PBD Podcast - The Great Debates | EP 1 | Drug Decriminalization

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

The Great Debates Episode 1 | Should the United States move to decriminalize drugs and drug use?  The Great Debates is a new Valuetainment Production hosted by Patrick Bet-David, where we bring on guests with polarized opinions to discuss different topics. Subscribe to PBD Podcast and don't miss any new uploads https://bit.ly/3MsDzQH (For Decriminalization) Lt. Diane Goldstein (Ret.) was born in Mexico City and moved to the US as a child. She is a nationally recognized speaker, writer, and guest lecturer on criminal justice and drug policy reform. Follow her on Twitter here: https://bit.ly/3tgzZju. You can find more information on L.E.A.P. here: https://bit.ly/3hvHgqj (Against Decriminalization) Hector Berrellez is a former D.E.A. Supervisor and Special Agent, with thirty years of extensive experience in counter-terrorism and narcotics enforcement. He is recognized as one of the most highly decorated Drug Enforcement Agents in the history of the bureau. You can purchase Hector's book "The Last Narc" here: https://amzn.to/3ICZQJ7 (Moderator) Patrick Bet-David: CEO, author, and Founder of Valuetainment Media. Patrick has interviewed athletes, notorious individuals, politicians, authors, and entrepreneurs from all walks of life.  Want to be a guest on The Great Debates or have a debate topic you want to suggest? Email [e-mail] Music selection used through agreement with Epidemic Sound http://bit.ly/2B8DxK1   *** Opinions, statements, statistics, and references made by our guests do not express the views or opinions of Patrick Bet-David or Valuetainment Media *** --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

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I'm going to be a great singer. I'm going to be a great singer. I'm going to be a great singer. I'm going to be a great singer. I'm going to be a great singer, I'm getting to come up. Okay, are we live? Okay, fantastic, folks. This is the new debate series.

We've done this in the past before, different topics. You're going to see a lot of different debates that we'll do. But today's debate is over drugs, the legalizing of drugs. On one hand, we brought two qualified folks to do this debate, and I'll introduce them individually, so you know who they are. On one hand, who is all against drugs. Former DEA Hector Ben-Less, who we've had him on before, we've got a few million views when we had him on, and we talked about a complete different story with Kiki Kamanera. That conversation was a different conversation. It may come up. He is known as the Elliott Ness of DEA.

That's pretty much who he is. And what he's done, he's a former DEA supervisor of special agents with 30 years' extensive experience in counterterrorism and narcotics enforcement. He's recognized as one of the most highest decorated drug enforcement agents in a history of the Bureau. He received the Federal Bar Association Medal of Valor,

the Federal Executive Board Chairman's Special Award, and his credit for his hand-linked and solving of the kidnap toward chairman murder of undercover DA agent Kiki Kamarena by drug traffickers in Guadalajara, Mexico. So that is Hector who is going to defend why drugs should be illegal. Now, on the complete opposite side, all the way from California is none of the then lieutenant dying goldstein fully qualified. This is her background, 21-year veteran of law enforcement, nationally recognized speaker writer and guest lecturer on criminal justice and drug policy reform.

1983, she joined the Redondo Beach Police Department in California, as a patrol officer, later served as a school resource officer, investigator sergeant, the Special Investigation Unit, and became the first female lieutenant in the department while serving as a division commander in the traffic, bureau, and community policing, and patrol divisions before retiring in 2004. She continued getting educated. She went back to school. I think you just got your MBA and you've gone a few degrees the last couple years. You're 2017 being one of them. And she is now part of LEAP, which used to be called law enforcement against prohibition. Today, its law enforcement action,

partnership and Diane was appointed as the group's executive director in 2021. Executive director is like the CEO of a company. It's somebody that runs the show. She's the boss. So she is for figuring out a sensible way of legalizing drugs. So having said that, thank you so much for agreeing to do this debate. Thank you very much.

Yes. It's my honor to be here actually with Hector because I think we actually agree more than disagreeing many aspects. Really? Are you trying to charm him? Are you really fully agree with him? No, you know what? I think it's both that I am trying to charm him.

But it's also that we do. Okay. Well, I think I learned through debate. I grew up in a family where it was debate. Sometimes we went across the debate, which we don't need to do that here. You guys are friendly with each other. But I learned through debate, whether it's faith,

religion, politics, business, finance, no matter what it is, it's helps. I know at the end of the day, the audience is gonna win today, listen to the two of you. So before we get into it, I have a handful of topics and questions that I'm gonna address with the both of you and we'll get to have statistics that has to do with the difference

between cigarettes and weed and opioids and ecstasy and cocaine, and we're going to cover all of that stuff. Right. You know, the legalizing of it. Why some things are not that threatening, but why are we so worried about it? And then maybe there's going to be some solutions at the end of it. So, before we get started, Lieutenant Gohson, if you don't mind starting first,

taking two minutes of how you came to your position, give your case, and it will go to your next Hector. So I'm going to start by pointing out something in Hector's book that really touched me, because this was really important. Is, you know, Hector in your book, you recognize the contradiction and the disconnect between our drug policy and the infinite loop of violence that it causes in our society. That's really critical for audiences to know that there's other ways

to combat violence. And here's where we want the same things in this discussion, we both want an effective drug policy that reduces the harms of substance use disorder, prevents violence, and most important saves lives. We can agree on that, right, Heather? Yes, I do. I agree with you. Police professionals here in abroad recognize that we can no longer rely on an arrest as a means to address a public health overdose epidemic. Saving lives and reducing crime is not mutually exclusive. Our drug policy has made it mutually

exclusive going back to, you know, the modern day 1970s when Richard Nixon declared the war on drug. 1970s when Richard Nixon declared the war on drug. Law enforcement today requires a reset into 21st century policing that links evidence-based empirical practices between public health and the police. To save lives, we must honor its sanctity. And I think we can agree on that, too. Yes, I do.

In 2013, I wrote an article to honor fallen officers in the war on drugs. Since the inception of the drug war, we have sent law enforcement into harm's way to achieve an ideological goal of a drug free America and world that we will never achieve. I use drugs every day, a couple cups of coffee, glass of wine, I don't smoke cigarettes, but we label drugs wrong whether they're illicit or illicit. Everyone in America uses drugs. Okay. Decent is difficult today, but necessary in law enforcement. We should talk about policing and ask ourselves if what we are doing is the right thing or

not. Are our current practices the best practices to solve a problem? I'd say it's not. From September 2020 to September 2021, more than 104,000 Americans have died from a drug overdose, largely because of an illicit and poisoned drug supply that we cannot stop from coming into our country despite throwing billions of dollars into interdiction. Billions. And that's just the last couple years. We are now over a trillion dollars spent on our current drug policy that is failing all of us as Americans. These deaths

of our friends, my brother died from a drug overdose, our loved ones, and our policing professionals that aren't even included in that stat requires us to rethink our drug control strategies by embracing public health interventions that will result in saving lives. In other words, an effective drug control strategy will view the law and its exercise of power as proper only when we link public health and safety, not just when we enforce the law as an end to itself, which is what we tend to do right now. And I'm just going to end it with saying it's time to declare peace with drugs.

Okay. How about yourself? I am the belief because of my experience in combating drugs, and the legalization of drugs will be disastrous to this country. The government, making it commerce, making it legal, will only create a big drug industry. Drug industries are going to be created and their whole focus is going to be on making money. Okay? So, if we legalize them, what's going to prevent us? Who's going to control the manufacture of these drugs and how dangerous they are? Because the bigger the addict population, the more these drug companies are going to make.

These pharmaceutical companies are going to create synthetic and very dangerous drugs to make the attic population bigger to drive bigger profits. Okay? The greatest mortality rate of drug abuse right now comes from legal drugs, believe it or not, alcohol and tobacco. They are the biggest reasons, or they cause the biggest death right now of overdoses or the abuse, the biggest mortality rate in this country, okay. Legalization will result in these big pharmaceutical companies selling these drugs. Now it's the DEA, and the FDA's position, that they should regulate and control the amount of drugs and the potency of these drugs. And we don't have the DEA, the FDA, controlling the manufacturer of these very dangerous drugs.

Our population is going to, Eddie Papalista gonna triple, the deaths are going to quadruple. And basically, legalizing drugs is not going to solve anything, because the addicts, okay, and these drugs that they're using, cause them to commit criminal acts. And other crimes that they might not commit when they're sober under the influence of the very potent drugs

that are going to be produced by these pharmaceutical companies will drive them to commit crimes. So that's not going to solve the arrest and crime situation. If the matter of fact, we're going to have more problems that we're going to have to put more people in prison than we're doing right now. Like to which drugs concerns you the most? Very basically the opiates. Right now, we are in an opiate epidemic. The mortality rate right now is higher than its ever been, Patrick.

We are losing 70,000 people at an average a year of opiate overdoses. And this another cartels. These are our pharmaceutical companies. In 1999, the DEA and the FDA relaxed their enforcement control of these pharmaceutical companies. There was pressure by lobbyists that were for this pharmaceutical companies to Congress. They basically caused the DEA, the Food and Drug Administration to lessen the reinforcement.

And therefore, since 1999 to the present, the relaxing of enforcement of the production of these drugs has created the drug epidemic that we have now. We are now experienced a worse drug epidemic in the history of our country. More so than heroin abuse, more so than method abuse, even more so than phantom. And as these drug companies are permitted, they will create very powerful, instant, steady drugs, and they're going to push them and sell them to our addict population. So legalizing drugs, to me, is no answer. But let's stay on that. So let's get specifics.

All POIs are legal though, right? I mean, you know, some of them I can get legally from the doctor. Can I jump in for a second? Sure. Because I think this is really important. There's two things. I don't necessarily disagree with you about the commercialization of the potential for drugs

and the commercialization. I mean, we've seen it a little bit already with cannabis, right? But here's the other issue that happened that, I think, is really critically important is What is driving the illicit poison drug supply right now is not opioids? It's the introduction of illicit fentanyl that's coming in because

We cut off China and then the Mexican cartels have sent it over So that's what's causing the overdose death right now. It's polydrug overdose, and it's the illicit fentanyl, because people don't have a safe supply of drugs. People don't know what's out in the street. And I'm going to blame the DEA a little bit, and some of the drugs are, because I've written about this extensively.

There was a point in time during the Obama administration where they started to crack down on alleged pill mill doctors and I'm not saying that those aren't out there. But what that caused it was a huge market disruption that we need to understand very clearly. And what it took, it took legitimate pain patients out from getting safe supply prescribed drugs into the elicit market where they were now spending 60 bucks a pop for an oxycontent pill who recognized, you know what, it's cheaper to get heroin. And so then they started using heroin

and then the elicit market supply got poisoned with fentanyl. And so it is not opioids that are driving the overdose death. Yes, they contributed, but that's not the case. Well, I tend to disagree with you there, because most people that are hooked on opias start by consuming drugs that are prescribed to them medically. What drives these people to the use of fentanyl, methamphetamines, all these other dangerous drugs heroin is a fact that they become addicted,

the doctors cut them off, they don't prescribe these drugs for them anymore, and they run to the blood market, to the cartels, to the cartels to get their drugs illegally. Because they got cut off from a safe supply, because the DEA started enforcing the law in a fashion that drove legitimate pain patients. The research, my master's degree is actually in drug policy. It's not a master's in business. All the empirical research in the last few years shows very clearly the link between how we constrict, interdiction does not work because we constrict

drug supply on one side and it just balloons in another area. What we do is we play a trillion dollar game of whack-a-mole with the drug supply, and it's not working. And if we start talking about fiscal issues, and about how are we going to really impact and save people's lives, we have to recognize the failures of our current policy.

We're not winning the war on drugs, Kiki. And I'm tired of losing police officers, including Kiki Camarena, because he got killed when I was a young police officer. I remember his death. I remember it. Is we need to stop sending our cops into areas where we know it's a failure.

That, you know, that's, I think, the thing that really concerns me is this lack of reflection by our government guys that are willing to just throw the cops out there to solve societal problems that can't be solved from criminalization. There was a lot there. So there's a couple of things I want to do. One on opioids, we're going to come back to it that can't be solved from criminalization. There was a lot there. So there's a couple things I want to do.

One on opioids, we're going to come back to it because the exception to the rule, when you say a lot of people also weren't able to get access to oxytocin or Xanox or whatever the pain medication that they needed, my best friend and the world died from bichyden. And I took them to rehab for 14 days because the dentist was selling it to me, giving it to him because he was making money. So for every one story of somebody doesn't have access to, there's a hundred that are

being abused by doctors and many would agree with that. The numbers right there showed, if you can show the chart on opioids, right there on what it's looking like and what's happened the last few years, David, if we can go to it, this is how many opioids, deaths we can go to it, this is how many opioid deaths we used to have every year. Look at the spike from 2014, and you're talking during the Obama administration when the DA tried to crack it down to look where it's at right now

with the numbers that were having. I think even this last year, we crossed over 100,000, that's how we're talking, you saw that all over the place. But this is kind of where I want to go Hector with you. And then I want to go with you as well, just so the audience knows this. So number one, so the drug legalizing or keeping it illegal, right? Which ones do you worry about the most? Cause let's look at wheat, let's look at ecstasy, let's look at crack, let's look at cocaine, let's look at any of those things. Let's start off there first.

Which of those four concerns you the most? Actually, all of them because they're all very highly addictive. Fentanyl bothers me a lot because you could die on the first use of fentanyl. You don't have to be addicted and a lot of our children are dying. You know, they're all very dangerous, Patrick. These drugs are killer drugs. You can die from using these drugs. And they're so addictive that it's very, very hard

to be rehabilitated and be cured. You know, I don't have a problem with people using drugs. I don't think that people that use drugs should be arrested. I think these people should be treated. It should be rehabilitated. Okay. Okay. And I'm a DE agent.

I think it's wrong for us to arrest the victims of these drug cartels and any one of drugs. cocaine and heroin, anything. Exactly. I think that users have drug, whether it be heroin, cocaine, phytom, I don't care. I don't think the user should be incarcerated. I don't think they should be punished. I think they should be cured.

We should do more rehabilitated, incurring drug addicts. OK, so if I'm at a restaurant and I'm at Denys, I'm at Waffle House, I'm at Chili's. I say I'll have a cream you know, cream broccoli soup, they bring it to me, I bring the chicken, and I say, okay, thank you so much. And right there, I do a line of cocaine.

You're okay with that. Because you're saying I'm just doing a line of cocaine, I'm not selling, are you saying you're okay? I'm using that at a restaurant legally. I think I think you shouldn't be arrested. But let me answer that one, because this is where I think you and I are kind of on the same side. Let's take a look at Portugal. Portugal drug policy right now.

And I think here's the thing is we have to have this clear understanding. We in America don't understand what true decriminalization means. So in Portugal, they have decriminalized all drugs. Their public health agency has determined the amount of drugs that is perfectly legal for possession, right? X amount of days for this type of drug, for this type of drug, whatever it happens to be. If you're in Portugal and you're, you know, this type of drug, for this type of drug, whatever it happens to be.

If you're in Portugal and you're, you know, get that line of cocaine, you're still going to have a law enforcement initial contact, but the decriminalization in Portugal doesn't require you going to jail. It's a civil process. They give you a ticket, they take your drugs, they send you to a dissuasion court, which is non-coversive. And you show up in this dissuasion court in order to determine whether maybe you have a substance use disorder or not. And if you don't, they send you on your way and say, here is your 50-year-old fine. Now, one of the things that I think is really important, if you start looking at the empirical research and the science, like last year we arrested over 1.5 million people for some type of drug violation, right?

About 83% of those folks are for simple possession only. And then let's take a look at the empirical research. The empirical research will tell you that 80 to 90% of the people who are using drugs do not suffer from a substance use disorder. So right now we are churning people into the criminal justice system who don't need to be there, that we could deal with public health interventions in other ways. So under your example, yeah,

you're still gonna have a law enforcement contact. Exactly. But. And do what? You're gonna go to a dissuasion court. If we adopt a true decriminalization, like Portugal does, you would go to a dissuasion court

where there's no criminal penalties. You don't. Simply pay fine. You pay fine or they encourage you. And we've seen this results in Portugal. Very conservative, Catholic country. The reason they went to this is because their overdose rates was horrible. They've reduced their overdose death by 50%. They have reduced AIDS and HIV because people aren't sharing needles, and there's more people going into treatment.

And then you also have Switzerland that does heroin assisted treatment program under a prescribed model. right now in 2020 the Canadian police chiefs came out with a report, a white paper that basically says, in order for us to deal with our fentanyl illicit poison drug supply, I'm going to say that all the time because it's an illicit poison drug supply that is killing people right now, is that they recommend full decriminalization like Portugal, the introduction of safe supply, which is pharmaceutical grade for people who are suffering from opioid disorder, just like Switzerland does, and then expand interventions like overdose prevention centers,

safe supply, safe injection sites. So here's some stats that you to validate your point. Then in our portable drug decriminalization in 1999, they had 369 overdose. In 2016 was 30, in 2000, they had 907 HIV diagnosis through injection, now it's 18, 99. People incarcerated was 3863, 940, and 17. So question, how different is Portugal than Oregon?

You know, we don't have enough stats yet for Oregon in order to quantify this. You know, it is obviously Oregon past measure 110. And we'll see because I think that, you know, as much as I'm a firm believer in sensibly regulating all drugs because I'd rather have the government in charge of potency and the FDA and those, you know, officials. But full decriminalization like Oregon is done is I think going to be the wave of the

future, because even last night in President Biden's speech, for the first time we mentioned harm reduction. And for the first time, I think that we're actually going to be investing in public health interventions almost at the rate that we now do for supply site interdiction. That, but Portugal, legal as well. No. But they became very stringent with the manufacturers of drugs. They really controlled, I mean, otherwise they control the amount of drugs that these pharmaceutical companies were manufacturing and selling.

And so they totally didn't legalize drugs because you're still controlling the manufacturer production and sales, up dangerous drugs, even though they did decriminalize the use as the lady here has stated, but they didn't totally legalize it either. And that's the, what is decriminalization, what is legalization, what's sensible regulation. There's a continuum on the spectrum. And I think, you know, finding that, you know, that perfect fit. I don't think you're ever gonna see a heroin store

at the corner of, you know, fifth in Maine in America. But you will have heroin assisted treatment programs that are much more efficacious. So for example, in Switzerland, I mean, this is not anything new, is this is occurred across the world in many aspects. In Switzerland, heroin-assisted treatment programs, basically the empirical science directly reflected a drop in crime from people who were in the program. People got off welfare.

They integrated into their families, their communities. And so we know public health interventions long term are much more efficacious than using the hammer of the criminal justice system. So let's just say, so in your world, you would want all the drugs to stay illegal, is that what your world would be? Not necessarily, only those drugs that kill people. Okay, drugs that, that, also you would want the red meme, I think should be legal on it. So marijuana should be legal.

I'm not against it. Okay, so marijuana is legal because in the history only one person's death. Exactly. 2019, when the 39 year old died, and you know, that's the stat story that came out I think it's a newsweek story THO, THO, the first death met from marijuana exposure has been recorded in the United States According to the New Orleans advocate Corner Christie Montaguey has outlined how he believes a 39 year woman

Discovered death in her dead in her apartment died from vaping THC oil. Okay, so that's one. So ecstasy should it be legal or illegal? It should be illegal because ecstasy is a danger. It's drug. No, I'll disagree. Right now empirical research is shown. We are in third stages of clinical trial with MDMA. Legal regulated MDMA through an organization called Maps, where Ada has now been shown that MDMA, because it used to be legal in the 1980s when psychotherapists were using

before kids figured out how to make it on their own. And so we are in an FDA approved third clinical trial of the use of MDMA and psychedelics to treat PTSD, to treat, you know, in the life cancer. I mean, it's really amazing. And so I think here's the issue is every drug can be abused. Let's recognize that. And there's going to be different regulatory

fashions. Marijuana is going to be treated different than MDMA who will probably be FDA and available for, you know, use by therapists. And then you're going to have heron assisted treatment that may be prescribed by medical providers. So we have to look at the full continuum. But the whole scheduling of drug issue is just a manufacturing of danger that isn't necessarily the case. Marijuana is on schedule one for goodness sake. Here's a problem. The problem with stating that ecstasy should be legalized, marijuana should be legalized. The problem is when you make it legal, these these drug companies are going to make it more potent, Patrick. The marijuana that is being smoked now is not the marijuana that was smoked in the 60s and 80s by the hippies. The marijuana that was being smoked 60 years ago

by our hippies was 2% THC content. The on now that is being produced legally is 30% and above THC content. The same thing with ETC, once it's from a theoretical company, get a hold of this and this legal. They are going to make synthetic ETC, they're going to make ecstasy more dangerous and powerful. So, to say, let's legalize marijuana, let's legalize ecstasy because they don't kill people. But once these really money driven companies get a hold of the stuff. They're going to make him so poor, and they're going to try to make it addictive to drive the prices up. That is the problem, Patrick, is the fact that,

like I stated before, the marijuana that the hippies were smoking in 1960 is not the marijuana that is being sold now. The marijuana in the 1970s that I smoked a lot in high school, again, I was like the surprising, you know, be the police officer. Maui-Waui, which is basically was kind of what you're getting out of Humboldt now.

Tysticks that were imported that had that really super cool low-red line, that that's why they called them tysticks. You know, great weed that was coming out of other places. that have that really super cool low red line, that that's why they called them tie sticks, great weed that was coming out of other places. Yes, and this is why we want regulation because we should be able to cap THC levels and I think that's on governments that as- So then, so then you agree that they should

be totally legalized. Well, no, no, no. Because once you're regulated, you're not making them totally legal. No, but I don't think it should be. I'm not for anarchy. See, and again, I think this is the issue of let's define what legalization means. Let's say sensible regulation is a form of legalization because it allows adults to access things like cannabis, right? It would allow adults to access, you know, if you are suffering from cancer or from PTSD that you can go to a psychotherapist who can do a life-saving, you know, therapeutic treatment that's not available right now. I know that's whose lives, you know, been in an Afghanistan, blown up, suffering from terrific

PTSD, who have gone to other countries to do ayahuasca or other treatments and have come back, not necessarily 100% cure, but able to sustain a really good life. So then a question for you. So you think the individual should have the choice to have access to weed, ecstasy, cocaine, crack, all these drugs, heroin. So not a free-for-all. If you are suffering from a substance use disorder because you're addicted to heroin. There are modalities out there

that you should be able to access, which includes a safe supply of drugs, heroin-assistant treatment, therapeutic. So it depends on the drug. You know, our organization doesn't believe in anarchy, but we understand that the harms of criminalization is what's fueling the illicit market for violence. So, you're not saying legalizing all the drugs.

That's not what you're saying. I'm saying sensibly regulating, which is just another term for maybe legalizing, but it shouldn't be anarchy. There is... You keep saying anarchy, what do you mean by that? You can just walk in and buy, you know, methamphetamine wherever you want it.

So what should the way I buy methamphetamine is the same way I buy based on a doctor prescribing it to me? Where I can't just go to CVS and buy it off the counter. I mean, is that what happens? So your suggestion is to make it sensibly, not legal. What's the word you use? Sensibly regulated. Sensibly regulated is the same way I am prescribed vicar then.

It could be. It depends on the process. It depends on the drug. But you're not going to the mall and I just buy it. Correct. Okay, fair. Okay, so that's what you're. But cannabis, you can. Cannabis isn't. Cannabis isn't. Yeah.

So you know what it makes me think about then this goes kind of to you because of a point he made so So why is it that we're The death toll for legalized drugs is higher than illegal drugs. Let me unpack this And I want to ask you because he just made a good point and I was actually going to push it on you But then you flip that and I'm going to sure put it her. So opioids, okay. I mean, nowadays you want it, you get it, people are dying, it's going higher and higher. Now they're giving it to kids, kids are starting to take it. Now, I mean, I have four kids actually. Kids are not going through this. I lived in a city called Plano. The story of Plano, what it used to be is a whole story of what happened there with these kids

that were being handed drugs out and annexing, you know, anyways, that's a complete different story. But opioids is at a hundred thousand cigarettes. You know how many people died last year from cigarettes? 480. 480,000 people died from cigarettes yesterday. That's one in five, everybody, one in five deaths last year was tied to cigarettes. That's the number right there.

More than 480,000 deaths. Annually, from smoking and secondhand smoke. Okay, I mean, when you hear a statistic like that, Philip Morris, legal. You know, vikydin, zanx, all this stuff, legal. So, where I would say we need to make vikydin illegal, we need to make some of these things tougher to get a hold of that. Many of these guys that are drug dealers going to jail, some of these doctors should be going to jail for the work that they're doing. So this flips it that if we made it more easier to get accessible folks who are in sales, they're going to drop in packets off to the doctors and nowadays I can bribe the doctors. Hey, I'll give you 10,000 dollars speaking fee, 20,000 dollars speaking fee.

If you start prescribing this stuff, that's an additional income to the doctor. Doctors trying to make money to have his S500 parked outside. Next thing, you know, these pharmaceutical companies are doing advertisement on national televised networks. Oh my God, you know, and by the way, that a risk is because of death is who causes. But you should use it and they give a nice pretty face that's using it. So that could also, that's also a good point that if we do that, the marketers are going to go

out there and figure out a way to profit off of these things. So we're only one of two countries that allows, prescript the pharmacies to advertise on television. You're against it. I'm totally against pharmacists, or pharmacy companies, and corporate. But let's go back to this. Right now, in the United States, I'm sorry, you said one of two countries.

One of two countries. I can't remember. Can you pull up to the other countries? We're one of two countries that allow advertising. I don't think Canada should be advertised on TV. I don't think tobacco should. Or alcohol even. Right?

I see a lot. Here we go. Okay, so we're the only two countries, and I think that's part of the issue. Joe. Is Americans tend to think that popping a pill is going to solve everything, but I also don't think that making things illegal

stops people from trying something. You know what does? Public health interventions and education does. Look at what we've done with teen smoking is down. Like I just pulled and I'd have to go back and take a look at them, is the stats for drug use amongst teenagers? Like the kids are all right.

The sky isn't falling, they're not having sex, they're not smoking weed as much, they're not drinking, they're not smoking cigarettes, they're not using other drugs. I think we need to stop looking at. Is that because of you guys or because of smartphone and all of the stress? Who knows?

It's a budget. You know, we don't have kids getting pregnant as much as they used to because we taught them. You think that's what it is? I think there's a lot of different things, but I think that that harm reduction, you know, let's talk about those words, is really giving people the skills to critically analyze what they're putting in their bodies, whether it's a prescription. Look, I've had multiple surgeries.

I've had two broken ankle surgeries. I've had two knee surgeries. I have eight bulging discs in my neck and my back. I have used plenty of opioids. And I've had plenty of surgeries. I've had oxycontin. I'm really not the, or I'm more than the average person, is it's unusual for people to get addicted to opioids based on surgery.

Yes, it occurs, you know, but it's not as prevalent. And so, you know, we look at, you know, the fentanyl deaths, I'm going to go back. It's not pharmacy fentanyl that's killing people right now. It's Mexican cartel illicit fentanyl that's coming in from across our border. We can talk about fentanyl, excuse me, but the biggest mortality rate is caused by opiates. It's not fentanyl.

Yes, it's like nobody is- And what drives people to fentanyl is the fact that they become already addicted and once they become addicted and they can't get the drugs easily. That's when they run to the cartels who provides them with

fentanyl, meth, heroin, and what have you? So we have to look at statistics and reality here. The highest mortality rate of overdoses is not caused by fentanyl sweetheart. It's caused by opioids. Right now we have a, we're experiencing an opioid epidemic. We're losing over 70,000 Americans every year to opioid overdoses. It's a combination. It's, it's the poison drug supply by illicit fentanyl because the press pills a significant number of all the seizures

that are happening across the country show that's illicit fentanyl and that people don't know what they're buying. It's not, people are not taking a prescribed oxycotton that they've gotten in the street. That's a pharmaceutical grade pill. They're not dying from that. Some people do, but the majority is from a polydrug

overdosed death, a lot of it with illicit fetal. You know what I'm curious? Here's what I'm curious if you wanna pull it up. I'm curious to know, you know, in law, we know a lot of lawyers who lost their ability to practice law, happens all the time, right? A lot of lawyers who have lost it, how many doctors have lost their license

due to over, not what word would it? Over prescribing. Over prescribing opioids. Are you guys familiar with that? You hear is there a stance that you know about that? Well the the stats. Click on that link at the top. But even though every state is different, the DEA federally regulates the registration of drugs to prescribe, you know, these drugs. So it's not, I believe, a state situation. It's a federal situation where the DEA should be they're going after some of these doctors more aggressively. So here's a story. If you can, this is just that, just this.gov, former Albany physicians pays $125,000 for

overscribing opioids. Dr. James J. Cole's patients were prescribed high-level opioids and the Holy Trinity cocktail. Here we go. So hundreds of hours on opioids and controlled substances to patients, including one patient who died cold, also forfeited his prescribed privileges and his medical license.

I think this is actually good where DEA is getting involved here. And DEA registrants held a whole great responsibility and trust to keep cross-co-acting special agent in charge of the DEA New York division, this particular registrant, violent that trust in the settlement and place of demonstrates how DA and our law enforcement partners will continue to hold all resources, all sources of diversion in Campbell.

Okay, so what is, so let's go your route. Let's make everything illegal, okay. Okay. So I'm gonna give you the flip side of the argument to you and see how you're gonna answer this. Okay. I'm interviewing San M the flip side of the argument to you and see how you're gonna answer this. Okay I'm in over you in San Mito Bual, Gravano Okay, you know who he is. I don't really know right so I'm in over you in San Mito Bual, Gravano Which you know what he's done. He's killed 19 people went to jail. John God is the right hand guy at the under boss, etc etc

Okay, and I talked him about guns He says a person like me wants you to legalize guns. He wants you to make guns illegal. He says, you know why I want you to make you illegal? I said, why? He says, because the average person can't get it, but I'm always going to get access to guns. So I support you banning guns.

Think about the argument, Sam is taking. He wants guns to be illegal because he's still going to get it. He says the bad guy's going to find a way to get the guns, Sammy is taking. He wants guns to be illegal because he's still going to get it. He says, the bad guy is going to find a way to get the guns, right? Okay, so let me flip it on you with drugs. So let's just say we ban all drugs, okay? So the question then becomes access. Does that mean the guy in the inner city that's selling crack and mixing it or cocaine or X or whatever you want to call it, you don't think he's going to get access to sell it? You think the access is going to get harder for him?

Right. I want to make a same kind of analogy back to you. Sure. Do you think drug traffickers like Miles Hambala, El Mancho, a couple of us, do you think they want the US to make legalized drugs? Of course not. They want the drug to stay illegal. That's correct. Because they don't have to compete against the drug manufacturing companies.

They want it illegal because they're the only source now of drugs. I'm giving you the same analogy. Of course, a couple of us, the US, don't legalize drugs. Of course, I'll chop up who's Monday doesn't want the US to legalize drugs. Of course, my old son doesn't either. Because as long as they're illegal, their profits go sky high. So let's talk about, you just made my case pretty much. Both of you guys have just made my case is that who do we want control of the most dangerous substances? We've abdicated control. What you've described is exactly the anarchy we have right now

is the people who control drugs in the United States is not the government. We just play reactive ball to whatever the cartels are doing. And so we know, I've heard this, and this has been the standard mantra. We're arresting all these low-level drug dealers because we're working our way up to the kingpin, but we get the kingpin, and all we do is we fragment the market. And now there's a fight for that market share. And then you see the uptick in violence. So why are we allowing the worst actors who don't care about community health and safety to control that really dangerous market? I don't think it's going to make a difference. Let me explain why. So let's say you legalize it. Okay. What does,

what do politicians in a White House love doing? Their favorite day of the year is April 15th. Sure. They love increasing taxes. Okay. Exactly. So what happens if they increase taxes? So the same wheat I could buy that's legal from Walmart or CVS is always going to be 50% higher, 40% higher, than me being able to sell it illegally. So even if you legalize it, the drug dealer is going to still have the edge to sell it, have the price at the government selling because taxes are going to be increased. We still have moonshine. So let's just put this myth to bed that we are ever going to eliminate crime completely or drugs completely in our society. We're never even gonna eliminate the mafia completely.

We did a really good job once alcohol prohibition ended and then what we have to do is where I do agree with Kiki if let's do strategic policing and take out those actors that are causing the most harm in our society, right? But from a liberty perspective, as Americans, we are never going to be a crime-free society, we're never going to be a drug-free society, we're always going to have to deal with these issues. And so we have to look at policy in the sense of how do we mitigate the most harms without turning into a state where we're killing people in no-knock warrants over drugs or police officers are losing their lives. So did you have a response to her or what I said about taxes?

No, I agree with you totally that this is going to be tax, it's going to be expensive to buy the drugs, and the cartels are going to make them available at a cheaper rate. That's what's going to happen. You're going to have the cartels basically competing with the government. It's going to be tax-free. Yeah, because I mean, look, that's the drug dealers model. He's going to be like, look, how much are they charged

in a CVS? How much is that I walk? No problem. I'll give it to you for half the price because I'm getting volume and I'm bringing it for South or Central America. But let me go to a different place. Can you pull up the cigarette death stats by your just type in cigarette death stats by your I'm actually curious to

know what it looked like in the 80s 90s 2000s and where we are today because this is leading to a question based on what you said see if you can pull up stats I want to know by your I was talking about kids remember yes no I do I do know and we pull that up as well when we're talking Okay, so no do you have it by here? Okay, I want to know by your look how hard they make it to find a stat like this How hard should it be for me to find out how many people died every year by cigarettes because here's here's where I'm going with this Go back to go back to the last page you were so when's the last time of Hector or Diane was the last time we saw a cigarette commercial? Actually it's been to the 70s when we had the Marble Man, remember the Marble Man

who Marble Man and it was the camel with a camel Yeah, it must have been in the 70s that we last had to come watch. So that they use to push us commercials. Avionals. I know they did, but here's the thing. Even with the stoppage of the commercials from these cigarette companies, 480,000 people still died last year. That's right. So for me, is while we're trying to focus so much time on weed, you know, coke, fent, all

this stuff, and by the opioids, it's spiking. So we have to pay very close attention to that. Because it's too much of an explosive, an optic that they have, you know, stop and add from cigarettes didn't stop. What makes this thing stop and ask from pharmaceutical companies is going to work. You know, in these opioid companies that's going to work because it definitely didn't work for cigarettes. People are still dying.

480 died last year. Because we as humans always are going to try to alter our minds in some aspects. We've had, we've smoked tobacco for hundreds of years. We've done psychedelic drugs. If you go back and look at indigenous populations, is they found marijuana in China, is we are never going to have the perfect, healthy human being who is not going to want to alter themselves in some fashion.

You know, coffee gives me my pump in the morning. Sometimes I have a glass of wine in the evening to calm down. And so, again, I start looking at public health interventions. And what you're talking about is a very small percentage of our society. And I'm not saying we write people off, but in 1914, when the Harrison Tax Act was first filed and opioids became illegal in the United States.

There was a study that reflected that 1% of the U.S. population at that time suffered from some type of substance use disorder relative to opioids. Do you want to know what the percentage today still is? It's about 1% of the population. So it's again about our fiscal resources. You know, Rand in 1996, Keke, you'll remember this report, Rand, Rand Corporation, not known for its liberal tendencies, did a report that basically analyzed marijuana and cocaine and what treatment modality would work better. Supply site interventions or treatment

like public health treatment, drug treatment. And what Rand found out in 1996 that for every dollar invested in treatment, it returned seven times the dollar back to the taxpayer. So the taxpayer, every time a woman was arrested, seven dollars for every dollar. So the taxpayer, for every dollar, for every dollar. So every time that someone entered treatment, for every dollar spent on drug treatment, for cocaine or marijuana back then, is the taxpayer saved $7 for each of those dollars invested. And so we know that public health interventions are smarter sense from a fiscal perspective, make more sense than criminalizing people.

So you love California recently. So California, do you know what the price it is to incarcerate a prisoner in California prisons right now per year. Can you even guess? $55,000. $100,000. $108,000 I think almost to be exact. For one prisoner in a California prison per year.

Over six figures, if we took that money and used that money as early intervention money, we would be much better off than throwing someone in jail. So we, we in American justice, we throw people away. And that's why I do the work that I'm doing. My brother died from a polydrag overdose. He was criminalized because he had mental health issues and he was bipolar. And I saw the complete and abject failure of our system both personally and professionally.

Every time we'd go on doing undercover buy and arrest someone, there'd be 100 more people that were using drugs. Every time we arrested a dealer, there'd be 10 more dealers. It's, there has to come a point where we address the issues both from a fiscal perspective and from an empirical science, what is best to mitigate the harms of horrible criminal justice interventions that, you know, the collateral consequence of a criminal conviction will destroy people's lives. And then just throw them back into the criminal justice system

because it makes them a better crook. Well, to your point, is it called Wackenhurst? I don't know if you call it Wackenhurst. That's not true. That's not true. The collection of Geo Group. There are a reed. There's a real real estate investment trust

where they are funded by taxpayers, people like you and I, where they build prisons, and this is a free, you know, they build prisons, but it's private prisons that they build. They do it in US, South Africa, UK, and one other place, I believe they do, Australia, is where they build it. These four places that they build, it's a multi-multi-billion dollar conglomerate at this point, they just keep building prisons because it's a four places that they build. It's a multi-multi-billion-along glamour at this point. They just keep building prisons

because it's a business model that they have, right? So there is also a group that wants this thing to continue because it's a very profitable. I think Nusom and Trump, that is one area that they're on the same page with. Trump was also against it, where they wanted to look at it, as well as Nusom said, he stopped and funding to Gio.

I believe that was a two years ago. Yeah, and the private prison industry is a blip on the government prison industry. It's absolutely worth not having and making certain people don't profit off the criminal justice system in that fashion, because from the private prison industry, which is really interesting, is the negotiate contracts that's based on a capitated rate that you're gonna pay for every bed whether it's filled or not. So, of course, you know, it's gonna make money.

And their professionalism for staff, I mean, you got private prison groups in Arizona, in particular, that have basically the medical treatment of prisoners has been called horrific. Just horrific. We've tried it here. So what is the solution? So let's talk both for solutions.

So at this point in the game, we know cigarettes kills the most. Then you got opioids, then you're dealing with cocaine. We pulled up XC by the 82 people died last year from XC. Right. Nothing. That's nothing. That number.

Obviously, those families are not happy. Each of those deaths is a lot to the family that lost it. But comparable to the other stat, it is not a big number. Cocaine is 19,447 last year. And it's climbing. If you look at that number, it's not slowing that. It's climbing. So what is the solution and it's not slowing down, it's climbing. So what is the solution? What is the right approach to this?

I'll go to you first. I think the right approach is to decriminalize possession of drugs. Don't arrest the victim. We should decriminalize it. However, we should put stronger controls on drug manufacturer, stronger controls so that they will not in and data with legal drugs so that they will not make these drugs more potent and more dangerous, which they have to put three controls and also to more aggressively investigate and enforce laws on this physicians that are

prescribing these drugs. I believe that a strong enforcement of regulating of these companies that produce drugs, basically controlling very strongly. Also, enforce the laws against these pharmaceuticals that are making these drugs more potent. And force laws against these doctors that are prescribing these drugs. And please stop punishing the victims, stop punishing the drug users. Why are we fielding our deals with the victims of the cartels? Another solution would be, is to maybe be stronger in enforcing laws against international drug terrorists. I believe that when we arrest or capture these drug cartel

overlords that are in and date in our country with very dangerous drugs, I think the penalty should be stiffer than what they are right now. I think we should seek them out, find whether or not, actually that of the United States and be very, very strict on them close to the death penalty. Closer to the death penalty. Yes sir. Okay Diane. A couple things. The current global elicit market trade has been pegged at $360 billion. It's $360 billion that's fueling death, disease, addiction, and violence, not just in, Hector, and especially the part about someone who

possesses drugs, whether they have a used disorder or not should never set foot in a jail in the United States of America ever. And I think as we work towards the future of policing is we need to be more strategic. And then down the road, we need to really look at outcomes and empirical research and evidence. And I'm just going to always go back to it as we know that criminalizing people who use drugs doesn't stop them from abusing drugs. Every country that has abolished palinilties or lessened penalties has not seen an increase

in either crime or substance use disorder. And so I think that there's a smart way of doing this if we start at a minimum with decriminalization, and then we assess how to better regulate and who's going to regulate the drugs. And so I don't wanna see commercialization of drugs as Hector has talked about. I think that's really important, and I think our government needs to,

our public health, the FDA, health and human resources. SAMHSA needs to be the people that are determining what that policy looks like from a public health perspective. And not law enforcement. We've done a terrible job relative to the drug where it's been in total and abject failure. Has your position always been the same or did it change when you went in from the mid-80s in 1983-34 to the point where you retired in 04. You know what? I always, well, first of all, I got hired despite my extensive, you know,

marijuana use as a kid. Like, I stopped at the end of high school and then, you know, three years later, I get hired as a cop. And, you know, it did change over the years and I think where it finally changed was when I was a sergeant running a seven man multi agency task force drug surveillance team where we were doing meth labs and doing undercover buys where I saw just like the complete futility of what we were doing every time you know when we would arrest a real bad guy, I'm not talking about an narcotics dealer who's potentially a real bad guy, but, you know, like someone who's committing burglaries

or someone who's committing robberies because we did both career criminal and narcotics work. You saw a drop in crime in a community. When we arrest drug dealers or people who possess or use drugs, it doesn't stop anything. And so I want us to use our limited fiscal resources to go after people who are shooting people. Violent drug dealers.

And not drug dealers? If they're shooting someone, they need to be arrested. No, if they're not shooting someone, they're just selling. You know what, it depends, low level sustenance drug dealers. My brother was one of those, as he sold low levels of drugs, because that's how he got his heroin, at the end of his life. My story is super complicated, because I've seen both kind of the personal and the professional side, and ultimately my brother died of an overdose and

When was that what year was 2007? That change any Feelings opinions or was it already the same before oh seven? I think it was the same before oh seven because I saw the futility so My brother for example had been a person in recovery for 20 years Like in his early 20s when I was a young police officer, he had some criminal justice issues, is the best way of describing it. And then he became, he got his act together and he moved out of LA County and in Torrance County and he was in recovery for 20 years.

And then he lost his job, he lost access to his psychotropic meds. He lost access to, you know, his health care, and he went back to self-medicating. And so I saw the criminal justice system from a real distinct perspective because he got arrested for like, God, one tenth of a gram of methamphetamine and I walked in to court with him. It was very striking and hectoral, what Orange County demographics looks like. So, San Ana Court and although I'm Mexican, my brother and I both look white and I walked in, recently retired, Lieutenant and had twenty letters of recommendation for my brother, had a drug rehabilitation place set up for him. He volunteered at homeless shelters

and he sponsored people. I mean, he had his troubles, but he was a good guy. And I walk in with this great package, walk up to the DA and say, I don't want anything except for what my brothers do, which is deferred entry adjudgment for this. And she popped open a case file, goes back to a 20-year-old conviction, 20 over 20 years, and says, no, I'm sending your brother to stay prison for 18 months to three years.

And I remember this distinctly, because this was like an epiphany. And I turned around and I looked and every face in that courtroom, but the judge, the DA, the bay lift, and my brother and I, although we were Mexican, were all people of color, black and brown people. And the difference between my brother and everyone else in that courtroom was I could afford to hire my brother in attorney. Because I knew how the system worked. And when I was working gangs, I remember this one family that I worked with for a long time, helped get a job, got the mom in parenting classes,

did the kids, got them out of the gang. I always remember this one moment when Julia said to me, you know, officer Goldstein, you don't understand what it's like to be without resources. And I got it that day. And then my brother died three years later. And I started doing the advocacy work that I did.

He got out. Did he get out when he died or did he? No, no. My brother did not go to prison. He didn't do the 18 to 30. I hired an attorney. Okay. And because I knew exactly what he was entitled to, and I told the DA, he won't need a public

defender. We're just going to ask for an extension because I'm going to go get an attorney. And he got deferred entry a judgment and he went to drug court. But then he failed drug court because drug court, we rely on this abstinence only model that is not evidence-based either, right? So, but that's kind of in the nutshell, that's what changed. You know, I saw both the professional and the person. I've had police officer friends, if we've been killed.

You know, it's, you know, it's a real hard position to be in when we talk about how we dissent and how we talk about policy. But we do agree more than we disagree, don't we? Yes, we agree in a little part. I'll tell you the very right. I don't know if I'm the audience. I still know what you're suggesting is the solution moving forward.

I think what we're suggesting is that we need to start by simply decriminalizing like Portugal does. We need to sensibly regulate certain drugs like we're doing with cannabis. We need to allow harm reduction interventions like safe injection facilities that get people into treatment. What New York is doing? What New York is doing is saving lots of lives.

California we're working on a bill. We need to have access to syringe exchange programs to fetnal testing strips. We need to look at how an assisted treatment. There's, and it's not an either or, that's the issue. This is not an either or question, and people, oh, we try to peg drug policy, you're either legalized or you don't. It's not. So I have certain areas on the left that they have good arguments, the right that asks the right questions, and then in the middle, right. So one of the things the right will say is, if your policies are so good, why is all the

left-leaning cities and states that are ran by liberals have the highest homelessness, highest drug addicts, and the highest crimes. That's been debunked. Go look it up, go Google it. Which cities? Like Baltimore is ran by the United States. There are other cities. I swear I just saw this is there are other cities. I swear, I just saw this. There are other cities in conservative areas that have that are having the same type of issue. This is not a liberal person. This is an article that's written by CNN and MSNBC. And it's Fox. It's not like it's a little lore.

I'd have to find the article and look at it. Yeah, well, if you say something like that, you say it, you have to back it up with what we can get it. But I know that I know I've read it because this was supposed by friend or was it a credible source? No, this was a credible source. There was actually some statistics that basically kind of debunked that it's only liberal cities with liberal mayors with liberal policies that are having this issue

I think things are much more San Francisco go look at San Francisco go look at New York go look at LA go look at Chicago Chicago is a housing No, I'm specifically talking to you about I'm talking to you about crime homelessness and drugs Why is it that because I can't have seen homelessness? Because I listen to your policies and the average person can sit there and say, wow, heartfelt. I totally relate. Which one of us hasn't lost somebody to drugs or hasn't had somebody that maybe gone to jail that was, you know, the criminal justice system didn't give them. I don't, I come from a father who was a 99 cents store guy my mom went back to Iran I joined the army of a broke kid I don't have any money so I'm around that all the time is in Armenia you ran

into a lot of Armenia's a Glendale so you know what Armenians know for but what some of them have a reputation for but when you look at some of these cities why these policies that sound so oh my god Why these policies that sound so? Why these policies that sound so, you know, sweet and gentle and kind, why does it produce the most unsafeest cities in America? I don't, you know, because crime is incredibly complex and I think part of the issue is four years, And I think part of the issue is four years, is our legislators have basically not invested in preventative programs that are more efficacious in stopping crime than law enforcement. We wait until crime is out of control, and then we want the cops to solve it. So let's talk about mental health issues.

We don't have enough resources in mental health, behavioral health, for people that can't afford it. Do you know what the average cost of a drug rehabilitation is? 30, 40,000 a month in a good one. Most people can't afford that. Our health care system is not set up to support and uplift people who are in drug treatment. I got a lot of batteries, by the way, so if I'm on my phone, I'm on the surgeon stuff. Yeah, good.

So, you know, I think it's a combination. You know, it's jobs, it's housing, it's all sorts of different things. And I'm not saying that people who are homeless, who commit crimes, should not be held accountable. If you hurt someone, you should go to jail. If you steal from someone, you should be held accountable. But we should also be looking at the criminal justice system that if you break into someone's car,

because you need money to go buy a list at heroin, then as part of that accountability, breaking a someone's car because you need money to go buy a list at heroin. Then as part of that accountability, we should expand treatment courts because right now we don't. Right now we cherry pick drug courts. And we only allow the people in there who are gonna be the most successful.

You know, again, going back to it, you know, my mother's a grew up to a communist and a dad's an imperialist. This is why I said my whole life has been a story of debates. That caught him. Yeah, that's the point. That's why I love it. I think we need more of that. By the way, I respect you guys tremendously that are willing to have this conversation because

again, the audience is winning. But if you look at numbers, if you just go and look at crime rates, and then you go to those cities and states, okay. So, California, highest taxes in America, you got all this tax money you're getting from all these billionaires. Why don't you, what are the liberal policies? You have decades to fix it. How come you haven't? It's a lot of status. Okay, so then you go to New York. Okay, New York, you've had liberal governors. You've controlled the state. You have to, one of the top five highest taxes in America. You have the billions of dollars and people are leaving your state because they're not feeling safe. Why don't you do something about it?

You got Illinois. You got all these top businesses. You top five state in America would fortune 500 companies. You're in the top five of the most headquarters in Illinois. How do you not fix these issues with all these taxes? So then the speculation with the average voter is going to come out and say, as much as you say, let's hire more people and the government to be in charge of this, I don't trust how the government uses money. They've been wasting my dollars for a long time.

I'm sorry, Diane. You sound sweet. Good argument. I just don't trust for my money. It's going to go. You know, I don't disagree with you in some ways, because I'm kind of like a, you know, social, I'm a fiscal conservative,

and I'm a social libertarian. And I can't disagree with you in a lot of what you say relative to that issue. As I think that You know, I have a love hate relationship with government also because of some of those failings, but but I think we have to dig back and we have to as constituents as taxpayers We have to demand more from our politicians and from a public safety, like a community health and safety perspective, we've long advocated input into the criminal justice system to the so-called policing professionals.

And the policing professionals also have real entrenched interests. There's the same type of profit interest in policing that there is in geo-private for profit prisons. In a word, right. Civil asset forfeiture reform. You know, why is that that we in government right now can take your money without a criminal conviction just because we have a dope dog that walks up and alerts on it. And so there's that. I mean, you look at, there was a city in Alabama that recently, there was this big article, I think was in the Washington Post,

where they were telling people's cars and finding people to such an excess that it finally became this issue. So there was this policing for profit issue. You know, we have to take profit out, both from commercialization of drugs, but also from government. We shouldn't be profiting off a taxpayers.

We shouldn't be profit in off taxpayers. So then the question comes to accountability. Yep. So how you hold people, we give our tax money to accountable. By the way, case study, which state would you say is doing it right? If you were to say this state is doing it right, you know, and for example, just a year and a half ago, I'm in Texas.

Because I moved from LA 20 some years, minus the time I was in the Army to Texas. I put my headquarters in Texas for one reason. It's three hours from anywhere and I was traveling six months out of the year. So it was an easier port to go to love or for port. It was fantastic. Taxes was low, low regulation felt good about the schooling for my kids, so I felt comfortable. A year and a half ago my wife and I are talking about moving back to Newport. We want to go back to not back to Newport. I've never lived in Newport, but we want to go to Newport. I always like the city, I like the restaurants,

I like the school, let's go to Newport. So we go to LA and we see the homelessness. My dad lived in Grenade House, I said, Dad, we never had homeless people here when I lived here. Spike. So then we're thinking about moving to Greenwich, going to New York, so we go to New York, we go to Greenwich.

What the hell is going on here? Exactly. So then we looked at Nashville, okay, because I used to live in Nashville when I was in the army for a camel Kentucky. And then we looked at Tampa and then we looked at Fort Lauderdale. We used to come here every summer to take our kids and we had a good time. So I said, let's come down here. We came here because we saw the least amount of homelessness, safer, good for business, lifestyle. So it's as if California and Texas had a baby,

it would be Florida. That's what it would be. But we have to look at who's doing it right and kind of use that as a case study. Who would you say that is? Hi, you know, when you start talking about just drug policy, it's not Florida. Oregon, you know, I'm waiting to see the assessment of Oregon.

California has really screwed up the cannabis regulation. We're treating it like plutonium and we're overtaxing it. That's my libertarian tendencies coming out and that's propping up the illicit market. So it's complicated. I live in Nevada now, though, my policing career and I grew up in California and it's complicated. I live in Nevada now, though, my policing career, and I grew up in California, and it's funny you mentioned, as I'm looking to move out of Nevada, because I need water and ocean,

and I'm looking at Florida or like Nashville, Tennessee. Right? And so I don't think there's any state that's perfect around any one particular issue. It's just different. Yeah, the the way we're going, is it fair to say that America lost the war on drugs? Oh, yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I agree with that, yes. We have lost the war on drugs. We did. We do more damage than could. Would you say, is it more damage than could or would you say it's not really any much of a difference good or bad? It's really that much of a good or bad. However, I believe that, you know, that governments being responsibility is to protect its citizens.

That should be government's number one priority, but by being lax on crime and by not going after the drug manufacturers that are producing these very dangerous drugs on one hand and I go in after the major drug cartels. I don't think we've gone after them as aggressively as we should Patrick. I think that these cartels that are up or in other Mexico, up or in other China, that these cartels that are operating out of Mexico, operating out of China. I think we should really go after them because they are becoming stronger, bolder, and they are actually controlling

their governments in those countries. I mean, there's no secret. The cartels are in control of the Mexican government. When the Mexican government and the Mexican soldiers arrest Chappacus Monson and the cartels tell them the Mexican government or you release him or we'll kill all of you guys and they release him. What does that tell us? Week. Plato pluma. Right? Plato pluma. Exactly. So basically that at that point, you know, I think we should do something. Look at the LeBron massacre where the Cinaloa cartel executed nine family members that were traveling from the US to attend a women in Mexico. They burned three

American babies that were in baby chairs. They lit fire to the cars shot and killed six kids and three and three ladies, a dog. There was no males in the, the male in the Conway. That's the time we should do something. Know what is, what, what, what do we do? We go to the Mexican government and say, hey, what are you gonna do about that a brown family massacre?

We need to do something about it. We need to go out to take on the cartels. What is the president of Mexico answer? No, we don't want to know what war against the cartels. We're gonna save the bro, probably here with our brosles, not by loss. Well, that was his answer. Yeah. We're gonna we're gonna hug these cartels. We not going to get it out of shoot at them. What kind of an answer is that? How to hold does that make any sense? It doesn't make any sense. That's what the President makes the call,

Lopez Rural, answered to our President here who said, he suggested that we send Marines and seals in and do what way with a cartel, see what's so upset. Well, I don't think we should invade other people's countries. I, you know, I think we ought to really look at how we reduce people wanting to use drugs in our own country and in addition, be smart on crime and do strategic policing. You know, it's, again, this, you know, this is a nuanced, complex problem that the violence in Mexico, I think, is directly attributed to our policies for many years. Drug prohibition has done this.

We saw this without call prohibition, you know, and so I had a so I pulled a quote from August Volmar, who was the police chief, that professionalized policing at a Californian Berkeley. He was on the Wickersham Commission, this is like the early 1900s. He was the father of policing. And still today, the International Association of the Chiefs of Police has a famous August Volmer forensic award. He started fingerprinting and beat cops and track the cops and required cops to have bachelor's degrees.

I mean, he was really cutting edge back then. And he said this about drugs. Like prostitution and like liquor, drug use was not a police problem. It has never been and never can be solved by the policeman. And I think that that quote really ascribes to the complexities of morality policing in some aspects, the United States, a lot of our policing is based around morality and not around empirical evidence and how best to emerge science and health and strategic policing to encourage community health and safety. Complex, isn't it?

Well, you know, for me, you know, my dad told me, you go to prison once, you're going to go twice. I said, tell me why. He says, because you're going to school. That's why. That's right. You're going to school. When you go to prison, you're going to learn how to get creative and come into other crimes.

That's all it is. It's a university. It's a crime. I agree with that. And that's why he meant you're going to go back. Not the fact that a man cannot change. Correct. It's the fact that a man is going to place to be trained, just like you put a man in a group. So to me, you know, it always goes to the same thing to me. I look in our cities as where drug dealers focus on, right? And you said you're in court with your

brother and you look around everybody is brown or black, right? And you know, that they're using that. I mean, you look at drugs, me being where I was at, I saw who was using drugs. The stats on crack cocaine, 55% of usage of crack cocaine is whites. However, the black American, African American population is 12.2%, but is 35.8% usage, which is 3.5 times the white. So why are drug dealers targeting certain groups and ethnicities? Why are they going after certain groups?

What is it for? Is it lack of education? Is it lack of support? Is it lack of why target that? Are they in a target that's easily to persuade? I think no, not at all. I think socioeconomic factors are the result of so much of that. Poverty, class, education, over enforcement.

Law enforcement has over police communities of colors for years, because it maybe was easier for us. Drugs are still, we arrest more people for drugs in our country than we do for property crime or violent crime or rapes. And so I know from our history, and I'm just talking about my policing experience because much different than yours, Hector, and you know, big kudos to what you've done. And I think policing is an absolute noble profession, right? Is that we tend to use the easiest way to solve a problem versus looking at strategic issues long-term. And what's forced us to do that is not that police

officers are lazy in any way, shape, or form, is that politicians put too much on law enforcement to solve. And back to your point, you know, it's the politicians that need to enact policies that should have outcome studies to see if that law works, right? You know, is what we're doing effective? How better do we assess our economic policies and our education policies and everything else? What I've seen is that the poor people, the people who live in the ghettos and in the varios, okay?

I'm more susceptible to using drugs because they don't have money to go to vacation in Hawaii. They don't have money to go vacation in the Bahamas. Their form of escape, escaping their poverty, their suffering is to drug use. That's their vacation. Trauma. And after a while they take too many vacations and they become addicted. So I saw it.

When I was undercover, I would see drug addicts come to the drug dealer that I was trying to buy heroin from, offering his wife to have sex with a drug dealer because he needed a fix and he didn't have money. I saw that and I thought this is crazy. Trauma. But I think that's the other big issue is we have a lot of trauma in our societies in many different ways. I recently read a study about, because let's talk about an uptick in violence in the last year and what's causing that. And I can't remember what the researcher was. That basically really ascribed some of the uptick and violence to an uptick and drug market violence, right?

Maybe it was a study out of Philadelphia in particular, but we don't treat trauma very well in our society. And some of it has to do, I think, with the American philosophy of, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstrap, and not everybody can do that. And, you know, there are policies in our country that have created systemic criminal justice issues. We over-police communities of color, You know, we've redlined them. There's poverty. There's lack of healthcare, access, disparities. There's a lack of grocery stores

and good food. You know, we take that for granted sometimes. You know what it would it makes me think about. Here's what it makes me think about. When I was coming up and my parents got a divorce, I'm getting nothing. It was almost as if the political leaders looked at me and felt sorry for me. And they felt that that's all I have. And that's where I came belong. Here's some food stamp.

Here's some lunch ticket. I'm a lunch ticket kid. I grew up with lunch tickets. I grew up with food stamps. I'm the guy that would go to welfare office in Glendale right by Raffi's place and I would pick up the stuff and come back and we'd be in lines. But I wonder if some of these politicians even want to help the poor get out of the poor into middle income without the government assistance on helping them to realize you also

got dreams. You can go out there and do some stuff. But the dream doesn't mean being a millionaire. Dreams means you creating a small little business or having a little job that you're doing good for yourself. Why not? Why don't politicians try to educate people on how to manage their finances,

how to get better with money, how to get better with certain minds, how to address some of the generational curses that families have been dealing with, whether it's drugs, gambling, alcohol, gangs, abuse and alcohol, gangs, you know, abuse, and families would marriage with women. These are things that continue happening, and it's a certain level of limiting beliefs on certain communities that you buy into.

I'm Armenian, I'm supposed to be this. I'm a Syrian, I'm supposed to be this. I'm Mexican. I'm Salvadorian, so MS-13. I'm black, I gotta be business. I'm this, it's so much of those limiting beliefs injected constantly, affirmations on the community that you're like, this is my identity. No, it's not. You have to ask the politicians. That's where it goes.

So that's where it goes. That's where it goes. Because, you know, I don't know what it is to be raising a rich family where we can pick and choose what the university got. Not of us to here, right? We want to raise it. I'm very more. Yeah, so, right. So, so the idea is to get you out, not stay in. I wonder if sometimes politicians want to get you out or keep you to get your damn vote every four years or every two years. There's certain people that also, this whole term limit stuff that we got people staying politics for four years. I two years. There's certain people that also, the sole term limit stuff that we got people

staying politics for four years. I don't trust people that are on politics more than 20 years. I don't need people on politics every one of their years. I think 10 years, I think everybody somehow should give back to their country through church, charity, politics, and service. Choose one of those, give back. But maybe go be a councilman, maybe go be something for two, four years, eight years?

Leave. Go to your thing. This is how it used to be. Now it's career. Now it's let me go land the best selling book. And because of that, let me give up this other free thing. And communities get hurt. And the division continues happening.

Lobby is behind closed doors are getting laws being passed for those big companies that can allow. Yeah. So I think you're right. I think it is the politicians that are in charge of the policies they create to be held accountable to. And yeah, I make sense. The hard part is all three of us in many aspects share probably a lot of similarities. And the other thing we share is luck also. And I think that for a lot of people in our society, sometimes there is no luck.

We managed. I had a successful career. I'm the executive director. I do a lot of great stuff. Publish the book. Everybody go out and buy a book it's a great book um you know you look where you're at and I think we have to account for both our hard work and our luck sometimes I will tell you this okay even if that would you say majority of it is hard work?

Yes, you cannot tell me it's 80% like 20% hard work. I think it's, yeah, I'm not just counting that at all, but I also think it was a different era when we grew up, like, you know, law enforcement. You know, the sergeant who hired me was also the sergeant who chased me back when I was a teenager. What a great story. No, it was. It was absolutely hilarious. That's great.

You know, but the criminal justice system and the interventions were much different back then. You know, like, you know, there was much more of the recognition of, you know, people make mistakes. And we should have second chances. You mean we're more forgiven? Yes, we were. We were, with a society issue, I believe, identify those that are addicted to drugs, identify them and try to get in some help. Think of all the children that grow up

with addict moms, abs and fathers, okay? What future do they have? Seriously, I think we need a society to identify all of the people that are suffering from drug abuse, stop arresting them, stop arresting them. Let's try to get in some help. My libertarian tendencies kind of cringe what I wear them. Serious. Because think of the suffering of the children. No, I get it, but I still have these libertarians tendencies where it's like, you know what, that's not what America,

we can't identify people because we're really bad on putting people on lists and not treating people on lists. I'm not saying I did it by the end of the day. We can help them, not to arrest them or arrest them. I know, but we, yeah, I just, I think that there's non-corrosive ways of being able to give people access to public health interventions that are more beneficial than putting them on a list. But I don't disagree with the intent.

You're right. Well, thank you. I think the audience wants to, folks, if you're watching this, I'm actually curious. I'm going to read your commentary. If you can comment below how you would fix it. Like, what are some of your ideas? Really, I'm actually curious, I'm going to read your commentary. If you can comment below how you would fix it. Like, what are some of your ideas? Really, I'm curious. What are some of your ideas on how to address this?

Is it on the family? Is it on the community? Is it on the politician? Is it on law enforcement? Is it state? Is it federal level? Who is it? Is it corporations?

Who is the one that it starts off with? And then who do we go all the way up to, to hold accountable with these issues that we're having with drugs, Hector? Thank you for taking the time and flying out here, Diane, you as well, this was fantastic. It was great hearing your point and yours, and also hearing where you guys agree as well.

I have a feeling this conversation is gonna continue, it's not to go away. I should have next few years. Thank you. This is going to become an issue, but it was great having you guys on. Thank you for coming to me. Oh, pleasure. It was really enjoyable.

Nice meeting you. I told you I charmed you. Yes, you did. Have a good one, folks. We'll see you guys next week. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye bye bye.