Ryan Grim Discusses His New Book "This Is Your Country on Drugs" On CNN (VIDEO)
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HuffPost's Senior Congressional Correspondent Ryan Grim was a guest on CNN's "American Morning" to discuss his new book "This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America," as well as the current rise in prescription drug abuse in America.
Watch the interview below.
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As from my own experience growing up in America (Phoenix) Being a teenager it was harder to get alcohol then it was to get marijuana, So for all you prohibitionist Gee if they sold it at the store kids would have a harder time accessing it. If you want to say oh that was the old days guess what my nephew is only 14 and all his friends and family smoke weed and when the have a party its harder for them to get alcohol then getting weed. Do you see something wrong with that or is it because it is safer if it is regulated?
Legalization makes sense, Prohibiton didnt work then, doesnt work now and wont work in the future. Tax it and forget it.
indeed, we had much better access to herb than alcohol in the Valley of the Sun during the '70s
Nice to see HP getting more credibility and air time.
HP is now mainstream and leading the pack
when is the last time they beat drudge.....
There is an emerging horizon on the legalization front that could push this issue past its current political stigmatization, where current attempts at decriminalization would be met with a conservative circus. (Remember that 46% of Americans voted for PalinMcCain)
In twenty years, 40% of the population in the Baby Boom west will be 65 or older, up from 20% now. We know this is coming and we know that our social security programs are at extreme risk. We know that this current economic crisis has weakened our ability to finance social programs and that the crisis is showing signs of needing yet MORE stimulus.
We know that the world is already discussing changing from the American currency to a basket of currencies to protect against the devaluing of our dollar. We know that the future, without oil shocks and Global Climate Disruption, looks mighty grim from a fiscal POV.
And we also know that the potential tax gain from a single package of 20 m.arijuana cigarettes is at least FORTY DOLLARS ($40).
Multiply that by approximately 1,000,000,000 sales per year and see what you get.
Why stop there? You could rake in tax income with heroin too. Coke too. If it just about tax income, make it all legal!
agreed
Time to drop your name, Ben Franklin wanted civil libertys, you advocate goverment dominance over our lives.
It's not all about tax revenue - that is just a nice benefit. What's it's really all about is that Prohibition simply does not work. All Prohibition does is create criminals out of whole cloth and corrupts law enforcement with the readily available cash.
Drugs are too dangerous to be unregulated.
coyote and sbf - why would that make sense? coke and H are deadly addictive drugs that also lead to violent crimes. mj does neither therefore there is no comparison and it will never happen.
your sarcasm notwithstanding: The most deadly things in our culture are legal and regulated. for example, all the items needed to make a Nuke can be ordered online in the country. some wack job in Mane did it a few months ago.
Regulation and control is how we keep dangerous items out of the hands of people who should not be trusted with them. some times there are holes in the net. but most of the time, regulation and control work great.
where as prohibition does not work at all. it makes dangerous items more avalable to our youth, gives massive profits to violent gangs, and turns our police force in to a standing army of occupation.
So i guess what i am getting at is legal heroin is a good thing.
46% of VOTING AMERICANS voted for McCain/Palin. That's less than 25% of Amreicans.
You pro-pot people are all nuts.
If you want to smoke pot, go ahead. Knock yourself out. There really is nothing stopping you. You know how to get it. It is no big deal.
You want to sell it on main street? You want to smoke it on main street? Sorry, no way.
I'm not going to deal with all the problems that come with something like pot going mainstream. It won't make anything better, just normal non-smoking citizens will have to deal with more pot heads wandering around.
I already had to deal with a fourth of july crowd where the guys next to my family where smoking cigarettes up a storm, with the smoke blowing right into my kids faces, and then a bunch of drunks fighting each other and cursing right in front of my kids.
More public drugs, public prostitution... does not make a place a nicer place to live.
Keep it underground. Better that way. For everyone.
When did I become your slave?
I think that point is that we are already "Knocking ourselves out," as you so eloquently put it.
The point is that we are currently funding the wealth gathering abilities of a violent underground economy instead of claiming the potential massive taxation inputs to fund our government's liabilities.
Instead of $40 to $60/ per baggie going to the Mexican murders andHell's Angels, that money could be part of the real economy and paying for universal free health care.
Think of it this way: 20 packaged cigarettes sold for $45 could generate $40 of TAX and plenty of profits to those who grow, manufacture and distribute.
>Think of it this way: 20 packaged cigarettes sold for $45 could generate $40 of TAX and plenty of profits to those who grow, manufacture and distribute.
Not worth it.
I mean really, who wants your neighbor setting up pot shop in town and selling it? Do you really want that? You, a pot smoker, probably does. Me, a guy with kids, no way.
And then of course, you need to get new pot smokers, so you gotta market to kids just like the tobacco and alcohol companies do now.
It really is just crazy talk to make pot legal. Will never happen.
MIndless.
wow, just....wow...
thats all i got, i jsut don tknow where to start
well, maybe make a convincing argument why another drug should be legalized?
I know it is hard... but maybe you can try...
"Keep it underground. Better that way. For everyone."
That's the most ridiculous answer i have heard to a problem that our country needs to grow up and deal with. turning entire generations into felons who learn to hate every cop they see, is not a better way for anyone.
> needs to grow up and deal with.
Need to grow up and deal with it? Are you kidding? The guys who need to smoke pot everyday are the people who need to grow up.
Wah wah wah, i need my pot, make it legal, wah wah wah.
Ryan. Did you just give a Legalization interview with out bringing up that Marijuana has never caused a Human death, while aspirin causes around 20,000 a year?
Did you forget that Marijuana alone costs the US 30-40 Billion a year to Prohibit?
Did you forget that the 1,000,000 Americans set to be arrested in 2009 for simple Marijuana offenses will have their lives ruined thanks to this Mindless prohibition of a harmless plant?
Legalization is the 70 Billion Dollar answer to the Drug Problem.
Okay, I have shown that $40Billion in tax revenue is available from legalization and control (currently in pendingHell).
Add your figure of prohibition and incarceration costs and we have an aprox
-------- $$$ ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR --------
asset for our various governments to fund universal free healthcare and economic stimulus.
And let's not EVEN get to alcohol. It is responsible for more accidents than any drug. Either legalize pot or ban alcohol. Either's fine. Just please end the hypocrisy.
The main obstacle to legalizing drugs is the prudish, puritanical outlook that many people in this country maintain. Drug wars have been going on for decades, and they have not come close to abolishing the use of drugs. If someone wants to do drugs, they are going to find a way to get them. Same thing for prostitution. Legalize drugs and prostitution. Regulate the industries and tax them. Take all of the money that is currently being flushed down the toilet in an attempt to battle the drug trade and put that into education and rehabilitation. It's ridiculous that alcohol and cigarettes are legal but that pot is not, but I guess that's because politicians aren't getting rich from lobbyists pushing marijuana.
>The main obstacle to legalizing drugs is the prudish, puritanical outlook that many people in this country maintain.
Nope, sorry you are wrong. I'm neither prudish nor puritanical, but am absolutely against legalizing more drugs (we already have alcohol, nicotine and caffeine).. or legalizing prostitution.
The reason is simple: I don't want my kids to be involved with it.
Basically, you legalize stuff, they become part of your neighborhood and the fabric of your society. I don't want pot, hookers, heroin to be part of main street, be part of my kids lives, be part of our society.
It is good to have some things that are underground. It lets the bulk of society not have to deal with it, but lets the others who want it, the freedom to partake.
So keep these things underground. Let them not become part of main street.
The problem with your opinion isn't that you don't want pot to become part of main street; it's that you assume that it isn't already part of main street.
I grew up in a very safe city of less than 10,000 people in the rural Midwest. Marijuana was not hard to come by.
Like you said in your comment above, you would rather it stay underground. That way your kids can be around drug-dealers and gang bangers instead. I'm sure your kids thank you.
You could be the best parent in the world and you still have to worry about your kids getting into it or other things. Prescription pain medications are the most abused drugs in America now. You can halucinate from drinking too much Robitussin if you're desparate enough. I've been a smoker for over 22 years and was raised by two of the most wonderful people you could ever know but the values instilled in me by them still didn't stop me from smoking as it is something I find pleasurable and easy to maintain on. And as for keeping it underground, it's keeping it underground that has our prison population of non-violent drug offenders at over 70%. And by the way, in the places where prostiution and pot are legal(Amsterdam, Vancouver, Lyon County, NV.) they're hardly mainstream and would close in a heartbeat at the first sign of underage consumption or usage. This was written by a stoned person.
They already are part of main street. Just because you shove your head in the sand doesn't change anything. Someday when one of your beloved kids gets arrested and sent to prison for 5 - 10 years for a few joints you'll wonder how this could have happened to a great conservative person like yourself.
Those who most loudly support prohibition are those who have the most to gain from prohibition.
DEA people clearly understand that their incomes are dependent upon prohibition even as are the violent bikers and other underground millionaires.
I attempted to argue legalization with a cousin who deals marijuana and was surprised when he angrily attacked that view. He argued that it should be kept illegal as that gave folks the opportunity to make some money while unemployed.
Listening to the drug czar is like a job review in a shrinking economy, where you have to justify your position, or become unemployed.
We need to understand the self-interest inherent in the loudest voices that support prohibition.
Impressed. I'm adding it to my summer reading list.
When I read a story written by the very conservative Attorney General of Arizona, suggesting that legalizing marijuana would pull 60% of the revenue out from under the Mexican cartels, that was enough for me. Smoking marijuana is not a good thing, ordinarily. As a medical professional, I have seen drug abuse and the destruction caused by it up front and personally and we have had far more really horrible things in patients who drink in excess and smoke cigarettes in excess than those who smoke an occasional reefer.
The government should legalize it, issue allotments as they do with tobacco, so many farmers may benefit from growing it, have it processed, and then sell it in stores owned by the government. Tax the stuff and sell it with ID required and an age of 21 or 18 and use the proceeds to offer universal health care. The income from it, plus the cuts in keeping people in jail or in the legal system over small amounts of pot would permit us to do that. Think about that. We spend so much on interdiction, incarceration, and legal proceedings that we could largely save and actually make money on the sale and pull the rug right out from under the illegal sales. That has to be a win-win situation.
win-win-win
win-win-win-cookie-win
Unfortunately, our government has neither the smarts to figure all that out, or the balls to enact it if they did.
Agreed, but politicians need to stop looking at legalization as a political noose. There are plenty of Americans that support legalization of drugs, especially marijuana, even from those that do not use the drug. What isn't occuring is a politician being held accountable by his constituency for NOT supporting legalization.
People take harmful drugs. I have two close friends who were Heroin addicts. Both got off of it and both are not violent people.
I have no problem personally, except my companinon of 30 years just died of alcoholism.
Both my friends, who and their wives are ok today, who were heroin addicts, strongly advise legalling all of these drugs.
Right now Bid Pharma peddles most of the drugs, and they do a lot more harm than the the "illegal" drugs.
Grim, you're the man, well done on the interview, now let's get you making the rest of the rounds, I want to see you and Maddow dig into this
Everyone: Buy the Book
I haven't finished it yet, but it sounded like a completely reasonable and fact based discussion on drugs and even ending prohibition on Cable Tv. This is good.
She said SUHtistic.
The drug war is the biggest bad joke. Humans NEED to have a POV shift. Pot is the least harmless of the bunch. Even the "Bad" drugs are better off legal.
Money and resources should be used for crimes with direct victims and such. What's left on education and rehab.
Make it politically risky to NOT support ending the drug wars!
Supporting the Drug War is supporting crime, corruption, terrorism, murder, mayhem and war.
What is the argument in favor of it?
Drugs are bad, and you shouldn't do drugs, cause if you do them, then you're bad.
Illegal drugs force our friends and family into relationships with dangerous people.
Make it legal...profit motive goes away and so do the dangerous people.
I haven't seen a clerk in a liquor store 'pushing' beer or bourbon. Anyway, a lot of the excitement goes away about something that becomes...okay.....ie: legal.
The war on drugs. A seventy year plus failure.
One of the annoying consequences of our horribly misguided "War on Drugs" is that a large segment of the population believes that pot is in the same class as heroin, and that prescription drugs are safer than any illegal drug. On the flip side, those of us who know better distrust the govt. all the more because they have spewed so many lies about drugs. The govt. has pulled a Chicken Little.
Our policies have created a commodity that can be sold for way more than it should be and we've regulated out of existence all competition. Of course capitalists are going to jump in and make money. The profits outweigh the risks.
I'm not holding my breath for legalization or any other sensible alternative even though it would save tons of money and probably generate a tidy sum too. Our leaders have better things to do... like make Michael Jackson a national holiday.
The unfortunate fact is that pot is in the same class of drugs that Heroin. Class 1 Narcotic. This is the first step that needs to be taken in order to move to a more rational approach to pot laws.
We all know that R's are in favor of "States Rights".
Actually Federally, heroin is a schedule II - has medical use.
Pot is Federally a schedule I - No medical use and is along side LSD.
So No they are not in the same class - heroin is more legal than Pot.
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