Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 195: Ethan Nadelmann & Peter Shapiro

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Andy spends time with Ethan Nadelmann, founder of The Drug Policy Alliance, which aims to end the disastrous "war on drugs." Andy prompts all the pertinent questions you've been dying to ask. Plus! We got the Godfather of the jam scene joining us: Pete Shapiro phones in to help close out the show this week! Big news from our dear brother: Vince Herman is coming to a town near you- check him out with The Vince Herman Band! New album is done AND we're out on the road with our buddies, Little Stranger?? Don't forget to catch the band in a town near you: andyfrasco.com/tour Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out Andy Frasco & The U.N. (Feat Little Stranger)'s new song, "Oh, What A Life" on iTunes, Spotify  More on Ethan Nadelmann Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Vince Herman Shawn Eckels Arno Bakker

Yo, Frasco! What's happening man? It's Vinnie Herman here. Freaking out. I'm starting this tour, you know, with my new band to promote the record. Enjoying the ride, you know, because I've been enjoying the ride for a while. It's time to enjoy the ride in a different way, you know what I'm saying? But I'm doing this tour, man. I don't think anybody's going to come to the show because who's turned to the Vince Herman band, man? Well, you know, we're starting in Winston, North Carolina, on the 3rd, Charleston, Greensboro, Atlanta, Nashville, Petaluma, California, Truckee, Arcata, Felton, Denver,

Netherland, Basalt, St. Louis, Columbus, all this stuff. You know, it'd be a good thing to come to this show, man. Help me out, Frasco. Oh! Aye, aye, aye. David, he does lots of blow He's a lead singer Of big rock and roll

Lee Roth It is his last name He's got a nickname It's Diamond Dave Doing pounds of cocaine Before he hits the stage Doing big old rails With Diamond Dave

Banging all the tail With Diamond Dave Gotta keep my train Making all the tail with Dom and Dave. Gotta keep our train to drink Gatorade. Ten foot Gatorade with Dom and Dave. Wow. All right. And we're back. Andy Frass was World's Favorite Podcast. I'm with my co-host, Nick we're back.

Andy Frasca's World Saving Podcast. I'm with my co-host, Nick Gerlach. We have a very special guest today. Very special guest. Not a musician, not an actor, not a comedian. Well, maybe. Ethan, are you a comedian or an actor? Only in my better moments, Andy. Only in my better moments, you know.

Ethan Nadelman, good to be on the show. Thanks for being here with us, buddy. Hey, my pleasure. My pleasure. Why don't you just tell our audience what you're about first so they get it straight from the horse's mouth. Sure, Andy. I mean, basically, I've spent most of my adult life, like over three decades, working to end the war on drugs. And that meant basically everything from legalizing marijuana initially for medical purposes and now for all adult use. Secondly, it meant rolling back the role of the drug war in mass incarceration. And the third part of it was really making a real commitment to treating drug use and addiction as a health issue, not a criminal issue. And so I started off as a professor at Princeton, and then I got a call

in the blue one day from a famous philanthropist, he wasn't famous then, named George Soros. We hit it off, and I started an organization that became the Drug Policy Alliance, basically the leading organization in the world working to end the drug war, and worked mostly in the U.S., but also internationally. And so we played a pivotal role in ballot initiatives around the world, including Colorado. We were responsible for Colorado's medical marijuana legalization in the late 90s. We played a big role in the legalization one in 2012. Had an office in Colorado, actually working there. I know you guys are based there, but really all around the country doing that stuff and even outside the country. And then I stopped running the organization about five years ago, handed her off after about 23 years.

And now I got a podcast called psychoactive, which is all about drugs. Yeah. Have you ever, do you take drugs or just study them? Oh, no, no. You got to take them. I think, I mean, you know, if you really want to know what you're talking about, it's like trying, imagine trying to be an expert about France and never having been to France. So my view is, you know, I mean, so I've had a friendly relationship with marijuana since I was 18, which means many decades there. And, you know, I've enjoyed the psychedelics and all that.

And I've tried most of the other substances, you know, cocaine and heroin and a range of psychedelics and things like that. You know, I've never done fentanyl, never smoked crack. There's a few other things, although I'm a little ashamed to admit that because I think I do have a professional obligation to try just about everything if you're going to be talking about it. But my knowledge of this is based not just on personal experience because personal experiences can vary. It's also based upon, you know, decades of reading about the history and the politics and economics, the policy, the science, you name it. So why don't you explain to me why you started the Drug Policy Alliance? I mean, basically, you know, I got going on this issue, Andy.

It was it was in the 1980s, actually, a long time ago. And initially I was just, you know, I was doing a law degree and a Ph.D. And I was interested in this issue and I started working on it. And just as I'm finishing my dissertation, the drug war goes into hyperspeed in America. And so, you know, most listeners will be too young to remember now, but in the late 1980s, the war on drugs and the whole crack cocaine crisis was the number one issue in American public opinion. I mean, it was like McCarthyism on steroids. So crazy. number one issue in American public opinion. I mean, it was like McCarthyism on steroids. And the whole country got whipped up in this fury. And we just started locking up unprecedented numbers of people, all this propaganda and this, you know, miscoming out of the government,

marijuana getting thrown in with the rest of the war on drugs, people being told things about the relative risks and dangers of drugs that were totally contradictory to the science. It was complicating our international relations. In 1989, over 50% of Americans said the drug issue is the number one threat facing America. And it was a bipartisan disaster. Oh, it was crazy. I mean, back in the days when TV shows and news TV shows and news magazines made a difference, the covers of Newsweek and Time and all the big magazines and all the big television shows and 48 Hours was one of them. I mean, it was relentless. You could not turn on the TV without seeing imagery of cops busting down doors and all this sort of stuff. Even the major entertainment programs had drug war themes and all through there.

And so this, in the late 80s, just kicked into high speed. It persisted into the 90s at a lower profile. And in many respects, the remnants of the drug war remain with us today. It's one of the reasons why America still has, you know, the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world. Yeah. This might be ignorant to say, but do you think it's based on racism? But do you think it's based on racism? Racism plays a huge role. I mean, if you ask the question, you know, is it possible that we would have gone, you know, back in 1970, we had a half million people behind bars in America. We were sort of global average.

Right. 20 years later, we had over two or 30 years later, we had over two million Americans behind bars and disproportionately black and brown men, right? And there's no way that would have happened if we were mostly putting white people behind bars. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that if you look at historically and ask the fundamental question, why are some drugs criminal and other drugs legal? What you realize, the deeper you go, and other drugs legal, what you realize, the deeper you go, is it has nothing to do with the relative risk of the substances and everything to do with who uses

and who is perceived to use these substances. So historically, you go back to 1870s, 80s, and all these drugs were legal, and most opiate users were middle-class white women, right? Using it because we didn't have penicillin and Motrin and people had their periods, people had diarrhea, right? Using it because we didn't have penicillin and Motrin and, you know, people had their periods, people had diarrhea, right? But when it shifts to the Chinese,

that's when you get to first prohibition laws. Cocaine, you know, legal sold in tonics. And then when it starts getting identified with black people down in Louisiana or whatever, that's when you get to criminalization. Marijuana, the association with Mexican Americans, Mexican migrants in the Southwest and the West, that's what resulted.

Even alcohol prohibition, to some extent, back in the 20s, was about a bigger conflict between the white-white Americans coming from Northern Europe and Western Europe and the not-so-white-white Americans coming from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. So race has always played a big role. It's not the only thing. We've got a Puritan mentality. We like to put our morals into our criminal laws. We get whipped up in this stuff. But race has played a big role, especially in the U.S., but a lot of other countries as well. Do you think the way that like how crack cocaine is classified differently than powder cocaine is part of that too? Like how it gets much harsher sentences? Totally. to like how it gets much harsher sentences? Totally. I mean, look, you know that snorting something is a little less dangerous than smoking it or injecting it. Like when you smoke or inject,

it shoots straight to the brain in a few seconds. When you snore, it takes more time. If you take it, you know, you eat it or drink it, it takes even more time. But the truth is basically powder cocaine and crack cocaine are fundamentally the same drug. And so when Congress made those penalties and said that, you know, the penalty for five grams of crack cocaine is going to be the same as for 500 grams of powder cocaine, you know, and then you look around the country and like there were some jurisdictions like in L.A. where there were no white people being, you know, prosecutor for crack and you look at other places, you know, so it was really, to some extent that's changed the federal level and the state level now.

It's not really down to one-to-one, but eventually even some of the drug war types said, this is a little crazy. There's no science at all backing up this distinction in how we treat the two drugs. It's pretty wild because like when you were first started in this alliance and, you know, like with the Reagans really pushing this war on drugs, war on drugs, how hard was it to get, well, when I first started in the 80s and I was teaching at Princeton, and I was worried because just a few years earlier, I had actually had a security clearance and was working in the State Department's Narcotics Bureau and interviewing drug enforcement agents all around the world. And writing a book about that called Cops Across Borders and being very fair-minded about it. Because, you know, those guys had opened their doors and I wanted to be fair-minded.

So I had hung out with all the DEA and FBI, CIA, customs, you name it, just a few years earlier. So I was nervous, but nothing ever happened. Only time I really ever, sometimes I give a speech and, you know, those early days and people, I thought they'd come up and they'd want to punch me in the face. Nobody ever did. The only time I got death threats was when I was on O'Reilly, you know, a real fight with o'reilly on the thing and i think i think i kicked his butt you know i mean he's so full of shit and and i go back home and i turn on my answering machine and it's like i got two calls saying if i ever kind of come across you i'm gonna fucking bludgeon you and you know you know so i got some death threats you know in that sense but

not of the type that would cause me to call the cops or worry about, you know, looking over my shoulder and stuff like that. So explain the Fox thing. Like, you know, when you go in there, you're basically getting, you know, shot at it from every angle. What's your angle to like, at least get, because they're not going to listen to you. But like, how do you approach that conversation? Well, yeah, I got to tell you, Fox is interesting. There were a few years ago,

you know, I was being at all the networks, the main networks, all that sort of stuff, but the two that were most frequently inviting me, one was Fox and the other one was Al Jazeera, right, you know, far left, far right. But the interesting thing about Fox was they had a whole libertarian contingent here. And this is one of these issues that although most of my base and my staff were coming from, you know, left of center, you know, you know, I had guys on the right.

William Buckley and Milton Friedman, the two most famous conservatives in late 20th century America, were my allies. You know, George Shultz, the former Republican secretary of everything, was on my honorary board. Frank Carlucci, the former Republican secretary of defense and, you know of everything, was on my honorary board. Frank Carlucci, the former Republican secretary of defense and deputy of CIA, was on my honorary board. I mean, the first governor to step out on my side was Gary Johnson, a Republican governor in New Mexico. So I was always doing bipartisan stuff. I'd walk into Fox and a bunch of the Fox stations. There was a guy, I think a former judge or something, who was on my side. Some others were. All the producers, the guys working former judge or something who was on my side. Some others were

all the producers, the guys working the cameras, they were all on my side. Right. So it was mostly, you know, O'Reilly, which I was on about, I don't know, three times or so. And a few of the other knuckleheads there, you know, doing the old reactionary right thing. And in those cases, I would just slam into them with the evidence you know and the fact of the matter is even with o'reilly he'd actually written a master's thesis at the kennedy school at harvard he doesn't want to talk about it about drugs and it was actually not a it was not a dumb it was not a dumb thesis so he knew better and i i remember you know after we kind of had a big fight on his tv and we go off air and and i at him and he goes, you know, we're actually not that far

apart. So, I mean, part of this was an act. I mean, it was kind of pathetic. It's good to know we're only one degree of separation from Bill O'Reilly right now. Oh, man. He was, you know, but yeah, Fox,

but it was good for Fox because, you know, I mean, I don't know if Fox would still do that anymore. I mean mean i'm not so much on tv anymore since i stopped running my organization five years ago i don't know if fox has that uh diversity of opinion even on the drug issue now maybe not sure what's your what's your take on big pharma and the opioid addiction well two things i mean first of all seeing purd seeing Purdue and the Johnson & Johnson, I mean, seeing them get slammed against the wall and sued for tens of billions of dollars by state and local governments and everybody in the drug distributors as well. Oxycontin, which was a particular formulation of Oxycodone. Oxycodone is a generic name. Oxycontin was it. It was a miracle drug for many people who had serious pain. But then those fuckers promoted it for chronic pain, for people and all this other sort of stuff, totally irresponsibly. And so they really played a role in the late 90s and early 2000s in really sort of escalating the whole opioid epidemic.

That said, if you look at it, that started to get pulled back on already 10, 15 years ago. And 10, 15 years ago, there were maybe a few tens of thousands of people dying from an overdose, a lot of it involving pharmaceuticals. Last year, we had 100,000 people die of an overdose, mostly involving fentanyl or other illicit opiate, not from the pharmaceutical companies, right? And that's as many people as all the car accidents and all the firearms, right? Both homicides and suicides, plus drownings and you name it put together. That's how many people died of an overdose last year. And that's not about big pharma. That's about an unregulated drug supply. That's about, I mean, Fentanyl is a pharmaceutical that's used in the hospital, but the Fentanyl that

people are dying from, you know, and Fentanyl is like a hundred times more potent per gram than heroin. That's all stuff that's coming illegally into the country initially from china and now from mexico and it's so tiny i mean if they're 10 times 100 times as much federal comes this country i mean the whole idea of stopping the border is just absolutely ludicrous because you can put it you know the amount that goes into a suitcase could supply you know half the country for a number of days right i'd say that oh yeah. It's so much. It's so concentrated, yeah. Yeah, so keep going with this opioid, because we have... Yeah, so what I'm going to say is that the pharmaceutical companies, they start to pull back.

They get a little more responsible. Then heroin replaces the, you know, the, you know, around like 2005, 6, 7, 8, and there's huge amounts of heroin coming from Mexico. No way to stop that at the border either. Every penny you spend on trying to stop drugs at the border or in the source country is money down the drain. If you're going to spend money trying to do a drug abuse problem,

you should be trying to help people who are struggling and having a problem, not about all this locking people up, spending huge amounts of money, all this type of stuff. But now, paradoxically, you want to know something? If you gave me a choice between a leaky pharmaceutical system like we had back 20, 25 years ago, or the current system where big pharma is much tighter about what they're putting out there, And meanwhile, we got fentanyl just flown into the country. I would say that the leaky pharmaceutical system only had 20 years ago was less of a problem than probably have today. And in some respects, cracking down on big pharma, paradoxically opened up the wave of first heroin and now fentanyl. So it's a complicated situation. You know, yes, Yes, slam the pharmaceutical

companies for what they did back then, but to think it's a single variable that they caused this whole thing is a gross mistake. And there's a lot of other stuff going on. It's all about people in America wanting to pop a pill to take away every pain. It's all about doctors and nurses not being trained in pain management and not having enough time to deal with their patients who want to do that. It's about insurance companies who'd rather pay for a pill than pay for physical therapy that could work a lot better in dealing with people's pain. So it's a very complicated issue. And right now, the key priority has to be getting a handle on this basically unregulated, illicit supply of fentanyl.

And the only way to do that is to step up pretty close to allowing people who are using opioids illegally and are committed to using them illegally to get them from a legal source. I'm not saying sell it over the counter like booze or cigarettes or now weed is, but I'm saying figure out the way where people are using these drugs and they're going to go to the black market and get it there. You don't want to go in the black market. Let them get it from a legal supply. And already you see folks up in British Columbia, Vancouver experimenting with this. I mean, we got to move into a more radical direction if we're going to handle on this overdose crisis.

a more radical direction if we're going to handle this overdose crisis. Yeah, and I totally agree with you. Before we talk about what other policies other countries have, I want to talk a bit about the reason why we have fentanyl now is because our tolerance for opioids has gone stronger? Or why fentanyl? It initially appeared to happen because drug dealers, probably not at the street level, but probably higher up the chain, realized that if you cut the heroin with Fentanyl, you basically, it saved them money. They could put a product out on the street, and by cutting heroin with Fentanyl, it just saved them a lot of money because the heroin was more expensive for gram. What at some point was starting to happen was that, you know, six, seven years ago, when somebody was a heroin user and got some fentanyl, they go like, what's this?

But now, actually, the consumer tastes have changed. And so now people, you know, fentanyl is really what's out there in not all around America, but a growing part of America, it's fentanyl. And if they get heroin, people go, what's this? Right. And then it is also true, as you were saying, Andy, they're also people's tolerance. For some people now, heroin doesn't even do it because fentanyl is a lot more potent. Right. The thing we really don't understand is why you can understand why people looking for opioids, you know, things to kind of bring you down, calm you down, shut out the world. You can understand why they would

be, go from heroin or pharmaceutical opioids to fentanyl. What we don't understand is why is like cocaine and methamphetamine exactly what I'm thinking about. It feels like a speedball. It's a speedball. That's one question.

Say that again. Basically, it's true. One question one question. Say that again. Yeah. I'm sorry. Basically, it's true because one question is maybe it's that people are looking for the good old speedball. Speedball was heroin and cocaine combined back in the day. And sometimes I joke around, my speedball would be like an espresso on a glass of wine, right? It frees you up and down. It gives you some energy but calms you down. So it's not clear. But then you have people who, I mean, most people who are dying of

overdoses are people who are pretty into drugs. But then you get a not insignificant percentage who are people just wanting to start a few lines of cocaine or whatever. And next thing they know, they're dead of an overdose because they didn't know or expect that the fentanyl would be in there. In fact, it's probably the case that for many of the retail dealers, the ones that somebody uses cocaine or other drugs would get their drugs from, it's good reason to believe that many of them don't even know that what they're selling has fentanyl in it. That it's being cut with the fentanyl higher up the chain. And that's why these laws that basically say we're going to throw the book at anybody with the fentanyl higher up the chain. And that's why these laws, you know, that basically say we're going to, you know, throw the book at anybody who sells fentanyl. I mean, to throw the book at somebody who sells fentanyl, who didn't even know fentanyl was in that.

What's the deterrent power of that? You guys are sitting in Colorado, and I really admire your governor, Jared Polis. Yeah, he's great. You know, he's been very good on the marijuana issue, a range of other issues. I mean, he's a smart, good guy. I know him a little bit. But he felt compelled to sign some stupid-ass law that was increasing penalties on fentanyl in a way which is going to spend millions of dollars putting people in prison for long periods of time and do absolutely nothing to reduce the problem of overdose in the state or the country. Right.

Yeah, and going to that point, first off, before we go to that point, what happened to Quaaludes? I've always wanted to try a Quaalude. Don't they not make them anymore, right? It's a fascinating question because I came of age, I was a teenager in the late 70s.

And I remember I'd hear about Quaaludes from the kids in high school who were like two years older than me. And like I graduated high school in 75. But in my cohort in 75, like nobody knew about Quaaludes. I mean, it was like the kids who graduated high school in 72, 73. So it looked like the pharmaceutical companies stopped making it. And typically you then start to see it being illegally made, but it didn't seem to happen.

When I was in college, I did it a couple of times. And it was great. I mean, you gotta be careful. If you combine drugs like opioids with alcohol, you combine benzodiazepines like Valium, sleeping pill type drugs with alcohol, or clayoids with alcohol, the thing about combining with alcohol

is if you do it in the right amount, like a modest amount, it can be a great high. But if you like just double that amount, you can stop breathing. So I will admit in college, there was one evening where, you know, I had some drinks, it had Quaalude and I had just a wonderful time. I mean, you know, people would describe Quaalude as like, you know, feeling all uninhibited, like you were drunk, but without feeling all cloudy, like you were drunk, but without feeling all cloudy like you were drunk. But it did have a real risk. I mean, I think there were real risks associated with Quaaludes. It's probably a better thing than not that they're not out there in a big

way today, but I don't know for sure. Is it an opioid? No, I'm actually, I think it's not an opioid. It's not an opioid. I know that. And it's not exactly like the Ambien drugs. It's some other type of, it's another type of drugs I think brings you down and calms you out. The other one that disappeared, which was probably a good thing, was barbiturates. Barbiturates was a big thing back in the 60s and such, 50s, 60s. And those ones disappeared. And that was probably a good thing because barbiturates had a pretty high risk potential

and easier to overdose, get in trouble with. And so when they disappeared and were not replaced by the black market in a big way, that was probably a good thing from a public health perspective. Do you think opiates will disappear? Never. Fundamental drugs, opium, which results in heroin and all the other ones, coca, which becomes cocaine, cannabis, tobacco, which becomes nicotine, and booze. Those five have a global history going back thousands and thousands of years. There's a reason why those drugs have hung around for so long. I mean, you know, they dig up, you know, people, you know, archaeological sites from thousands of years ago, and they find find them with some opium and they find them with some cannabis or something like that. I mean, tobacco was only in the Western Hemisphere until people from Europe came and brought it back to Europe and spread it around the world.

Alcohol, people have been figuring out about alcohol. You know, I just had an interesting guy. I should mention my podcast called Psychoactive, all about drugs. I had this guy, Edward Slingerland, wrote a book called Drunk, in which he asked the question, why given that alcohol is so destructive for so many people, why has it persisted all around the world? And he said basically because the benefits not just of alcohol, but of drinking and even getting drunk, exceeds the harms that alcohol do in most societies. That has played a pivotal role in human civilization.

And then alcohol emerged even before human beings started settling down and having agriculture. I mean, even hunter-gather day replace tobacco-derived nicotine. You know, synthetic opioids may one day replace if the cost works out that way. But I think these things are here to stay. Remember, opium and the opioids are the great pain reliever even today. Right. Isn't that the problem with America, though, is like we're more worried about making money off our people than helping them? You know, I mean, generally speaking, I would say, you know, America spends a fair bit amount on trying to help people, but we spend even more

money trying to fuck them up or allowing other people to do it, right? I mean, you look, you know, one of the reasons I started my organization back in the nineties was to educate Americans about the ways that other countries, especially in Western Europe, we're dealing with this thing. And, you know, one way, if I go to the Netherlands or go to other European countries, and I say, how come your drug problem is so small compared to ours? They say, well, part of it's, we got a smarter drug policy than yours. But the other thing is we got a better social safety net. We got national health insurance. We got housing programs. We got stuff so that people are struggling with addiction or living rough on the streets. We can help people. And we don't get all ideological about it. In America,

forever and ever, if you had a drug problem, oh, we're going to shove you into an abstinence-only program. And if you can't cut it, we're going to throw you in prison. The Europeans pioneered the harm reduction approach, which is to say, we'd like you to get off drugs, we'd like you to be drug-free, but if you can't do that today, let's make sure you stay alive and healthy until the day when maybe you can get off. And that harm reduction approach helps explain why they didn't lose hundreds of thousands of people to AIDS the way America did. It explains why they didn't lose hundreds of thousands of people to AIDS the way America did. It explains why they don't have the huge overdose problem we have. It explains why they don't have the same problems of drug-related crime that we had. So it's just about

being pragmatic. And we tend oftentimes to let other things like ideology get in our way of pragmatism. One thing also I like about the Netherlands is they have a national service where you could bring in your drugs and they'll tell you exactly what's in them. Yeah. I mean, it's true. It's called drug checking. I mean, the Dutch pioneered that. They actually had people in the local health department who would go to clubs and the drugs were still illegal, but somebody who bought a drug at the club or came in with it, they take it over to the counter, give the person from the public health department and they would test it and say, well, here's what you got. So in the US, I mean, came in with it to take it over to the counter give the person from the public health department

and they would test it and say well here's what you got so in the u.s i mean there's a wonderful organization called dancing in fact i think the guy's based out where you guys are in denver um and and they're doing that they're going to clubs they're going to you know uh music festivals other things and they're doing that stuff and i think i, I'm not sure, but I think some cities and governments are beginning to subsidize that stuff now because everybody's freaked out about fentanyl. Right. And because fentanyl, you know, with heroin, most people don't die from taking too much heroin. Typically, you had to combine the heroin with alcohol or benzo. So most drug overdoses before fentanyl were really, really, it was a wrong name. They

were really fatal drug combinations. But with fentanyl, you don't need to combine it with anything. It's just a little too much fentanyl all by itself kills you. So the need for drug checking, which exists in growing parts of Europe, Australia, Canada, and really beginning to spread around the US, but much too slowly. I mean, I'm always amazed when you get cops and politicians who oppose drug checking services. It's like they're saying, we'd rather have somebody die if you use a drug we don't like. And it's just, you know.

What about, so we talked about fentanyl. Do you think people are putting fentanyl in their drugs in the underbelly of America? Is that malicious? Or do you think they're doing it because it's for the money? You know, one thing I'm very frustrated by is that the United States federal government has an agency called NIDA, National Institute on Drug Abuse, right? It's the Drug Research Funding Agency. And it basically funds like over 80% or more of all the drug research on illicit drugs

in the world, not just in the US. But they're always saying, we're not interested in looking at the safe uses of drugs. You know, like they would never like to see what were the medical value of marijuana. It was all about trying to prove that marijuana could be harmful. And the same thing, you know, I look at with Kratom or Kratom now, you know, one of the drugs is out and about, right? Isn't that like heroin? They can't.

Yeah. No, no. I mean, people use it to get off heroin, you know, but it's not like heroin. I mean, you can buy it in stores in most states around the country. Yeah. I see it like there's like Kratom shops. You got to be careful. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know if you say Kratom or Kratom or Kratom or what the word is. It depends where you live. But yeah, the Kratom shop, sometimes right around the corner from me in New York is a CBD and Kratom shop, right? But I'm going to say is that when you're asking about, you know, what are the dealers doing? We don't really know. And my view is that the U.S. federal government, instead of spending all this money, which is going down the drain, you know, trying to show that these drugs are dangerous. They should be hiring ethnographers, graduate students to go in

and begin to interview people who are involved, both behind bars and those on the streets to find out where are these drugs getting cut? Why is fentanyl being put in there? Why is fentanyl getting mixed in with a cocaine or methamphetamine supply? A few months ago, there were a couple of people who died because somebody had put fentanyl into ecstasy, MDMA, you know, molly. I mean, so that's really dangerous stuff. And we don't,

I don't think it's malevolence. I think it's a combination of trying to make more money because fentanyl is cheap and it goes, you know, it goes a long ways. I think part of it is ignorance where sometimes, you know, you may have people who are mixing drugs and you have somebody in a little mini lab or even just like a little apartment trying to sell drugs. And if a little bit of fentanyl gets in the cocaine, that's a real problem. It may be because some people are now looking for that fentanyl stimulant combo, the good old modern day speedball, but we really don't know the answer. It's pretty wild to me. And, you know, going into, okay, so I want to talk about psychedelics

too in a second, but before we talk about that, I want to talk about, do you blame the private, the private privatization of jails for us putting our funding into that when someone gets in trouble with drugs versus why don't we just build a lot of like, you know, rehab centers and therapy centers to get people healed through their brain? Yeah, well, I would say, I mean, the private prison industry, I mean, what a malevolent force. I know, it's fucked up. People who make their money off of locking people up. worse. People who make their money off of locking people up. Now, one could say, well, if private prisons were actually providing a better service than public prisons, and there is if they were actually keeping inmates safer, doing it at lower cost to taxpayers, having lower rates of recidivism, then maybe you can make an argument that private prisons make sense. But it turns out private

prisons aren't even doing that. They're not more cost effective, it turns out. They don't produce a better quality prison. They don't have lower levels of violence, what have you. So they have been a really malevolent force, especially in the South, where they've been pretty prominent. But I'll tell you this. When I and my colleagues were putting together ballot initiatives in California. Give me a second here.

were putting together ballot initiatives in California. Give me a second here. When we were putting together ballot initiatives to reduce the penalties on drug offenses, our biggest problem in states like California, it wasn't the private prison industry or in New York for that matter. It was the prison guards union, right? Because they were the guys saying,

I mean, they were working for the state, but they were basically worried that if drug policy reform got too far, it would cut the prison state prison populations by hundreds of thousands. And then what do they do? There'd be fewer jobs available and less, especially less overtime available. So for me, now the prison guards are not quite as bad as they used to be. But for me, given that the states we were working in, we were very intensely focused on California, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, and then we were helping out in about a dozen other states, and we were only a little bit in the South. So some parts, private prison, it's just a venal industry altogether. But the prison guards unions, the correction officers

unions, they were a major, major problem as well. Not as bad as the prosecutors associations. Yeah. Yeah. No. I never thought about that actually. I know. And many of them were allied with the Democrats. And so it was kind of weird, you know, cause they would be taking sort of progressive positions on some things, but then they'd be saying, well, Hey, you know, don't use the penalties too much. We need a job. Yeah. And unions technically.

What about, what about with Biden passing that where everyone could leave pardon federal pardon for weed is that just a bandaid over a bigger problem well I mean let's just say first of all Joe Biden I'm the one here Joe Biden

a lifelong drug warrior. I admire I'm a Democrat. I admire a lot. I think Biden is doing some really big stuff. I admire the way he's gotten these major bills through Congress with Schumer and the others. I think he's doing a great job trying to pull the world together about Ukraine. I think he's taking serious the climate change stuff. I think he's thinking for the future. So I think Biden is doing a lot of good stuff for the country. And I think he's, you know, and I think he's getting a lot of bad rap because people don't actually pay attention to the stuff that's going on. But when it comes to the drug stuff, Biden's an old fashioned drug

warrior. I mean, among all the Democrats, he was one of the worst back in the 80s, 90s. The whole idea of treating a raid as the same as a crack house that was biden pushing that bill forward yeah he had the rave act right rave act exactly i mean my organization led the opposition to that you know but he he beat us and you know so biden was bad and then back in the democratic primaries in 2020 uh 1920 he was the worst of all the democrats on the drug issue right and so you know i mean he'd come around a bit he was the worst of all the Democrats on the drug issue, right? And so, you know, I mean, he'd come around a bit. He was against all these mandatory minimums and that crack cocaine, powder cocaine disparity. You know, he tried to carve out some issues on that, but he was the

most anti-marijuana one. He was the most, you know, but look, here's what I'll say now. A, when it comes to embracing harm reduction, the basic approach of, you know, not just setting up abstinence clinics, but having overdose prevention programs and having naloxone out there, which is the antidote for an overdose and making needle exchange programs available. I mean, his administration, Obama had started doing some of it without talking about it. Trump, fortunately, did not shut it all down. And then Biden's administration has now embraced it. So that's a good thing, right? On the marijuana thing, you know, he's been slow. He's been problematic.

Then finally, you know, in early October, he announces, hey, okay, we're going to, pardons for all the marijuana, federal marijuana offenders. But the truth is, Andy, there's only like 6,000 people. I mean, you basically got to get arrested in a national park. So it's only federal. It's only federal. The second thing he said was, I'm going to encourage the other states to do the same thing.

Many of them are already doing it. And it's not as if them doing it makes a big difference. The third thing, though, is he said he's going to look at the federal government's broader policy on marijuana. thing, though, is he said he's going to look at the federal government's broader policy on marijuana. And so that whole question of whether or not marijuana, you know, it's in Schedule 1, the same as heroin, the same as LSD. I mean, it's a crazy system we set up back in 1970 of scheduling drugs. It makes no sense anymore. It should be eliminated. So I think, symbolically speaking, what Biden did was very important. It was sending a message saying, OK, I hear you. I get it's symbolically speaking, what Biden did was very important. It was sending a message saying, OK, I hear you. I get it.

He probably had to have his arm twisted by his staff. There's a poll that just came out showing, you know, he's getting some kudos for the whole thing. But he's been very, you know, back when he was vice president, I was at some gathering of wealthy Democratic contributors. And I lined up a whole bunch of people, and he was going down the receiving line, and one after another grabbed his hand and lectured him about marijuana. So he got slated, and six months later

I meet him with one of his deputy chief of staff, and he's going, yeah, Biden got killed at this Democratic gathering. Oh yeah, man, I raised that stuff. That's not good, Joe. Biden's had his faith, but raised that stuff you know you know it's it's uh it's a complex it's a complicated issue because also biden's had a tight relationship with the older black community for a long time right a lot of times he took his guidance from older black

politicians and others in delaware and you know you look at you know that population I mean, now as people age, you're getting more comfortable in marijuana legalization and all this sort of stuff. But he comes from an old world like that. Also interesting, you think about it, three of the last five presidents or four, what is it? I mean, George Bush, right? And to the, you know, and Trump and Biden are all teetotalers. They don't drink. I think the only drinker we've had since the beginning of the century in the White House was Obama. I read this study that the young kids aren't drinking and doing as many drugs anymore. No.

Or having sex. Yes, because it's been... You know why? I mean, it's because everybody's on their phones and stuff. That's what I wanted to talk about. Getting drunk and getting high does not increase your appreciation of video games or Facebook or TikTok or stuff like that, right? And you're spending more and more time doing that. You're spending less time hanging out, sharing a joint.

You're getting a little drunk with your friends and all this sort of stuff. And so it's a very mixed thing. You know, it may mean fewer people dying in accidents or like that. On the other hand, a lot more people feeling isolated, a lot more young people losing social skills. So, you know. Socializing. And you know, like that's one thing about drugs was it was social.

Nowadays, like this idea of social, that's why I think social media is a bigger problem for mental health than drugs are because you're isolating yourself by just absorbing yourself into everyone else's fake happiness. I mean, it's so true. I mean, you look at it,

there's actually good social science evidence on this stuff that younger people, I mean, the pandemic, of course, made it a lot worse. But I mean, younger people are not as good, for example, at reading sort of facial cues and social cues, you know, and the levels of depression and things like that among young people is higher now. A lot of people think that once again, because of social media and the whole atmosphere, what's the expectations around that. And so, you know, I mean, look, when I was younger, I mean, I didn't smoke until I already get high until I was 18, you know, but I remember getting drunk even in my younger teens. And, you know, I mean, some of that landed up, you know, for

some people in very terrible places, but for a lot of people, it's part of, you know, growing up, it's part of bonding. And I think some of my best male friends for the last 40 years are guys I first bonded with when we were getting drunk together. Same. Still doing it. I mean, it's – yeah. Hey, listen. Exactly.

There you go. I got to say one other thing, too, is another drug out there where I see that the whole issue now that came out right before the pandemic, the epidemic before the pandemic, I don't know if you remember, it was all about vaping, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. People drooling, using e-cigarettes, right? And I even found that, you know, and all, like, a lot of my political allies, the ones who were with me on legalizing marijuana, on the needle exchange, harm reduction, rolling back prison sentences, but they're all jumping on the bandwagon. We got to ban nicotine vaping. We got to da-da-da. And it was using the same rhetoric just like the

drug war ultimately was like marketed as one great big child protection act suddenly the anti-vaping thing one great big child protection act but you want to know the truth this thing what if you could snap your fingers and all of the 30 35 million american smokers or the billion plus smokers around the world were suddenly to switch to vaping, you know, e-cigarettes or using those heated tobacco products or using the little pouches you put in your mouth, the snus or the Zin or on or stuff like that. It would be one of the greatest advances in public health in American and global history. Because the fact of the matter is, nicotine is what hooks people, but it doesn't kill you. You can take nicotine for your entire life, and it has very little harm

that it causes to the human body. I mean, there's some evidence that says it's barely more dangerous than coffee. What kills you is smoking it. It's the burnt particle matter. It's lighting it up. And so anytime you can get somebody who's been smoking to switch to a non-combustible version of nicotine, it's a dramatic improvement of public health. It's not 100% safe, but it's like 80 to 90% safer than smoking cigarettes. And the fact of the matter is for young people getting into it, we all wish they wouldn't do it. Please don't do it. I'm not saying young people should vape. But the truth of the matter is, is that the cumulative harms, you know, to people getting into vaping is so dramatically less than cigarettes. And one reason cigarette

smoking has come down so much among young people is because vaping became more popular. So, you know, a lot of people think they know what they're talking about this stuff, but I got to tell you, the science and the evidence suggests that if you, if we could change, if we could go from a world in which a billion people are smoking cigarettes and a hundred million are using the non-combustible, you know, vapes and lozenges, and we could go into a world where that billion smokers is now down to a couple hundred million, but the number of people consuming nicotine in other non-combustible forms is up to a billion and a half or two billion, like double number of smokers, it would still be a radical advance in public health and around the world. So I hope your listeners know

that. Anybody you know who smokes or loves somebody who smokes, whatever you can do to say, if you can't quit, do the e-cigarette, do the lozeng, do the Zin or the I. I'll start smoking E6. You told me, doctor. Don't start if you're not already using nicotine. I'm smoking a shit ton. What about, I have a couple more questions for you. Do you have time for a couple more?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Okay. Is cocaine bad for you? Well, you know, I mean, the truth is I'm down on cocaine. I mean, I think cocaine does not bring out the best in people. Oh, yeah, I know. You know, people tend to motor pounce and get selfish and all this sort of stuff. I, for better or worse, have never had real – I've tried cocaine dozens of times when I was younger.

And for me, it was like having too much coffee and having post nasal drip. I mean, I just didn't get it. And why not? Actually, that's interesting. The other thing with cocaine and sex, right, is if you I mean, my well, whatever. It's a free space. With cocaine and sex, it's that if you're using it right before sex can definitely be an enhancer. On the other hand, I found using it a few hours before sex, it's hard to get an erection.

Oh, yeah. You know, timing. Tugging rope over here. You know, as with any drug, it's all about the amount you use. Right. I mean, somebody who's doing the occasional few lines of cocaine or something like that, or, you know, that's not going to hurt anybody. And quite frankly, all the indigenous people in Bolivia and Colombia, Peru, who are chewing that coca leaf, which is basically a

slow drip of cocaine into your body all day long. I mean, the evidence suggests that may be a net benefit for their health, right? And conversely, weed, you know, for most people, weed's a net plus in their life, but I know people for whom weed has been the worst possible drug who get delusional, who get addicted, dysfunctional. So any drug can be safe. You can smoke crack on occasion as long as you're not getting into it. It's not really going to do much harm to you. I'm not recommending it, but everything in moderation, including moderation. Exactly. I'll clap to that.

Let's go. All right. My last thing is, you know, I don't know if you could tell by how we look. We love psychedelics. I love acid. I love mushrooms. I take mushroom.

When I was severely depressed for a couple years ago, I would do a microdose every day, and it really helped my depression. How far are we from the public eye thinking that psychedelics are actually better for you than people think they are? Well, more and more people know that. The thing that's been coming out is back in the 50s and 60s, there was a lot of research, including paper by the government about psychedelics as a therapeutic substance. And then basically Nixon's drug war. And, you know, basically you can blame Timothy Leary. Even more, you can blame the targeting of Timothy Leary. You know, all that stuff kind of gets wiped out and almost nobody's doing any research on psychologues for decades. Now in the last 10 years, mostly funded with private money and

some philanthropic money is a great organization called MAPS, Multidisciplinary Association of Psychologues Studies has been leading the research effort on MDMA, which is not really a psychedelic ecstasy. But I'd say you now have amazing research coming out. You have hard scientists who are blown away by the results in terms of the efficacy of MDMA, but also psilocybin, which is the drug in mushrooms. from peyote and the san pedro plant um there's some synthetics which may prove interesting and what they're finding is in dealing with depression anxiety end of life care possibly pain addiction also ketamine i forgot to mention ketamine because that's a the one legal psychedelic and it's short acting so easy to administer and use so i think i mean people can get caught up in all the hype of this thing. And there's definitely some people overhyping the thing, but it's going to revolutionize psychiatry.

I think almost no question about it. It is going to help a huge number of people. You know, one thing I'll put in a plug for my podcast, Psychoactive, a lot of the episodes are talking with experts about psychedelics from ketamine to microdosing to LSD, to mushrooms, to Ibogaine, you name it. It's amazing. And then you look at this point, Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, NYU, University of California, Baylor, I think University of Florida. Also, I think Texas, University College London, all have major research programs in psychedelics. I mean, this would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago. It's crazy.

There's been more and more stuff published in the scientific literature. So I just think it's amazing and fantastic. For me, I've tried many of them, but not all. I've never done Ibogaine. Mushrooms has been kind of my go-to since then. I just think mushrooms is great. Let's fucking go. And ayahuasca, I just think mushrooms is great. Let's fucking go. You know, and ayahuasca done a few times.

Those are powerful experiences. So, but, you know, it's obviously important. You know, I don't recommend that people, I also am a believer that a cyclist oftentimes wasted on the young. I mean, my view is that we should keep doing psychedelic sales. Save it. Get older. Save it. We love you here, bud. Save it. Older. Save it. We love to hear it, bud.

I gave a speech about it. And I said, you know something? I'm Jewish. Once a year on Yom Kippur, I fast. No food or water for like 25, 26 hours. Just did it recently. Right? And I feel like it's good for the soul.

It's good to kind of get into that altered state and be in it. And that's the way I feel about psychedelics, that people should make a commitment to trying to have a strong, not a microdose, but a strong experience once a year until they grow old. Because it's a great way to stir up the old intellectual and emotional sentiment that as we get older, we make compromises, we settle, we start to think in straight lines. And psychedelics shakes that stuff up both intellectually and emotionally. And, you know, all the better if you can find a guy to do it with or somebody who's experienced, but find a safe way to do it. Don't do it. I'm going to do it and go to a concert or walk around a city. Not generally a great idea. It's not a great time, but it's got more risk associated with it. Do it in a safe place with people you feel really comfortable, you really trust.

Yeah, and especially with the whole idea of this whole isolation style of thinking now with social media. We're already alone, we feel. So if you take it in drugs in front of people, it could be bad. Ethan, god damn, that was fucking last thing i said last thing i just saying that is yeah you know i also sometimes think though i don't think i'm wary about psychedelics in a group setting unless it's a really controlled one like with a a leader or a shaman or something like that because i find you know and it's also true for people or you know who have experienced paranoia with marijuana my feeling feeling is what's called a set and setting is important.

So if you're going to do this stuff, be with something you don't have to be odd with. You don't want to be socializing with people you don't really know, maybe you don't trust or like. You want to be with somebody you really feel relaxed and comfortable with, whether we're talking about psychedelics or weed. I think that makes a real difference. Do you think guys like Michael Pollan is helping this whole movement or not?

Michael Pollan has been an amazing plus because it's very hard to cross over and educate the public. But I've known Michael a little bit since for 25 years. And Michael, because he already had such a huge following and such respect because he was writing about food. And he'd been writing about drugs off and on over the last 25 years too. He wrote a book called Botany of Desire. He did other stuff. But when he did that book, How to Change Your Mind, and he's now got a more recent one where he looks at mescaline and also caffeine, interestingly. I think he crossed over. I think millions of people started reading and thinking about psychedelics who never otherwise would have because Michael Pollan wrote about it.

I mean, I only wish there were more Michael Pollans in the world writing as thoughtfully and as intelligently about him, about this issue as he does. What's your take on Paul Stamets? I had both of them on my podcast. Paul, I've known Paul for about 20 years. I mean, Paul Stamets is the guru of mushrooms. I mean, that guy lives and breathes and knows everything about it. He's self-taught. I love him.

He's got a PhD or anything like that. You know, I take some of his products, not the psychedelic ones, but, you know, the mushrooms for health thing. And, you know, there's a little bit of evidence. Maybe it helps with this and that. But Paul is absolutely – I once heard him give free lecture. It was actually at the Telluride, Colorado Mushroom Conference. Let's go. Telluride, Colorado, every year for like 30 years now.

I've spoken there a few times, host a conference. And it brings all the famous mycologists there and the mushroom experts. But it always brings people who are expert about psychedelics and all, you know, alternatives. And Paul gave one speech about mushrooms and the environment, one about mushrooms and all, you know, alternatives. And Paul gave one speech about mushrooms and the environment, one about mushrooms and medicine, and one about mushrooms and the mind. And each one was more brilliant and compelling than the other one. So, you know, there's a recent documentary out about him, I think on Netflix, I encourage people to watch it, you know, listen to my interviews with him and, you know, Michael Pollan and Andy Weil and, you know, a whole bunch of other famous

characters on my podcast. So, I mean, you know, it Pollan and Andy Weil and, you know, a whole bunch of other famous psychoactive characters on my podcast. I mean, you know, it's, these guys are adding an immense amount, I believe, not just to scientific knowledge, but also to helping people live a better life through the responsible use of psychoactive substances. Ethan, this has been fucking amazing. I'm clapping for you, buddy. I'm so happy. I've enjoyed it. I'm doing it all for you guys.

Happy to come back anytime. I really appreciate what you're doing. You're our drug advisor now. Whenever I have trouble, because I got in trouble. I love mushrooms and I throw them in the crowd sometimes. My manager's always worried that i'm gonna get

arrested and get get thrown in jail for something i think mushrooms are so beautiful and powerful but um talking to you and it's it's kind of scared me a little bit i'm not gonna be doing that anymore so i appreciate it i'm gonna tell you you know basically it looks microdosing with almost anything appears to be safe we don't have long studies, but even the higher doses, you're doing the right place. I'm almost amazed. I tell you, I looked at some friends of mine who go to the marijuana delivery services. Now all those marijuana delivery services, they got mushroom chocolate bars. They got this type of mushroom, that type of mushroom. They even sometimes have different types of 2CB or MDMAs, things like that. I'm amazed at the diversity of stuff that's now available if you know the right phone number to call.

Yeah, Denver is amazing. Now they're marketing nice, they're packaging mushrooms. Really? I haven't seen that. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Yeah. Well, listen, you should be proud to be living in a state that really led the way with Washington State and the legalization of marijuana. So, yeah.

My final question to you is, in a perfect world, what do you think America should do with the drug reform? Well, I mean, basically, we have to finish off legalizing marijuana in a responsible way. I mean, I'm a believer that we have a moral obligation to try to keep this, you know, not let the big multinationals take over the whole thing. And one of the reasons I'm a little ambivalent about total federal legalization is that opens the door for big alcohol, big tobacco, big pharma, big consumer good companies to come into it. So I don't know how we stop that because I think it's almost inevitable that it's probably going to happen. But I think we got to find responsible ways to do it. And we got to,

you know, it's not just bullshit to try to give a leg up to people, you know, whether it's black people or, you know, white growers, you know, out in the rural areas, you know, to give them a leg up to try to keep playing a role in this industry. stuff is going to revolutionize, as I said, psychiatry. I think there's a key thing, which is that when it comes to any drug, including heroin, fentanyl, you name it, nobody should be going to jail simply for possessing a small amount of any drug for their own use. That was the Portugal model that started 20 years ago. It's the ballot initiative that passed in Oregon a couple of years ago that my organization, Drug Policy Alliance, did after I stepped down. That principle that nobody deserves what we put in our body, absent harm to others, and that nobody should go to jail simply for simple drug possession when they got a problem or not. If you commit a crime against somebody else, if you rob, you steal, you rape, you hurt,

you deserve to be punished whether you had any addiction or not. Your addiction cannot be your excuse. But simply putting people in jail for civil possession, we got to stop doing that. Lastly, we got to figure out ways in the way in this federal crisis where the people who are committed to using drugs that are really risky, where they can get it from a legal source and not go to the black market and figure out a way to do that so that it doesn't present a risk to the greater, broader population. But we need to move closer and closer to the responsible legal regulation of all drugs in such a way that

does not create a bigger drug problem. And I don't think we've gotten even close to how far we need to go on that. We still need to keep squeezing the criminalization out, adding in the health dimension, adding in the harm dimension, thinking about that safety net. You know, the vast majority of people use drugs. They don't need anybody's help. They don't need the government. They don't need their employer telling them what to do. They don't need to be drug tested. And for the minority of people

who have a problem with drug problem, hold them responsible if they're hurting other people. But don't fuck with them if all they're doing is using these drugs because they want it or they need it. Let's fucking go. Our guy. Our guy on the street.

Okay, man. Thank you, Ethan. Hey. Thank you, bro. It's been a blast, guys. Okay, look forward to next time. Take care, okay? Listen to Ethan's podcast, Psychoactive.

It's amazing. We're big fans, and we're big fans of you, Ethan. We're going to hit you up next time. Every time we have questions, we're going to hit you up, Ethan. Have a good one. You got it. I'm available. Take care, Eddie. Take care. Later. Later. Bye. Bye.

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I feel way smarter. Wow. Speaking of people who are staying out of trouble, we have Pete Shapiro. Relics. God, the godfather of the scene is out here now. What's up, Pete? How you doing?

Hey, Andy. Good to see you, brother. You look good, too. How's the book selling? Yeah. It actually is doing better than expected. Yeah? Well, yeah. It wasn't my idea to do a book, but Dean Bud budnick who you mentioned relics

after relics was like a couple years ago he ever write anything down had a little health scare i'm fine but he's like you ever and i had written nothing down he's like i'll write it you can just talk we'll get a book deal and he got one and then we made it the story of 50 concerts it's not really my story it's 50 story 50 shows by the way now i was hesitant at first a little young to write it all down but i'm glad i don't know how people remember it at the i can barely remember it now all the story how do you remember when you're at the end of the life you know stuff in your 20s 30ss. I just turned 50.

That's one reason we did the 50 stories. Then COVID happened, so I had a lot of nights to just talk. Dean wrote it down. Now we got like 300 and something pages. It's been really cool. It's just stories of things

I've been through, good to bad. Every day I call him you know the last couple years call Dean it's a great way to do it and just throw out a thought or an idea and then we put it all together do you still like it? yeah I love the shows yeah

what don't you like? I love the shows I like the shows I don't you like? I love the shows. I like the shows. I don't like the daytime. Dealing with HR stuff. Yeah. All these venues. We got a Brooklyn Bowl now in Nashville, Vegas.

Obviously, New York, Philly, where you're going to play the anniversary thing. We were excited. The Capitol. But then you do ZZ Top last night. You get to spend time with Billy Gibbons on his bus after. That's easy. Makes it worth it. But what I mean hard is we got a couple nights,

three nights with Phil Lesher doing nine shows with Phil. That's great, obviously. But that comes with incoming. You know, the text thing is a big thing. Anyone who wants to go in and be a live music promoter you know in the 70s i was telling ron delzner the other day when he was putting on shows in 1969 1979 1989 99 2009 people would come they wanted to get vip meet them free tickets. They'd call the office. They'd leave a message.

Now it's, yo, Shappy, what's up? Bill's coming. Yo, come by Sunday, Saturday. Can I give you an email? At least you can kind of ignore. Oh, I missed the email. Sorry, bro. Sorry, bro. Yeah, yeah.

Text message you can't ignore. Text message you cannot ignore. What was the hardest show that you promoted that was the most fulfilling? Well, that's the 50th anniversary dead show, if I remember well. That was hard. And then everything we did was under such a microscope

of social media. And actually, I don't, it wouldn't be the same today. Just there's so much other stuff swirling more in 2022 than there was in 2015, seven years later. Yeah. Just Trump wasn't that whole, that stuff wasn't as formulated or developed. But streaming, I mean, maybe there was Netflix then, but it wasn't like, oh.

Now there's like 200 big shows, TV shows. And there's podcasts, like what we're doing. In 15, it was starting when I opened Brooklyn Bowl in 2009. There was like 10 TV shows. So crazy. There was no podcast, by the way. None. I mean, you still have movies.

There's just so much more. All the listening platforms, audio, Spotify, that kind of stuff. When I opened Brooklyn Bowl in 2009, it didn't exist. And I think it was easier for me to create what Brooklyn Bowl in 2009 didn't exist. And I think it was easier for me to create what Brooklyn Bowl became because it was easier to get oxygen

and promote and have our lane. I actually think it would be harder now. Luckily, these new ones that we're doing now, it's kind of already established. But there's so much flying around. TikTok! Do you think oversaturation is diluting the scene? doing now it's kind of already established yeah but there's so much flying around tiktok do you think oversaturation is diluting the scene well when you say the scene you mean ours just like entertainment oh right yeah i mean there's so much flying around

how do you go back to that snap i mean it's hard hard, by the way. Yeah, it's harder. So it's easier for us. Thank God we got out ahead a little bit. Now we already have the 150,000 person email list. I talk to the kids, the people I work with and work for me at these venues. You got to get the email list to a certain point to 100,000. That takes a couple of years, by the way, of doing shows to really be able to press send and sell tickets on the on sale without having, you know, when you launch a venue that's new and I've done it a bunch, it's hard. You started no email. Zero.

And you got to bang it out and you can't build it without doing the shows. But when you're doing a show with no email, it's, you know, I can sell the tickets. Yeah. but when you're doing a show with no email list, you're not getting all the tickets that's it how hard was it the Brooklyn Bowl in Philadelphia to get the email list Philadelphia is such a niche market and you're bringing Brooklyn Bowl to Philadelphia

which is already a fucking yeah, we're like, come on! let's just say we have a new logo that's like that Brooklyn Bowl genie thing with a fish in there for Fishtown. We're trying to be a little more Philly. Not easy to do. We're not there yet, but the email list is 67. We're not at that 100. Let me tell you what's selling tickets in Philly, though.

Andy Firasco. I remember one. Wow, you like how I brought that home. It's true. You did. I checked because I'm coming down for it. I'm flying in. My guy I work with is getting married.

And I'm like, yo, I'm going to Anguilla. But I'm like, I got to get back. I can't stay. I'm going for the opening night on the 3rd. I'm flying back on the 4th, hitting Philly, to be there with you. I'm going to be back. I can't stay. I'm going for the opening night on the 3rd. I'm flying back on the 4th, hitting Philly to be there with you. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. And I checked your tickets. We're good. We're going to be ready. It's going to be a right rager.

So by the way, that's a testament. Sorry. And I heard that I appreciate you giving us the one-year anniversary. You know, Philly, I love Philly. And just like going back to it, Philly is such a proud city of being Philadelphia. You know, it must have been

a fucking milestone to even get to 70,000 email lists. You know, it's like it just takes a while to grow into that city because you're bringing in such great talent and what Philadelphia needs. You know, it's like it's like

the fans easy to go yeah but brooklyn but the idea is it's like brooklyn it's fun it's coney island it's not meant to be bro that brooklyn it's supposed to be and to be like you know the fun house brooklyn so we thought about a problem is like in vegas it's broken ball in nashville it's broken ball you know do we do we actually that was a huge conversation it's like are we going to be doing like Philly Bowl and Vegas Bowl or are we doing Brooklyn Bowl and once we started with

Brooklyn Bowl we were kind of like okay with that and then we got to Philly and we were like oh shit would have been easier if we were Philly Bowl just to tell everyone how it really is but guess what we're like we're already broken we're broken so we think about ways that we can be philly you know what i mean and and then you know you try to be good at what you do you have the staff be cool they're obviously all from philly and you just try to put on good shirt and it takes time and you got to bang it every day that's back

to like it's hard right you know you can be doing now in brooklyn mall new york at capital some of these things get a little easier but then you go open in philly and call it brooklyn and you make it hard again and uh but we're doing it and uh and i'm super psyched you know we are celebrating our first anniversary you know we opened it with so live with george porter and questlove dj he wasn't we were gonna have him after you by the way we got but we got a guy i don't know if that's been announced he's gonna dj i think a thing who oh barbara yeah yeah it's gonna come by and you sold a lot of titan but we thought about like we thought frasco and what you do and what you

represent and the way you embrace fun in the show we're like that's a perfect show and i'll just tell you i mean we haven't talked offline you know i'm saying but like it's sold it's gonna be a great scene and that's what we try to do in these venues is create a place that is the home of it for what we do our music our band we've had all our bands you know the umbries guys the j-rag guys you know and the pigeons guys and the twiddle guy you know all that the biscuit barber and brownie you know we've done all that there plus more we're doing gogo bordello coming up um st pa Paul and the Broken Bones coming up. I mean, just all that kind of stuff that we've done in other places.

And a lot of it's about the staff and how you treat people. And obviously the vibe in the room and the disco balls and the Christmas lights. You know, that's why we're friends. Yeah, you bring the vibe. Disco balls and Christmas lights. Yeah. You know, I got one more question. I know you got lights. Yeah. You know, I got one more question. I know you got to get out of here,

but I got one more question for you, Pete. You know, being a promoter after COVID and seeing ticket sales all around the country, what's your take on the music industry in the next couple of years? Oh, you're getting good at this podcast today. I mean, these questions. That was good.

You're like a real journalist. Ain't no brass guy just fucking. Yeah no yeah no no hire me hire me pete uh no you need lie i actually think it's gonna be strong it is because people you now you know you can um it could go away right any minute right it could go away so i think there's people obviously the alpha live people or were like itching to go back the minute you could but i hope that the outer banks a little bit the outer edges of people who maybe before could stay home by the way i go to the streaming stuff because you could just stay at home and watch netflix yeah or hulu andulu or fans you can go watch it live on a stream

on fans so you don't have to go as much but it's not like a lot of being there and you know what are you ready I gotta say it's in the book you can't see it if you're not there

you can't be there if you're not there really right like to be that feeling of a live show it's great look i do the streaming stuff we've done stuff together and it's great but but capital b right it's still you still want to be there and you can't be there if you're not there i get up and go to shows like you i'll do the red eye here like and you can't be there if you're not there. I get up and go to shows like you. I'll do the red eye here. And you can't. You just can't be there if you're not there. And so that's why I'm bullish. I think people, the feeling of live, like we talked earlier,

it never fades. People have seen a lot of shows. You've seen a ton of shows, done a lot of shows. I've seen, you know, I've done a show every night almost 27 years and I'm still like, I'm psyched to go see Jane's Addiction and the Pumpkins tonight. You've been kind of a celebrity at the Garden. You've been always hanging out with Jimmy Fallon,

eating hot dogs and shit. I've been watching you on ESPN all the time, dude. It's wild. I went to Harry Styles with him and I put a bow on. I didn't know. I just got to pay attention more. I'm wearing this blue bow.

I'd do it again. I didn't think that people would be taking pictures, but my kids the next morning are on TikTok. They're like, Dad, all my friends are sending me pictures. You're in a boa. I look pretty. I can't pull it off as well as you could,

but you just got gotta be careful next time you just you know it's all good oh that's funny well how did you get what's your relationship with jimmy fallon you guys seem like you're really close yeah i met him at wetlands uh 20 years ago at a Zen Trickster show. In the basement. Anyone you met in the basement of wetlands at a Zen Trickster show, that's going to be a lifelong friend. That's a good answer.

I met this dude in the basement of wetlands at a Zen Trickster show. That's the end of our interview. Period. Stop. That's how I read. And so we're great, great friends because it all started there, brother. I love it. You've built so many memories for so many people.

And I know I'm not the only one who wants to say this, but I just want to say thank you for all the memories you've given all of us. I mean, you've helped us out with all our careers so much that maybe you don't get to see all the love that you deserve. And I hope you do because you really are, you know, Pied Piper of this stuff. So thank you,

buddy. Thanks, brother. I'm excited. I'm going to see you in Philly. And, uh, I hope you a couple of weeks.

I hope you most, I hope everyone there, uh, mostly remembers those memories. They will, buddy. I got one last question. If you forget a few of them, that's good too. Yeah, that's why you have a book.

Right. Wow. That was funny. That was good. Love you, buddy. I fucking love it. I love you too. Thanks for being a ray of sunshine.

I needed you today. I appreciate it. Be safe, buddy. Have a good one. Love you. I'll see you in Philly. Later. Fucking Pete Shap today. I appreciate it. Be safe, buddy. Have a good one. Love you. I'll see you in Philly. Later. Fucking Pete Shapiro. Let's go.

You tuned in to the World's Health Podcast with Andy Fresco. Thank you for listening to this episode produced by Andy Fresco, Joe Angelo and Chris Lawrence. We need you to help us save the world and spread the word. Please subscribe, rate the show, give us those crazy stars.

iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're picking this shit up. Follow us on Instagram at world saving podcast for more info and updates. Fresco's blogs and tour dates you'll find at andyfresco.com. And check our socials to see what's up next. Might be a video dance party, a showcase concert, that crazy shit show, or whatever springs to Andy's wicked brain. And after a year of keeping clean and playing safe, the band is back on tour. We thank our brand new talent booker, Mara Davis.

We thank this week's guest, our co-host, and all the fringy frenzies that help make this show great. Thank you all. And thank you for listening. Be your best, be safe, and we will be back next week. No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast as far as we know. Any similarities or knowledge, facts, or fake is purely coincidental.