legal. Okay, all right, um,
but we know that, you know, the idea that an
(05:08):
individual could get a license got to be crazy, Like
that guy had the best pickup line at the bar, right,
It's like, oh, here, let me show you my license.
I've got my opium license. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just
fast forward past alcohol prohibition, that huge debacle from nineteen
thirty three, because it did not work. It did give
(05:30):
us several political dynasties that started out as criminals. Oh yeah,
tons of those, and fun little secret bars that are
really popular now speakeasies that you can go to and
find a hidden door somewhere. The cottage industry of creative
people making moonshine, I mean Prohibition. Uh, this is a
scary thing. It will come up later and many ways.
(05:51):
Prohibition was fantastic for parts of the U. S. Economy,
but at the same time it had a bloody history.
So many people died during Prohibition. Uh, not only from
being shot by authorities or authorities being shot by uh
you know, moonshiners or whoever is trying to make the
stuff a bootleggers, people getting killed from poisoned alcohol and
(06:17):
yeah rock cut alcohol that wasn't made correctly. Yeah that
because without going into all of the specifics of how
to create moonshine, um, which some which my family knows about. Uh,
we can point you to I believe stuff you should
know as an episode on moonshine, and they do a
great job explaining how to make this uh strange, fantastic,
(06:40):
potentially blinding drink. But we do know that marijuana was
also one of the things that fell under the purview
of drug laws, the Marijuana Transfer Tax Act. And this
thing has its own bunch of conspiracy theories, right, Matt.
It passed in seven Well, what were some of the
(07:00):
theories about why it's illegal. Well, there are a couple
of theories about hemp um and hemp production and how
that might take over other textile industries at the time
of cotton specifically. Yeah, I remember that at the time.
The the idea is that at the time William Randolph
Hurst newspaper tycoon. I love the word tycoon, get to
(07:22):
use it very often, but this guy was legit tycoon. Yeah.
There could have been a William Randolph Hurst Tycoon video game. Yeah.
I wonder if they're going to come out with a
Simhurst or something. Uh. Anyhow, this so this Hearst guy.
As the story goes, and listeners most of you already
know this. As the story goes, this guy owned acres
(07:43):
and acres and acres and acres of timber, and with
the invention of a new device, Decourse Raider or something,
hemp all of a sudden became a primary competitor and
was a more efficient plant for the creation of paper
right and other industrial products rope, et cetera. Uh, And
(08:05):
that the story goes that Hurst cooperated with some of
his other buddies in power to shut down the industry,
the burgeoning marijuana or himp industry, and one of the
ways they did that was to put out propaganda pieces
about the Remember the I think I think one of
the ones we ran in our marijuana video was the
(08:28):
devil weed weed. Yeah. It preyed upon these horrible, horrible
depictions of like, uh, the caricatures of people who were Mexican,
and they were drawn as these like pseudo human monsters
(08:49):
that were of course, you know, all after the white women.
And if yeah, and if if a young lady of
otherwise good moral standing was foolish enough to smoke reefer
in a jazz club, oh man, you the terrible things
that would happen to her, It's the end of America
right there, right, Yeah, it is. So we know that this, um,
(09:13):
we know that there are other conspiracy theories that maybe
this was something to do with the depots and the
invention of nylon, and they wanted to use that instead.
Most of these conspiracy theories are related to industrial competition,
but have not been conclusively proven. At this point, I
(09:34):
think it's important to say that, Yeah, absolutely there are
holes in some of those stories. Their holes, but you know,
on the other side, they do point to just the
powerful trying to remain powerful. I mean, somebody paid for
those propaganda pieces. Right of Marijuana Madness, which is um
that reminds me of that that film Reefer Madness. See that.
(09:56):
Oh yeah, I have a copy of it on my computer. Actually,
I've think that you know, I'm not gonna name names,
but one of my extended family members watch this and
I don't think they understood it was a comedy. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know how you couldn't get it. Ah yeah,
I guess you're just if you don't have the right
frame older person to I mean I felt like that
(10:19):
had that he said. But okay, So we have this
history of all these different attempts to um criminalize, prohibit,
or completely eradicate drugs and drug trades. Here's the million
dollar question. Has the war on drugs worked well? Listener?
What do you think since V one the drug war
(10:42):
has officially been on, It's been waged. We're in the
middle of it right now. Front lines, well, not us,
but like the d hopefully not us. Hopefully never us. No.
But but honestly, do you think the just sitting there
listening to this, do you think the availability of drugs
has increased or decreased since nine? Well, the answer is
(11:07):
it's increased a lot, depending on which drugs we're talking about, right, Sure,
there are a couple of drugs that slipped through the cracks.
Uh ludes, coludes were prescription drugs. Oh, good point, yeah,
because my example, Um, yeah, and we'll explore some uh
some different arguments for against prohibition and whether or not
(11:30):
it is effective. Because any any law that criminalizes a drug, right,
whether it be caffeine, adderall crack, cocaine, or quaaludes. Uh,
that is essentially prohibitive law. It's you cannot do something
versus a you must do something. So, so if we
(11:52):
ask has the war on drugs worked? Very interesting thing here,
my friends, because what we're really what we're really answering there, Uh,
it depends on who you are as whether or not
it's worked. So if the goal was to stop the
availability of drugs, as you said, then clearly that hasn't happened.
I mean, teenagers and multiple polls find it easier to
(12:15):
get marijuana or cocaine than it is to buy alcohol,
which is legal. You know, Yeah, you need an ID
to get alcohol, or you know, at least somebody who
will go in there and get it for you, Yeah,
whereas you just need to go to the right like
fish concert to get spot yeah, or I mean just
college campus or wherever. I mean, it's it's it's terrifying. Yeah,
(12:37):
it's terrifying how available that any of those drugs are, right,
because it shows that things don't work. But what if
the goal of US drug policy isn't about eradicating the
drug trade? What do you mean? Of course it is.
Here's where it gets crazy. After a word from our
(12:58):
sponsors and we are back. Okay, So we left off saying,
what if the US drug policy goals weren't necessarily oriented
towards eradicating the drug trade? What if they were more
towards managing it or using it to do something else like, oh,
(13:22):
I don't know, increased budgets or police departments and federal
agencies across the board. Yeah, that's true. That's a definite
thing that has happened. If you if you think the
War on drugs is a failure. Right. Uh, then you
are like three out of four Americans in two thousand
and eight. How insane is that? Right? In democracies Now,
(13:45):
the US is a republic, but in a democratic system,
a number that high is supposed to be a clear message,
right yeah, Um, depending upon who they're representing at the time.
We know that the war on drugs created soaring incarceration rates.
We've got some scary numbers about it, that's right, Ben.
(14:06):
With just five percent of the total world population, the
US has of the world's prisoners, So that means that proportionately,
we lead the world just hugely, big time. We leave
for people who use the word freedom so often in conversation,
(14:29):
I know how cynical this sounds. We put a lot
of people in jail. It doesn't matter what your political stances.
We put a lot of people in jail, and then
a lot of people are there for drug offenses. And
we don't do it for everybody. Ben, as most of
us know, Um, dis disproportionately, these laws end up in
prisoning minorities like way more than let's say, white people. Ah. Yes,
(14:54):
So just for some perspective here in two thousand eight,
Washington Posts found that of the one point five million
Americans arrested each year for drugs, half a million would
be incarcerated five hundred thousand a year. And of those
five hundred thousand, uh, the majority are going to be minorities,
especially African Americans. So this translates to one in five
(15:18):
Black Americans, uh in estimation, one in five Black Americans
spending time behind bars due to drug laws and these
kind of statistics. They're overwhelming, first of all, but they're
also leading people uh, such as Michelle Alexander, who's a critic.
She says that mass in car incarceration is kind of
the new Jim Crow, which if we remember the Jim
(15:42):
Crow laws, they were meant to I don't know a
good way to say, it's stifle the African American uh
set of rights. Right, yeah, Jim Crow laws come in, uh,
you know in the period between slavery and uh legalized
quality thinks the civil rights Uh Jim Crow laws were
another way to repress and manage the United States Black
(16:07):
population through what was in many ways systematized enslavement under
a different name. I mean, we're not talking a lot
of people they hear Jim crow law, and they think
separate water fountains, right, separate restrooms, separate entrances. But this
is also something like enforced work, right, Like you are
(16:29):
locked up for an arbitrary reason and then made to
work for uh some of the same companies and in
early days, some of the same people who thought it
was a good idea to have slaves in the first place. Yeah,
it's interesting that you use the word management again, Ben,
because it's something that we're finding throughout this this series
here just trying to manage manage populations in this weird
(16:52):
way without showing the hand of the manager because the
laws to meet are these rigid structures. Um, they're faceless. Yeah,
it's their ideas. So that I think that's a really
good point. Now I want to be completely fair and
point out that later on in the podcast we're going
to talk about the arguments for this prohibition, right and clearly,
(17:17):
clearly not everyone thinks that there is some overarching conspiracy
to re enslave um the black population, minority populations. So
one of the questions there is, um, is this disproportionate
incarceration occurring on purpose or is it the culmination of
(17:40):
a bunch of short term decisions such as politicians who
want to be tough on crime. That's great for votes, right,
and uh, and also a socioeconomic situation of vast spots
of a population, that's true. Yeah, So what what is
the cause? Is there and orchestrated cause here? And are
(18:03):
drug laws? Excuse me? Are drug laws part of this?
You know, some drugs have been disproportionately legislated, and I'm
sure a lot of people are waiting for us to
get to this. Uh. The famous one hundred to one
sentencing disparity for possession of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Uh,
that's crazy talk. Yeah, And what causes that? Why the
(18:26):
heck is that even a thing? Is it some kind
of media based panic, like a racial bias that's happening
in the media, um or even in the law enforcement system. Yeah,
that's a good question. Uh. I everything that I've heard
of crack sounds terrifying to me. It's one of those
it's one of those things where just I'm not passing
(18:47):
judgment on people, met, but it's one of those things
where I always wonder, like, what is the thought process
that makes you say, you know, what is a good
idea today crack cocaine. Yeah, I have some unfortunately personal experiences, uh,
dealing with somebody who's addicted to crack cocaine that I'm
not going to talk about right here, but I can
(19:08):
just say that it is pretty freaking horrendous and it's
definitely not you know, I just want to establish absolutely
it's it's not it's not you, it's not null. Wait
is it me that I black out and do the crack? So,
I mean, we're making light of a very serious thing.
But the truth of the matter is that for a
(19:29):
long time, Uh, this this sort of disparity in sentencing
resulted in a lot of people who had the same
amount of cocaine in a in a crack form going
to jail for much much longer if the cocaine possessor
eil went to jail at all. Yeah, because the truth
(19:49):
is right that, um, they found that there were demographics
to drug use, and uh, people in power would probably
not smoke crack, but they might do cocaine, and they
got lighter sentencing until what two thousand ten, Yeah, and
two thousands ten Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act to
(20:11):
try at least and reduce this disparity. We'll see if
it works out. So I want to go back to
what you said earlier, because you made one of the
biggest and best points that I know a lot of
people are waiting for out there, which is a financial
interest in the drug war. The idea that the war
on drugs is a um a guaranteed boon or piece
(20:37):
of the American economy. I mean, what do you think.
I absolutely believe that. Um. I mean, the economy as
a whole seems to churn on a couple of different things,
and one of them is the drug trade because of
the law enforcement angle and the incarceration efforts, and think
about the private prisons now and the amount of money
(21:00):
it goes into and comes out of private prisons. I
guess also it's a it's a boom to the legislative
industry or litic litigious industry. Yeah. Well, the drug a
drug or drugs in general is a great enemy to
have to wage a war on, at least from that standpoint, because,
(21:21):
like you said, it's nameless, it's faceless, it doesn't really
ever die. Like, how how do you extinguish drugs completely?
I just can I go on here? If we were
to wage wars on ideas. I would like to wage
wars on things like literacy, things like a war on uh,
a war on water contamination, a war on poverty would
(21:44):
be a great thing for a lot of Americans. And
you're a good hearted person. Well, I'd never be elected,
but thank you for saying so. And I think I
think earlier another US president did declare war on poverty,
but it didn't carry as much attention. There's not a
lot of money and stopping prop poverty, there's a lot
of money that comes out. Yeah, there's a lot of
(22:07):
money invested in arresting marijuana users. In two thousand nine, Uh,
the US spent and estimated seven billion dollars arresting people
for what I imagine is I imagine that's everything. So
that's like possession, distribution growing, I guess too. Uh. And
(22:29):
we know that drugs are also pretty good source of
profit while they were illegal, right, Oh yeah, because inside
this black market, the demand is never changed really for
drugs over time. There's always somebody, like a lot of
people who want drugs. And if you if you control
the market that you know there aren't a lot of competitors,
(22:52):
you're making money. We're looking at profit margins, I mean
over oh, yeah, easily. And you know, there's a question
about whether drug cartels would want US drug laws to change.
You know, if it became legal, then the people swooping
in would be multinational corporations with one hell of a
(23:13):
war chest. Yeah, tax money out of you. So yeah,
there's a huge incentive to Perhaps that is that is weird,
that's an angle. I've never thought about the incentive of
the cartels to maintain the drug war. Yeah, I wonder,
I wonder if it's true. Now. You know, we have
(23:33):
some listeners in our audience who are in law enforcement.
And one thing I think happens that is unfair that
we should talk about here is that a lot of
the people that you know, you will meet if you
just are on the street level, taking a street level
look at crime, right, A lot of the people who
(23:54):
are responsible for arresting someone, right, they don't make the laws.
It's their job. They have to do it, you know,
It's it's probably criminal for them not to. And I
think it's strange that these people, these people who are
on the front lines of the war on drugs, right, Uh,
they're the ones who get so much of the criticism
(24:16):
and so much of the flak. And you know, it's
the same with the street level drug dealers, right, they
get most of the prison time, but uh not the
guys at the top of the pyramid, you know, on
the other side. And you have to wonder sometimes how
often the tops of these two competing pyramids talk and
(24:37):
if they work in unison. Um, that's you know, that's
the big that's the that's the big question. Um. So
what I wanted to ask you, Matt, is if we
could talk a little bit about some of the drug
war stuff that we have covered in our past videos.
(24:57):
We have a whole bunch, right, Uh. I'm trying to
think just the numbers. I remember in our original War
on Drugs episode where we had the little ticker in
the side that shows how much money is being spent
by the US government on the War on drugs every second, yeah,
real time while you're watching the video, and it was
it wasn't a huge amount. I think it was five
hundred dollars a second. I think that's what it was.
(25:20):
I mean, when you hear that, that sounds like a
lot of money for you or I or most of
the people listening, except for that one other tycoon remember
from the Bahamas? Yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah ready, uh no,
but okay, so it doesn't sound like that much money.
But then when you when you look at it, you
watch this video, which is only three and a half,
(25:41):
I forget how many ships it is, but you just
see this massive number at the end, you realize, my god,
the amount of time it took me to watch this video,
a hundred thousand dollars would just spent. Well, here's let's
change directions a little bit then, because this leads us
to a great question. Arguments for against prohibition. Uh, do
you think that the current drug laws work or that
(26:07):
there I guess that the system in place is preferable
to other systems. Well, like you said, the system right
now arrests pawns, and it gets pawns, you know, and
and there's a horrible way to look at it, but
pawns in the police department, the guys on the front lines,
the little man who's actually out there trying to fight
(26:29):
the war gets killed, you know, and the low level
drug dealer gets arrested or killed. I don't think that
works to solve anything. That just creates a perpetual pawn
death thing. So just a war of attrition. Yeah, war progress.
To me, that's that's what I see. And you're saying
in your saying ponds completely and I'm not solely in
(26:52):
the chess game, and not in derogatory sense. I'm just
you know, you're sending your low level guys out to
fight a war, literally, to fight a war, and you
never get to see the bishop make an entrance. Now
you would say, you know, it's interesting you say that
because there are there are people who say that prohibition
in the United States does work because a smaller amount
(27:15):
of our population uses opium, for instance, versus those who
use something legal, such as alcohol. So what what would
you say to that? I guess this is what I
would do. I would go into the argument about the
health consequences of drug X versus drug y. Okay, I see,
So maybe schedule drugs based on that? Well, yeah, I mean,
(27:39):
there are a lot of things you could schedule them on.
It's just the way that drugs are currently scheduled. Even
if we just look I mean, honestly, let's just look
at marijuana versus alcohol. And this has been done so
many times. You've heard this over and over all. Your listeners.
But the known health effects of alcohol versus the known
health effects of marijuana are there's a huge disparity there where.
(28:03):
You know, with alcohol, you can if you consume enough,
get alcohol poisoning. If you consume enough and you drive
a vehicle or you know, use other heavy machinery, either
way it impairs you, you are most likely going to
hurt yourself or somebody else. Um, alcohol is legal, Alcohol
is good to go. On the other side of marijuana,
a lot of the studies in there haven't been enough
(28:24):
studies yet at least that we can cite. But it
doesn't seem to have the same effects. You don't seem
to be able to overdose on it and die. Are
you saying those those posters from the thirties were wrong,
I'm saying they were propaganda. What no, I know, Come on, man, Jazz,
really that's true. So I'm just messing with you. But
(28:47):
but yeah, that's you know, that's a that's definitely a
valid argument that I see there. Um. I know that
when I've spoken to people who are law enforcement officers,
the vast majority of them would rather not have to
waste time and paperwork busting somebody with you know, a
(29:10):
dime bag of pot or something. Because there are people
out there stealing cars, attacking the elderly, things like that
that should clearly be illegal. That's that's where I would
draw the line, right, and a lot of people line
of violent crime. Oh yeah, violent crime absolutely. But that
other thing you mentioned about cocaine versus crack picking, yeah,
(29:34):
oh my gosh. I mean there have been numerous exposes
about Washington, d c. And the amount of cocaine that
goes around that city. And you know, not for any
kind of miscreant just running around on the south side
of town or the north side of town. You're talking
about the players, Yeah, yeah, the people in the houses
(29:54):
of power, whether corporate or governmental. You know, it's funny
because one of the things I learned we're looking at
this practice was that the human species at large seems
to go like nuts over cocaine. Were like that bird
in that Coco Puffs, Uh, that Coco Puffs mascot. It's
like cuckoo for Coco puffs or whatever. Yeah, people are
(30:17):
cuckoo for cocaine, you know. Uh. The Mayor Rob Ford
was in the news a lot for his use of
crack cocaine. So I assume that would be regular cocaine
as well. Um. There was a weird study that came
out of a few years back that said, um, I
think there's some towns in Italy where so many people
(30:38):
use cocaine that you can find trace amounts of it
in the water. Uh. And you know, they're always those
statistics people like to whip out where they say, like
of euros or dollars have traces of drugs and fecal
matter on them and stuff. So I don't know how
how realistic that is. But then again, I don't know
(31:00):
how realistic it is to try to ban something that's
so many people indulge in. The only kinds of prohibition
that seemed to work for a long time in human
history are religious prohibitions, like dietary restrictions, and it's because
somebody's God has commanded them not to, so it's voluntary, right.
(31:22):
But I don't know, I'm I'm ranting, I guess a
little bit. It's just it's just strange to me. We
haven't even talked about opium production in Afghanistan during the war,
you know what. Let's talk about that next. But first
pausible word from our sponsor, UM we're back. So the
(31:48):
opium trade, the opium war, and the Afghanistan War. Let's
talk about it, man, Okay. Well, one thing that's interesting
about the operations in Afghanistan, which I think most of
the American public was on the same page this was
these were operations to catch terrorists, right, they were after terrorists,
(32:13):
and they were hoping to stem the flow of terrorism
at the time. One one unforeseen side effect, at least
most of the American public didn't see this coming, was
that opium production in Afghanistan increased their their number of
possible factors for this. Uh. People who believe there's a
(32:35):
conspiracy of foot will say that UM intelligence agencies or
private companies wanted to rest control of this of the
you know, one of the world's prime opium sources and
uh profit from it. But then other people would say, well,
that's that's a little bit crazy. What's happening instead is
(32:57):
that farmers in Afghanistan are finding that is more profitable
to grow poppies than it is to grow you know,
other products. Right. Oh yeah, it's it's hugely profitable. And
you have to think the thought of going into the
opium fields the you know, and we're talking. This is
one of the largest, if not the largest opium production
(33:19):
areas in the entire world, right in Afghanistan. So the
idea of going in there is to stop that money
that would be coming from the profit of the sale
of that product to fun terrorism. And now you've got
the soldiers in there, and in theory they're protecting it
and making sure you know, I guess none gets sold
(33:39):
or you I don't. I mean, I I guess I
just don't understand the operational like what they're doing the goals. Yeah,
you know, it's funny because and this is a bit
of a tangent. We can do an entirely different series
about wars. But UH, one thing that was interesting to
me is that, um, before the United States became involved
(34:01):
in Afghanistan, Uh, there were some discoveries that you and
I have talked about about large amounts of what are
called rare earth metals or minerals, and UH, some of
these deposits rival those found in Mongolia, which is a
huge source of rare earth materials um and and rare
(34:22):
earth material is sort of a misnomber because it's relatively
rare in earth right in the natural world. But if
you live in an industrialized society, it is all around
you in your smartphone and your microphone. If it has
a phone on it, then it probably has or if
there's electronics, I mean, if there's a motherboard, just there's
some rare earth elements. So I've heard some people say
(34:44):
that that was one of the actual aims of US
intervention there. But if you check out our Great Game podcast,
you will see how the Soviet Union and the United
States and the UK before it have always fought over
this part of the world, Eurasia, Central Asia. UM has
(35:06):
always been a a huge piece of the global hegemonic
pie that no one can seem to hold for very long. Right,
It's still really strange to me that after all that
and thinking about all those factors, the fact is global
opium production is at an all time high. Yeah, it's increased,
(35:29):
and we know that there was a much earlier war
on drugs, and we won't talk too much about today
because we have a video series about this coming out
that you guys should check out if you're interested, and
that is on the opium wars, which don't get reported
that much in Western textbooks nowadays. UM. Maybe because it
is such a a grossly unethical war um Quick and
(35:54):
Dirty reader's digest version here. Essentially, the West wanted to
do more trade with China at the time, right, and
the problem was that the West, specifically Britain the United Kingdom,
didn't have anything that China really wanted, right except for opium,
(36:17):
because they still controlled that in the British Empire. So
they started trying to uh make trade with opium, right
and get the population addicted, and China had a problem
with that, and a war began because of that. It
was it was literally a drug war. And you're gonna
(36:38):
find out a lot more about that in the video series,
so stay tuned, and then we will be making an
audio podcast about that as well. Yeah we probably should. Yeah,
so I should stop talking about the war, So let's
instead talk a little bit more about conspiracy surrounding the
war on drugs. Other criticisms are that this creates a
permanent underclass, that current drug policy these in one way
(37:01):
or another, accelerate inequality. Yeah, so now you have a
large part of the population that has to I mean
that there isn't really much of a way out of there.
Let's say situation then to be low level criminal, low
level person selling drugs because it's profitable enough in the
short term to maybe get you out of that that situation. UM.
(37:25):
And then you've also got and I don't know how
to how to put this, but you have a huge
amount of job openings for law enforcement, for low level
law enforcement, um, because you need people to fight the
battle on the other side. M It's interesting, Yeah, the
the entry level. And just another thing. I don't know
(37:46):
if you know this or not, but police officers don't
get paid very well for the amount of risk they
go through every day. Yeah, that is absolutely true. That's
a that's a huge problem. I would say that teachers
and police officers, e M t s and firefighters are
some of the most dramatically underpaid people in US society.
(38:07):
And while we're talking about government jobs, uh, let's go
to one of your favorite conspiracy theories, met And Uh,
I guess in some cases it's a conspiracy fact. Is
it true, Matt, that government agencies have participated in the
illegal drug trade? Ah? This is a difficult thing to
(38:30):
prove with cold heart evidence. Although if you if you
know this one guy's name, you might have a clue.
Mr Gary Webb. Uh. He was a journalist who stumbled
upon a story that was probably too big for him
or for any other singular person to take on. So
(38:51):
Gary discovered that, at least allegedly, that the CIA was
trafficking drugs, and uh, he you try to get the
story out as much as he could. He was largely
discredited by a lot of his peers for trying to
go forward with the story. UM, I don't want to
spoil it. If you don't know what happened to Gary Webb,
(39:13):
I guess this would be the place to hear about it.
But check out our video series, right, yeah, we made
a video episode about this. But also there is a
film I believe still in theaters called Kill the Messenger
that is all about the Gary web story. That's true,
and I've heard good things about it. I haven't seen
it yet. Um, just because you know, we had we
(39:34):
had looked into it so much. I didn't want to
be that guy in the movie theater going what oh, sure,
because those people are annoying and uh, and we also
know there have been other implications of governmental shenanigans involving
turning a blind eye to the drug trade. There's been uh,
conspiracy theories about every aspect of the drug trade, including
(39:56):
the idea that the c i A purposefully marketed C
cocaine to impoverished minorities, especially there in California as a
way of sending out the population or attempting to. And
there are also allegations that it was to be used
(40:16):
to kind of break up the Black Power movement, um.
The because you know they are they already kind of
at least the FBI worked on destroying the Black Power
movement by segmenting it up, by turning all the different
groups against each other, and then you know, later on
down the road to get cracked and you kind of
do the same thing when you have gangs formed. You know,
(40:38):
I would like to hear from our listeners to hear
if you guys think that there is any proof to
that um And we are going to start heading out today,
but I have to ask you, Matt, if you were
going to change the US drug laws, what would you
change and how? Thanks Ben for that simple softball question.
(40:58):
I'm just popping it. It's it's so soft, It's like
I'm tossing your kitten to you and zero gravity. Alright, Well,
Senator Frederick would uh would put forth legislation that would Honestly,
I would probably want to. I mean, the best way
to kill a black market is to make it legal,
(41:19):
and I think I think that's true currently like Portugal.
Huh like Portugal, Yeah, uh, it's weird because they've They've
become an often cited example. But do you think that
all drugs then would be legal? Like would you want
heroin to be legal? I would This is gosh, I
sound I probably sound like an idiot to many of you,
(41:41):
but yeah, I would say I would want heroin to
be legal, and it would be on a shelf and
I wouldn't buy it the same way. I wouldn't, you know,
go in and try and get xan X or something,
or I wouldn't go in and try and I don't know,
get some other high level drug that I don't need
that's prescription right now. Um. I would view it that way.
And then if somebody really needs heroin because they're going
(42:06):
to die if they don't get it, you know, from
the reactions of not having it, then it's there. Um.
And then I would also Senator Frederick would introduce legislation
that would focus on again rehabilitation. The idea that this
looking at addiction differently, not as a criminal activity, but
(42:26):
as a chemical issue with your body. I see, Yeah,
that's that's pretty fair. Yeah. I don't know, I've been
listening to too much Russell Brand lately. He gets I
mean he he is a has a really good insight
into what it means to be addicted to drugs. And
you know he is a comedian and an actor, but
he's lived for that life. Yeah, and he's got a
(42:48):
great show. We're actually pretty big fans. Yeah. I watch
it probably every day. Yea, So we're actually pretty big
fans years, Mr Brand. Uh, if you ever want to
hang out, let us let us know please, I don't
know if you ever happen to be down this way
down Atlanta way. Uh. You know what I would like
to try to do, Matt where I Senator Bowland? Well,
(43:10):
I guess this wouldn't really work in a democracy and
need to be a dictator. Um, I mean sure all
dictators are like kind of benevolent during the honeymoon period. Right,
Here's why I would do just for like a year
or two, I would make everything illegal, everything, every single thing,
(43:30):
and turned the country into a prison, the whole country.
Everybody's under arrest. What did you do? Don't answer, it
was against the law. And then I'd slowly start to
make things legal again and let some people out of
this massive prisons. Everybody stays in the country in or
out were like Madagascar and pandemic and uh, you know,
(43:51):
slowly ease back into some things, and then you know,
see which one is the trigger point you go start with.
Walking outside is now legal again, and people can walk
outside only between three and four, because you gotta start small,
repeal all this stuff at once. Now, of course, ladies, gentlemen,
(44:11):
I hope you understand that I am joking, and that
is a terrible, terrible foreign policy. If there are any
world leaders in the audience today, please please, please please
do not make everything illegal, just to see what would happen.
Thank you for putting that idea into their brains. Now, Ben,
I look forward to in twenty years when somebody and goes,
(44:33):
you know, let's do it. Why not, Why don't we
just make everything illegal? Um. But then there's a question
what would happen to the economy. For instance, if if
all drugs were legal in the United States, Uh, there
would be a massive shift in the economy. Um. And
that is something to consider. Also, quit plug for Freakonomics
(44:54):
if you guys have checked them out, they have this
great They have this great investigation of how much money
a drug dealer I really does or does not make,
and they equated it to something around minimum wage before
minimum wage got raised. Yeah, it's it's sobering and saddening.
Then there's this show called drug inc That I watched
a special on not long ago, and it focused on
(45:15):
Atlanta and the molly trade or the ecstasy trade in Atlanta,
and it focused on some low level drug dealers and
that was one of the main points was just how
how not lucrative it is for somebody who's actually in
danger of getting arrested and put in jail for years. Right. Yeah,
not to mention no health insurance, no benefits, none of that.
(45:38):
I guess you get cobro yea to ouch. So on
that note, listeners, we hope you enjoyed this episode as
much as we enjoyed making it, and we want to
hear your thoughts on the drug war. If you'd like
to check out our videos or our podcasts, go to
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot Com, where
you can find every little thing we've ever done, I
think pretty much. You can also go to our YouTube
(45:59):
channel if you don't already do that on the rig,
because you should. Uh. And you know, if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, just send us
an email. You can send anything in that old email
and we'll get it. We might not like it or
we might love it, but either way our addresses conspiracy
at how stuff works dot com. From one on this
(46:25):
topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle at conspiracy stuff
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
writtened with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
and I'm Ben not a cop Bowland, and that over
(00:21):
there is Noel Brown. Ladies and gentlemen are famous super
producer Noel Brown. Could we get some sirens at the
top of your role? Perfect? Oh? Why why are there
cops here? Well, that's one of the reasons why I
said that I am not a cop, but I'm not
(00:42):
so sure about you. Met. Uh. Today, we have some
sirens and some imaginary police officers here to help us
out with a very sticky controversial subject, Ladies and gentlemen,
the war on drugs. Well, let's get right into it.
What the heck is it? Where did it come from?
(01:02):
How did it start? Oh? Yeah, okay, So the phrase
the war on drugs is actually not that old. It
goes back to nineteen seventy one. On June the president
of the time, Richard Nixon, held a press conference, and
this was the day after he had given a special
message to the Congress on Drug abuse Prevention and Control.
(01:25):
So During this press conference, Matt he says that drug
abuse is public enemy number one, and he says that
he's going to devote more money to here. Here's the
first time he was ever said the war on drugs.
So this phrase the war on drugs really just got
taken up by the media and it was used all
over the place. UM. And the way we think about
(01:48):
the war on drugs now in at least when we're
putting this out is a little different than maybe the
way it was presented at the time. In the beginning,
it was is you know, about trying to help people
rehabilitate drug users. Uh, it was about preventing new addicts
from getting addicted. Um. But that kind of that message,
(02:13):
let's say, UM, was kind of put in different places
and we'll go maybe go over some of those other organizations,
but it was focused on just the word war focuses
you on like battle guns, like grenades, all kinds of
crazy things. At least those images are are created in
(02:34):
your head when you hear that phrase, right, Yeah, And
it's also a war on an idea, which is what
what drug use. I guess you could argue that it's
a war on a specific thing, but I think it's
more a war on an activity, which is people using drugs.
And you make a very interesting point about portraying this
(02:56):
as a war sort of criminalizes that people who are addicted,
and in other countries addiction is often treated like a disease. Right. Uh,
But we know, as you said, that the war on
drugs has evolved from its rehabilitative aims that that were
(03:16):
part of it. I mean, they always wanted to criminalize drugs,
but part of it was rehabilitation and helping with community
oriented solutions. But today, guys, the war on drugs in
the United States takes an estimated fifty one billion with
a b dollars of the US budget. That's according to
the Drug Policy Alliance. And for everybody who's listening now
(03:39):
and saying, you guys, don't be shallow, the war on
drugs didn't start in the seventies. It goes way way back. Well,
we know, we looked into it. Oh absolutely, Uh. The
US has always had an adversarial relationship with drugs because,
you know, we we think of drugs as a bad thing,
(04:00):
an immoral thing to do, at least in the moral
code of let's say, Christianity. Just as one. Yeah, as
one example, Um, something you're not supposed to do. So
the first drug laws actually surfaced way back in the
eighteen sixties. Yea, all those books, Yeah, those were opium related,
I think, um, and those were local as well. Right.
(04:22):
Then the first law that restricted drugs on like a
national level was the Harrison Narcotics Act of nineteen fourteen,
and that was related to again, opium, was trying to
tax opium as well as cocaine. Yeah, and at this
time we see cocaine being illegal unless you are an
individual or a company with a license. Now I have uh,
(04:48):
I have no real idea and full disclosure, Matt Noel
and I are not drug dealers, nor to my knowledge,
drug addicts. Well, I got caffeine. I got a caffeine monkey. Yeah,
I've got several that are currently legal. Okay, all right, um,
but we know that, you know, the idea that an
(05:08):
individual could get a license got to be crazy, Like
that guy had the best pickup line at the bar, right,
It's like, oh, here, let me show you my license.
I've got my opium license. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just
fast forward past alcohol prohibition, that huge debacle from nineteen
thirty three, because it did not work. It did give
(05:30):
us several political dynasties that started out as criminals. Oh yeah,
tons of those, and fun little secret bars that are
really popular now speakeasies that you can go to and
find a hidden door somewhere. The cottage industry of creative
people making moonshine, I mean Prohibition. Uh, this is a
scary thing. It will come up later and many ways.
(05:51):
Prohibition was fantastic for parts of the U. S. Economy,
but at the same time it had a bloody history.
So many people died during Prohibition. Uh, not only from
being shot by authorities or authorities being shot by uh
you know, moonshiners or whoever is trying to make the
stuff a bootleggers, people getting killed from poisoned alcohol and
(06:17):
yeah rock cut alcohol that wasn't made correctly. Yeah that
because without going into all of the specifics of how
to create moonshine, um, which some which my family knows about. Uh,
we can point you to I believe stuff you should
know as an episode on moonshine, and they do a
great job explaining how to make this uh strange, fantastic,
(06:40):
potentially blinding drink. But we do know that marijuana was
also one of the things that fell under the purview
of drug laws, the Marijuana Transfer Tax Act. And this
thing has its own bunch of conspiracy theories, right, Matt.
It passed in seven Well, what were some of the
(07:00):
theories about why it's illegal. Well, there are a couple
of theories about hemp um and hemp production and how
that might take over other textile industries at the time
of cotton specifically. Yeah, I remember that at the time.
The the idea is that at the time William Randolph
Hurst newspaper tycoon. I love the word tycoon, get to
(07:22):
use it very often, but this guy was legit tycoon. Yeah.
There could have been a William Randolph Hurst Tycoon video game. Yeah.
I wonder if they're going to come out with a
Simhurst or something. Uh. Anyhow, this so this Hearst guy.
As the story goes, and listeners most of you already
know this. As the story goes, this guy owned acres
(07:43):
and acres and acres and acres of timber, and with
the invention of a new device, Decourse Raider or something,
hemp all of a sudden became a primary competitor and
was a more efficient plant for the creation of paper
right and other industrial products rope, et cetera. Uh, And
(08:05):
that the story goes that Hurst cooperated with some of
his other buddies in power to shut down the industry,
the burgeoning marijuana or himp industry, and one of the
ways they did that was to put out propaganda pieces
about the Remember the I think I think one of
the ones we ran in our marijuana video was the
(08:28):
devil weed weed. Yeah. It preyed upon these horrible, horrible
depictions of like, uh, the caricatures of people who were Mexican,
and they were drawn as these like pseudo human monsters
(08:49):
that were of course, you know, all after the white women.
And if yeah, and if if a young lady of
otherwise good moral standing was foolish enough to smoke reefer
in a jazz club, oh man, you the terrible things
that would happen to her, It's the end of America
right there, right, Yeah, it is. So we know that this, um,
(09:13):
we know that there are other conspiracy theories that maybe
this was something to do with the depots and the
invention of nylon, and they wanted to use that instead.
Most of these conspiracy theories are related to industrial competition,
but have not been conclusively proven. At this point, I
(09:34):
think it's important to say that, Yeah, absolutely there are
holes in some of those stories. Their holes, but you know,
on the other side, they do point to just the
powerful trying to remain powerful. I mean, somebody paid for
those propaganda pieces. Right of Marijuana Madness, which is um
that reminds me of that that film Reefer Madness. See that.
(09:56):
Oh yeah, I have a copy of it on my computer. Actually,
I've think that you know, I'm not gonna name names,
but one of my extended family members watch this and
I don't think they understood it was a comedy. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know how you couldn't get it. Ah yeah,
I guess you're just if you don't have the right
frame older person to I mean I felt like that
(10:19):
had that he said. But okay, So we have this
history of all these different attempts to um criminalize, prohibit,
or completely eradicate drugs and drug trades. Here's the million
dollar question. Has the war on drugs worked well? Listener?
What do you think since V one the drug war
(10:42):
has officially been on, It's been waged. We're in the
middle of it right now. Front lines, well, not us,
but like the d hopefully not us. Hopefully never us. No.
But but honestly, do you think the just sitting there
listening to this, do you think the availability of drugs
has increased or decreased since nine? Well, the answer is
(11:07):
it's increased a lot, depending on which drugs we're talking about, right, Sure,
there are a couple of drugs that slipped through the cracks.
Uh ludes, coludes were prescription drugs. Oh, good point, yeah,
because my example, Um, yeah, and we'll explore some uh
some different arguments for against prohibition and whether or not
(11:30):
it is effective. Because any any law that criminalizes a drug, right,
whether it be caffeine, adderall crack, cocaine, or quaaludes. Uh,
that is essentially prohibitive law. It's you cannot do something
versus a you must do something. So, so if we
(11:52):
ask has the war on drugs worked? Very interesting thing here,
my friends, because what we're really what we're really answering there, Uh,
it depends on who you are as whether or not
it's worked. So if the goal was to stop the
availability of drugs, as you said, then clearly that hasn't happened.
I mean, teenagers and multiple polls find it easier to
(12:15):
get marijuana or cocaine than it is to buy alcohol,
which is legal. You know, Yeah, you need an ID
to get alcohol, or you know, at least somebody who
will go in there and get it for you, Yeah,
whereas you just need to go to the right like
fish concert to get spot yeah, or I mean just
college campus or wherever. I mean, it's it's it's terrifying. Yeah,
(12:37):
it's terrifying how available that any of those drugs are, right,
because it shows that things don't work. But what if
the goal of US drug policy isn't about eradicating the
drug trade? What do you mean? Of course it is.
Here's where it gets crazy. After a word from our
(12:58):
sponsors and we are back. Okay, So we left off saying,
what if the US drug policy goals weren't necessarily oriented
towards eradicating the drug trade? What if they were more
towards managing it or using it to do something else like, oh,
(13:22):
I don't know, increased budgets or police departments and federal
agencies across the board. Yeah, that's true. That's a definite
thing that has happened. If you if you think the
War on drugs is a failure. Right. Uh, then you
are like three out of four Americans in two thousand
and eight. How insane is that? Right? In democracies Now,
(13:45):
the US is a republic, but in a democratic system,
a number that high is supposed to be a clear message,
right yeah, Um, depending upon who they're representing at the time.
We know that the war on drugs created soaring incarceration rates.
We've got some scary numbers about it, that's right, Ben.
(14:06):
With just five percent of the total world population, the
US has of the world's prisoners, So that means that proportionately,
we lead the world just hugely, big time. We leave
for people who use the word freedom so often in conversation,
(14:29):
I know how cynical this sounds. We put a lot
of people in jail. It doesn't matter what your political stances.
We put a lot of people in jail, and then
a lot of people are there for drug offenses. And
we don't do it for everybody. Ben, as most of
us know, Um, dis disproportionately, these laws end up in
prisoning minorities like way more than let's say, white people. Ah. Yes,
(14:54):
So just for some perspective here in two thousand eight,
Washington Posts found that of the one point five million
Americans arrested each year for drugs, half a million would
be incarcerated five hundred thousand a year. And of those
five hundred thousand, uh, the majority are going to be minorities,
especially African Americans. So this translates to one in five
(15:18):
Black Americans, uh in estimation, one in five Black Americans
spending time behind bars due to drug laws and these
kind of statistics. They're overwhelming, first of all, but they're
also leading people uh, such as Michelle Alexander, who's a critic.
She says that mass in car incarceration is kind of
the new Jim Crow, which if we remember the Jim
(15:42):
Crow laws, they were meant to I don't know a
good way to say, it's stifle the African American uh
set of rights. Right, yeah, Jim Crow laws come in, uh,
you know in the period between slavery and uh legalized
quality thinks the civil rights Uh Jim Crow laws were
another way to repress and manage the United States Black
(16:07):
population through what was in many ways systematized enslavement under
a different name. I mean, we're not talking a lot
of people they hear Jim crow law, and they think
separate water fountains, right, separate restrooms, separate entrances. But this
is also something like enforced work, right, Like you are
(16:29):
locked up for an arbitrary reason and then made to
work for uh some of the same companies and in
early days, some of the same people who thought it
was a good idea to have slaves in the first place. Yeah,
it's interesting that you use the word management again, Ben,
because it's something that we're finding throughout this this series
here just trying to manage manage populations in this weird
(16:52):
way without showing the hand of the manager because the
laws to meet are these rigid structures. Um, they're faceless. Yeah,
it's their ideas. So that I think that's a really
good point. Now I want to be completely fair and
point out that later on in the podcast we're going
to talk about the arguments for this prohibition, right and clearly,
(17:17):
clearly not everyone thinks that there is some overarching conspiracy
to re enslave um the black population, minority populations. So
one of the questions there is, um, is this disproportionate
incarceration occurring on purpose or is it the culmination of
(17:40):
a bunch of short term decisions such as politicians who
want to be tough on crime. That's great for votes, right,
and uh, and also a socioeconomic situation of vast spots
of a population, that's true. Yeah, So what what is
the cause? Is there and orchestrated cause here? And are
(18:03):
drug laws? Excuse me? Are drug laws part of this?
You know, some drugs have been disproportionately legislated, and I'm
sure a lot of people are waiting for us to
get to this. Uh. The famous one hundred to one
sentencing disparity for possession of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Uh,
that's crazy talk. Yeah, And what causes that? Why the
(18:26):
heck is that even a thing? Is it some kind
of media based panic, like a racial bias that's happening
in the media, um or even in the law enforcement system. Yeah,
that's a good question. Uh. I everything that I've heard
of crack sounds terrifying to me. It's one of those
it's one of those things where just I'm not passing
(18:47):
judgment on people, met, but it's one of those things
where I always wonder, like, what is the thought process
that makes you say, you know, what is a good
idea today crack cocaine. Yeah, I have some unfortunately personal experiences, uh,
dealing with somebody who's addicted to crack cocaine that I'm
not going to talk about right here, but I can
(19:08):
just say that it is pretty freaking horrendous and it's
definitely not you know, I just want to establish absolutely
it's it's not it's not you, it's not null. Wait
is it me that I black out and do the crack? So,
I mean, we're making light of a very serious thing.
But the truth of the matter is that for a
(19:29):
long time, Uh, this this sort of disparity in sentencing
resulted in a lot of people who had the same
amount of cocaine in a in a crack form going
to jail for much much longer if the cocaine possessor
eil went to jail at all. Yeah, because the truth
(19:49):
is right that, um, they found that there were demographics
to drug use, and uh, people in power would probably
not smoke crack, but they might do cocaine, and they
got lighter sentencing until what two thousand ten, Yeah, and
two thousands ten Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act to
(20:11):
try at least and reduce this disparity. We'll see if
it works out. So I want to go back to
what you said earlier, because you made one of the
biggest and best points that I know a lot of
people are waiting for out there, which is a financial
interest in the drug war. The idea that the war
on drugs is a um a guaranteed boon or piece
(20:37):
of the American economy. I mean, what do you think.
I absolutely believe that. Um. I mean, the economy as
a whole seems to churn on a couple of different things,
and one of them is the drug trade because of
the law enforcement angle and the incarceration efforts, and think
about the private prisons now and the amount of money
(21:00):
it goes into and comes out of private prisons. I
guess also it's a it's a boom to the legislative
industry or litic litigious industry. Yeah. Well, the drug a
drug or drugs in general is a great enemy to
have to wage a war on, at least from that standpoint, because,
(21:21):
like you said, it's nameless, it's faceless, it doesn't really
ever die. Like, how how do you extinguish drugs completely?
I just can I go on here? If we were
to wage wars on ideas. I would like to wage
wars on things like literacy, things like a war on uh,
a war on water contamination, a war on poverty would
(21:44):
be a great thing for a lot of Americans. And
you're a good hearted person. Well, I'd never be elected,
but thank you for saying so. And I think I
think earlier another US president did declare war on poverty,
but it didn't carry as much attention. There's not a
lot of money and stopping prop poverty, there's a lot
of money that comes out. Yeah, there's a lot of
(22:07):
money invested in arresting marijuana users. In two thousand nine, Uh,
the US spent and estimated seven billion dollars arresting people
for what I imagine is I imagine that's everything. So
that's like possession, distribution growing, I guess too. Uh. And
(22:29):
we know that drugs are also pretty good source of
profit while they were illegal, right, Oh yeah, because inside
this black market, the demand is never changed really for
drugs over time. There's always somebody, like a lot of
people who want drugs. And if you if you control
the market that you know there aren't a lot of competitors,
(22:52):
you're making money. We're looking at profit margins, I mean
over oh, yeah, easily. And you know, there's a question
about whether drug cartels would want US drug laws to change.
You know, if it became legal, then the people swooping
in would be multinational corporations with one hell of a
(23:13):
war chest. Yeah, tax money out of you. So yeah,
there's a huge incentive to Perhaps that is that is weird,
that's an angle. I've never thought about the incentive of
the cartels to maintain the drug war. Yeah, I wonder,
I wonder if it's true. Now. You know, we have
(23:33):
some listeners in our audience who are in law enforcement.
And one thing I think happens that is unfair that
we should talk about here is that a lot of
the people that you know, you will meet if you
just are on the street level, taking a street level
look at crime, right, A lot of the people who
(23:54):
are responsible for arresting someone, right, they don't make the laws.
It's their job. They have to do it, you know,
It's it's probably criminal for them not to. And I
think it's strange that these people, these people who are
on the front lines of the war on drugs, right, Uh,
they're the ones who get so much of the criticism
(24:16):
and so much of the flak. And you know, it's
the same with the street level drug dealers, right, they
get most of the prison time, but uh not the
guys at the top of the pyramid, you know, on
the other side. And you have to wonder sometimes how
often the tops of these two competing pyramids talk and
(24:37):
if they work in unison. Um, that's you know, that's
the big that's the that's the big question. Um. So
what I wanted to ask you, Matt, is if we
could talk a little bit about some of the drug
war stuff that we have covered in our past videos.
(24:57):
We have a whole bunch, right, Uh. I'm trying to
think just the numbers. I remember in our original War
on Drugs episode where we had the little ticker in
the side that shows how much money is being spent
by the US government on the War on drugs every second, yeah,
real time while you're watching the video, and it was
it wasn't a huge amount. I think it was five
hundred dollars a second. I think that's what it was.
(25:20):
I mean, when you hear that, that sounds like a
lot of money for you or I or most of
the people listening, except for that one other tycoon remember
from the Bahamas? Yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah ready, uh no,
but okay, so it doesn't sound like that much money.
But then when you when you look at it, you
watch this video, which is only three and a half,
(25:41):
I forget how many ships it is, but you just
see this massive number at the end, you realize, my god,
the amount of time it took me to watch this video,
a hundred thousand dollars would just spent. Well, here's let's
change directions a little bit then, because this leads us
to a great question. Arguments for against prohibition. Uh, do
you think that the current drug laws work or that
(26:07):
there I guess that the system in place is preferable
to other systems. Well, like you said, the system right
now arrests pawns, and it gets pawns, you know, and
and there's a horrible way to look at it, but
pawns in the police department, the guys on the front lines,
the little man who's actually out there trying to fight
(26:29):
the war gets killed, you know, and the low level
drug dealer gets arrested or killed. I don't think that
works to solve anything. That just creates a perpetual pawn
death thing. So just a war of attrition. Yeah, war progress.
To me, that's that's what I see. And you're saying
in your saying ponds completely and I'm not solely in
(26:52):
the chess game, and not in derogatory sense. I'm just
you know, you're sending your low level guys out to
fight a war, literally, to fight a war, and you
never get to see the bishop make an entrance. Now
you would say, you know, it's interesting you say that
because there are there are people who say that prohibition
in the United States does work because a smaller amount
(27:15):
of our population uses opium, for instance, versus those who
use something legal, such as alcohol. So what what would
you say to that? I guess this is what I
would do. I would go into the argument about the
health consequences of drug X versus drug y. Okay, I see,
So maybe schedule drugs based on that? Well, yeah, I mean,
(27:39):
there are a lot of things you could schedule them on.
It's just the way that drugs are currently scheduled. Even
if we just look I mean, honestly, let's just look
at marijuana versus alcohol. And this has been done so
many times. You've heard this over and over all. Your listeners.
But the known health effects of alcohol versus the known
health effects of marijuana are there's a huge disparity there where.
(28:03):
You know, with alcohol, you can if you consume enough,
get alcohol poisoning. If you consume enough and you drive
a vehicle or you know, use other heavy machinery, either
way it impairs you, you are most likely going to
hurt yourself or somebody else. Um, alcohol is legal, Alcohol
is good to go. On the other side of marijuana,
a lot of the studies in there haven't been enough
(28:24):
studies yet at least that we can cite. But it
doesn't seem to have the same effects. You don't seem
to be able to overdose on it and die. Are
you saying those those posters from the thirties were wrong,
I'm saying they were propaganda. What no, I know, Come on, man, Jazz,
really that's true. So I'm just messing with you. But
(28:47):
but yeah, that's you know, that's a that's definitely a
valid argument that I see there. Um. I know that
when I've spoken to people who are law enforcement officers,
the vast majority of them would rather not have to
waste time and paperwork busting somebody with you know, a
(29:10):
dime bag of pot or something. Because there are people
out there stealing cars, attacking the elderly, things like that
that should clearly be illegal. That's that's where I would
draw the line, right, and a lot of people line
of violent crime. Oh yeah, violent crime absolutely. But that
other thing you mentioned about cocaine versus crack picking, yeah,
(29:34):
oh my gosh. I mean there have been numerous exposes
about Washington, d c. And the amount of cocaine that
goes around that city. And you know, not for any
kind of miscreant just running around on the south side
of town or the north side of town. You're talking
about the players, Yeah, yeah, the people in the houses
(29:54):
of power, whether corporate or governmental. You know, it's funny
because one of the things I learned we're looking at
this practice was that the human species at large seems
to go like nuts over cocaine. Were like that bird
in that Coco Puffs, Uh, that Coco Puffs mascot. It's
like cuckoo for Coco puffs or whatever. Yeah, people are
(30:17):
cuckoo for cocaine, you know. Uh. The Mayor Rob Ford
was in the news a lot for his use of
crack cocaine. So I assume that would be regular cocaine
as well. Um. There was a weird study that came
out of a few years back that said, um, I
think there's some towns in Italy where so many people
(30:38):
use cocaine that you can find trace amounts of it
in the water. Uh. And you know, they're always those
statistics people like to whip out where they say, like
of euros or dollars have traces of drugs and fecal
matter on them and stuff. So I don't know how
how realistic that is. But then again, I don't know
(31:00):
how realistic it is to try to ban something that's
so many people indulge in. The only kinds of prohibition
that seemed to work for a long time in human
history are religious prohibitions, like dietary restrictions, and it's because
somebody's God has commanded them not to, so it's voluntary, right.
(31:22):
But I don't know, I'm I'm ranting, I guess a
little bit. It's just it's just strange to me. We
haven't even talked about opium production in Afghanistan during the war,
you know what. Let's talk about that next. But first
pausible word from our sponsor, UM we're back. So the
(31:48):
opium trade, the opium war, and the Afghanistan War. Let's
talk about it, man, Okay. Well, one thing that's interesting
about the operations in Afghanistan, which I think most of
the American public was on the same page this was
these were operations to catch terrorists, right, they were after terrorists,
(32:13):
and they were hoping to stem the flow of terrorism
at the time. One one unforeseen side effect, at least
most of the American public didn't see this coming, was
that opium production in Afghanistan increased their their number of
possible factors for this. Uh. People who believe there's a
(32:35):
conspiracy of foot will say that UM intelligence agencies or
private companies wanted to rest control of this of the
you know, one of the world's prime opium sources and
uh profit from it. But then other people would say, well,
that's that's a little bit crazy. What's happening instead is
(32:57):
that farmers in Afghanistan are finding that is more profitable
to grow poppies than it is to grow you know,
other products. Right. Oh yeah, it's it's hugely profitable. And
you have to think the thought of going into the
opium fields the you know, and we're talking. This is
one of the largest, if not the largest opium production
(33:19):
areas in the entire world, right in Afghanistan. So the
idea of going in there is to stop that money
that would be coming from the profit of the sale
of that product to fun terrorism. And now you've got
the soldiers in there, and in theory they're protecting it
and making sure you know, I guess none gets sold
(33:39):
or you I don't. I mean, I I guess I
just don't understand the operational like what they're doing the goals. Yeah,
you know, it's funny because and this is a bit
of a tangent. We can do an entirely different series
about wars. But UH, one thing that was interesting to
me is that, um, before the United States became involved
(34:01):
in Afghanistan, Uh, there were some discoveries that you and
I have talked about about large amounts of what are
called rare earth metals or minerals, and UH, some of
these deposits rival those found in Mongolia, which is a
huge source of rare earth materials um and and rare
(34:22):
earth material is sort of a misnomber because it's relatively
rare in earth right in the natural world. But if
you live in an industrialized society, it is all around
you in your smartphone and your microphone. If it has
a phone on it, then it probably has or if
there's electronics, I mean, if there's a motherboard, just there's
some rare earth elements. So I've heard some people say
(34:44):
that that was one of the actual aims of US
intervention there. But if you check out our Great Game podcast,
you will see how the Soviet Union and the United
States and the UK before it have always fought over
this part of the world, Eurasia, Central Asia. UM has
(35:06):
always been a a huge piece of the global hegemonic
pie that no one can seem to hold for very long. Right,
It's still really strange to me that after all that
and thinking about all those factors, the fact is global
opium production is at an all time high. Yeah, it's increased,
(35:29):
and we know that there was a much earlier war
on drugs, and we won't talk too much about today
because we have a video series about this coming out
that you guys should check out if you're interested, and
that is on the opium wars, which don't get reported
that much in Western textbooks nowadays. UM. Maybe because it
is such a a grossly unethical war um Quick and
(35:54):
Dirty reader's digest version here. Essentially, the West wanted to
do more trade with China at the time, right, and
the problem was that the West, specifically Britain the United Kingdom,
didn't have anything that China really wanted, right except for opium,
(36:17):
because they still controlled that in the British Empire. So
they started trying to uh make trade with opium, right
and get the population addicted, and China had a problem
with that, and a war began because of that. It
was it was literally a drug war. And you're gonna
(36:38):
find out a lot more about that in the video series,
so stay tuned, and then we will be making an
audio podcast about that as well. Yeah we probably should. Yeah,
so I should stop talking about the war, So let's
instead talk a little bit more about conspiracy surrounding the
war on drugs. Other criticisms are that this creates a
permanent underclass, that current drug policy these in one way
(37:01):
or another, accelerate inequality. Yeah, so now you have a
large part of the population that has to I mean
that there isn't really much of a way out of there.
Let's say situation then to be low level criminal, low
level person selling drugs because it's profitable enough in the
short term to maybe get you out of that that situation. UM.
(37:25):
And then you've also got and I don't know how
to how to put this, but you have a huge
amount of job openings for law enforcement, for low level
law enforcement, um, because you need people to fight the
battle on the other side. M It's interesting, Yeah, the
the entry level. And just another thing. I don't know
(37:46):
if you know this or not, but police officers don't
get paid very well for the amount of risk they
go through every day. Yeah, that is absolutely true. That's
a that's a huge problem. I would say that teachers
and police officers, e M t s and firefighters are
some of the most dramatically underpaid people in US society.
(38:07):
And while we're talking about government jobs, uh, let's go
to one of your favorite conspiracy theories, met And Uh,
I guess in some cases it's a conspiracy fact. Is
it true, Matt, that government agencies have participated in the
illegal drug trade? Ah? This is a difficult thing to
(38:30):
prove with cold heart evidence. Although if you if you
know this one guy's name, you might have a clue.
Mr Gary Webb. Uh. He was a journalist who stumbled
upon a story that was probably too big for him
or for any other singular person to take on. So
(38:51):
Gary discovered that, at least allegedly, that the CIA was
trafficking drugs, and uh, he you try to get the
story out as much as he could. He was largely
discredited by a lot of his peers for trying to
go forward with the story. UM, I don't want to
spoil it. If you don't know what happened to Gary Webb,
(39:13):
I guess this would be the place to hear about it.
But check out our video series, right, yeah, we made
a video episode about this. But also there is a
film I believe still in theaters called Kill the Messenger
that is all about the Gary web story. That's true,
and I've heard good things about it. I haven't seen
it yet. Um, just because you know, we had we
(39:34):
had looked into it so much. I didn't want to
be that guy in the movie theater going what oh, sure,
because those people are annoying and uh, and we also
know there have been other implications of governmental shenanigans involving
turning a blind eye to the drug trade. There's been uh,
conspiracy theories about every aspect of the drug trade, including
(39:56):
the idea that the c i A purposefully marketed C
cocaine to impoverished minorities, especially there in California as a
way of sending out the population or attempting to. And
there are also allegations that it was to be used
(40:16):
to kind of break up the Black Power movement, um.
The because you know they are they already kind of
at least the FBI worked on destroying the Black Power
movement by segmenting it up, by turning all the different
groups against each other, and then you know, later on
down the road to get cracked and you kind of
do the same thing when you have gangs formed. You know,
(40:38):
I would like to hear from our listeners to hear
if you guys think that there is any proof to
that um And we are going to start heading out today,
but I have to ask you, Matt, if you were
going to change the US drug laws, what would you
change and how? Thanks Ben for that simple softball question.
(40:58):
I'm just popping it. It's it's so soft, It's like
I'm tossing your kitten to you and zero gravity. Alright, Well,
Senator Frederick would uh would put forth legislation that would Honestly,
I would probably want to. I mean, the best way
to kill a black market is to make it legal,
(41:19):
and I think I think that's true currently like Portugal.
Huh like Portugal, Yeah, uh, it's weird because they've They've
become an often cited example. But do you think that
all drugs then would be legal? Like would you want
heroin to be legal? I would This is gosh, I
sound I probably sound like an idiot to many of you,
(41:41):
but yeah, I would say I would want heroin to
be legal, and it would be on a shelf and
I wouldn't buy it the same way. I wouldn't, you know,
go in and try and get xan X or something,
or I wouldn't go in and try and I don't know,
get some other high level drug that I don't need
that's prescription right now. Um. I would view it that way.
And then if somebody really needs heroin because they're going
(42:06):
to die if they don't get it, you know, from
the reactions of not having it, then it's there. Um.
And then I would also Senator Frederick would introduce legislation
that would focus on again rehabilitation. The idea that this
looking at addiction differently, not as a criminal activity, but
(42:26):
as a chemical issue with your body. I see, Yeah,
that's that's pretty fair. Yeah. I don't know, I've been
listening to too much Russell Brand lately. He gets I
mean he he is a has a really good insight
into what it means to be addicted to drugs. And
you know he is a comedian and an actor, but
he's lived for that life. Yeah, and he's got a
(42:48):
great show. We're actually pretty big fans. Yeah. I watch
it probably every day. Yea, So we're actually pretty big
fans years, Mr Brand. Uh, if you ever want to
hang out, let us let us know please, I don't
know if you ever happen to be down this way
down Atlanta way. Uh. You know what I would like
to try to do, Matt where I Senator Bowland? Well,
(43:10):
I guess this wouldn't really work in a democracy and
need to be a dictator. Um, I mean sure all
dictators are like kind of benevolent during the honeymoon period. Right,
Here's why I would do just for like a year
or two, I would make everything illegal, everything, every single thing,
(43:30):
and turned the country into a prison, the whole country.
Everybody's under arrest. What did you do? Don't answer, it
was against the law. And then I'd slowly start to
make things legal again and let some people out of
this massive prisons. Everybody stays in the country in or
out were like Madagascar and pandemic and uh, you know,
(43:51):
slowly ease back into some things, and then you know,
see which one is the trigger point you go start with.
Walking outside is now legal again, and people can walk
outside only between three and four, because you gotta start small,
repeal all this stuff at once. Now, of course, ladies, gentlemen,
(44:11):
I hope you understand that I am joking, and that
is a terrible, terrible foreign policy. If there are any
world leaders in the audience today, please please, please please
do not make everything illegal, just to see what would happen.
Thank you for putting that idea into their brains. Now, Ben,
I look forward to in twenty years when somebody and goes,
(44:33):
you know, let's do it. Why not, Why don't we
just make everything illegal? Um. But then there's a question
what would happen to the economy. For instance, if if
all drugs were legal in the United States, Uh, there
would be a massive shift in the economy. Um. And
that is something to consider. Also, quit plug for Freakonomics
(44:54):
if you guys have checked them out, they have this
great They have this great investigation of how much money
a drug dealer I really does or does not make,
and they equated it to something around minimum wage before
minimum wage got raised. Yeah, it's it's sobering and saddening.
Then there's this show called drug inc That I watched
a special on not long ago, and it focused on
(45:15):
Atlanta and the molly trade or the ecstasy trade in Atlanta,
and it focused on some low level drug dealers and
that was one of the main points was just how
how not lucrative it is for somebody who's actually in
danger of getting arrested and put in jail for years. Right. Yeah,
not to mention no health insurance, no benefits, none of that.
(45:38):
I guess you get cobro yea to ouch. So on
that note, listeners, we hope you enjoyed this episode as
much as we enjoyed making it, and we want to
hear your thoughts on the drug war. If you'd like
to check out our videos or our podcasts, go to
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot Com, where
you can find every little thing we've ever done, I
think pretty much. You can also go to our YouTube
(45:59):
channel if you don't already do that on the rig,
because you should. Uh. And you know, if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, just send us
an email. You can send anything in that old email
and we'll get it. We might not like it or
we might love it, but either way our addresses conspiracy
at how stuff works dot com. From one on this
(46:25):
topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle at conspiracy stuff
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.