Will Cain Country - The Marijuana Myth: Psychosis, Violence, and the Truth with Alex Berenson

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Year after year, state after state, the presence of marijuana crept into the everyday lives of Americans. At what point has it crept too far? Alex Berenson, Author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence joins Will to discuss marijuana’s growing presence in America, sharing some of the most common misconceptions and potential dangers about the drug, how it differs from alcohol, and where public perception and science part ways regarding its health effects.Later, Will and The Crew discuss their own thoughts about marijuana and share their favorite moments from Robert Duvall, who passed away last Sunday at the age of 95.Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@willcainnews⁠⁠⁠)Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let the English play Hamlet, King Lear. Give me Augustus McCray. Rest in peace. Robert Duvall. A peculiar thing has happened. More and more Americans are using THC, are using marijuana. Suddenly, those who proclaimed it the mark of freedom are warning against the risk. to your brain, to your mind, now of marijuana.

Wilcane Country streaming live at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel, the Wilcane Facebook page, available as always on demand at Spotify or on Apple. Augustus McCray is the greatest character in the history of American literature and cinema. We've long since past the days of Augustus. McRae, but the man who played him, the man who in my mind gave us the greatest performance in America has now left, Robert Duvall. We're going to talk about Gus, we're going to talk about Harry Hogg, we're going to talk about Tom Hagan, we're going to talk about the greatness of Robert Duvall.

And the fraudulence of the man running for Senate in the state of Texas, James Tala Rico, and the utter embarrassment of the leaders among Democrats. to be your president in 2028, AOC, Gavin Newsome, illiterate, and unable to read a map or the globe. But a peculiar thing has happened. Marijuana has become so socially acceptable that almost everyone we know at some point uses THC. And that was encouraged in no small part by popular culture. And in some parts, science, medicine, and journalism. A few years ago, the New York Times wrote as an editorial,

Let States Decide on Marijuana. In that editorial at the time, they stated that there are no real health noticeable, evidentiary, health risks to marijuana use. Some seven, eight years later, the New York Times has now published an op-ed with the title, It's Time for Americans to admit that it has a problem with marijuana. Over 18 million Americans use THC more than 21 days a month. And there's increasing evidence that it has connections to psychosis, to mental health issues.

And that is no surprise to my next guest, who has written about this, who's written a book entitled, Tell Your Children, The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. It is independent journalist Alex Berenson, who joins us now on Will Kane Country. What's up, Alex? Well, it's great to talk to you. You know, we got in a couple minutes, yes, last week on Fox, but I'm glad we can have a longer conversation. And I'm glad to hear you mentioned Tom Hagan because that was a great, great role for Robert Duval. I have an interesting piece of sound I want to play for the audience a little bit later, where Robert Duval talking about his part as Tom Hagan and the Godfather actually criticizes the performance of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone.

And it's a really fascinating criticism. It's deep. It's philosophical. It's unique. It's individual. It's that he played Vito Corleone as too saintly, too heroic. And that's not true to the nature of who those men were that ran the mafia. And it's really interesting to see him offer up that criticism. In a way, he kind of foreshadowed what we'd one day see the portrayal of Tony Soprano. These guys weren't just, in the words of Robert Dahl, administrators like the CEO of DuPont. They were capable of horrible one-on-one violence. I mean, we didn't come here to talk about the Godfather, but it is interesting in the Godfather, too, how much darker it gets and how Tom Hagan is sidelined. And, you know, and how Pacino ultimately, you know, Michael sends him away. But because I do think that that in those movies, you see the tension between the, you know, the guy who wants to try to do the right thing and the power of evil. But, I mean, this is a different conversation, but an interesting one. Well, I don't think this one we have to walk away from just yet because it's interesting.

I want to play this clip about Duval. He's sitting in an interview. It looks like in the 1990s with Bob Costas. And he says, Brando believed or had said that there really was no moral difference between the CEO of DuPont and the godfather of a. Italian crime family. And Duval took great exception to that. He said, I'm not suggesting that every man who runs an American, you know, Fortune 500 CEO is a saint.

But there's a difference between that and a man who is capable of putting a bullet in your head. And if you can't see that difference, you can't see distinctions in morality. And he disagreed with the way ultimately. He said Brando's a great actor, but I disagree with the way that he chose to play that character. We never saw that darkness inside. of Brando. We only really saw Vito Corleone as an administrator, perhaps an administrator of violence, but really as an administrator and almost heroic as the godfather. As played by Brando, Don Corleone had an almost saintly, certainly heroic aspect to him.

Do you agree with that kind of approach to the character? I totally disagree with that. Brando said the head of the mafia is no worse than the head of DuPont or the head of General Motors. Well, that may be, but you may go away and lose your career with the head of DuPont or the head of General Motors. You may be. You may be a head of the head of You may lose a lot. You may be ruined if they want to excommunicate you, but you don't lose your life one to one. And there's a difference.

And to me, they're not as bad because they don't kill one to one the way those guys do. He would have to say about the guy who once knew lucky Luciano. And he talks about being around Luciano and the guys' them off. And he said, you would see it from time to time. You know, those fits of rage, that fits of violence. And what I take away from this, Alex, is like, And this is such a, I hope it's not a partisan shallow point, but the way that politics can ultimately inform something as nuanced as a very artistic performance. And clearly Brando's view on to some level, politics informed how he played the godfather.

Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a great point. And yeah, he did, he thinking about, thinking about the godfather, yes, he is played that way as almost a saint as a, you know, yeah, the guy who just runs an operation that has. happens to be illegal. It's, it's interesting actually, because this does, and this is not a stretch tie into something that I have been thinking about recently in just the last day, which is, so I wrote something on X that got about a million views about a study about coffee and caffeine, and basically there's big observational data showing that caffeine users, people who drink a fair bit of coffee, are less likely to have dementia. It doesn't prove it, but it's an interesting

study. And so people jumped on this and they kicked at it. A lot of people liked it, but there were a fair number of people who didn't like it. And one reason that they don't like it is that if you're in the drug legalization business, okay, if you're an advocate of legalization of cocaine or cannabis or whatever, whatever drug is your favorite drug or whatever drug you think society should legalize, it's in your interest to pretend that all drugs are the same. Just as it was in Brando's interest or his political leanings to pretend that, he wasn't any different than the CEO of General Motors, right? I'm just, I'm just selling a product,

too. And these people in the drug, you know, legalization world, again, whether it's for profit or nonprofits, they want to tell you that cocaine and caffeine are basically the same thing. They're both just stimulants. And, you know, THC is just like alcohol. Well, it's not just like alcohol. And frankly, there's some ways in which is less dangerous than alcohol, but there's other ways in which it's more dangerous. And this is a lie that these guys tell, and it's, and it's, it's intentional. It's deliberate, and it's designed to confuse people. Oh, okay. This is a perfect transition into the reason that we are here today to talk together. But I want to kind of stay on that note for a moment, Alex, because I've had a conversation recently. I had a conversation with a very smart guy about

the therapeutic use of psychedelics. We were talking about the usage of mushrooms, treatment, ketamine, and ultimately ibogaine. And there was multiple people in the conversation. Somebody else used the word drug. And the point was made, drug is a arbitrary definitional word that really harkens back to the 19-whatever's, 40s, 50s, when we started to regulate illicit drugs. And what was deemed an illicit drug has carried on stigma for quite some time. So the argument was made, look, caffeine's a drug, cocaine's a drug. I don't think anybody says they're of exactly the same risk profile.

You'd be surprised. But go on. Well, nicotine's a drug, sugar's a drug, you know. Now, because they are all drugs doesn't make them all equal. But we can at least rewind the clock to say, okay, but we did perhaps arbitrarily. Tell me if you think this is wrong, assign harmfulness to some drugs that we didn't to others. Or do you think we got it right? I don't even remember when all this one of the place.

Was it in the 50s? So I basically do think we got it right, right? So there's sort of the three big legal drugs, right? Alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine, right? And by a drug, I mean something essentially that has psychoactive properties. You know, caffeine and nicotine are stimulants. alcohol is much more complicated. It's a depressant and an intoxicant. But these are, these are substances. Do you think sugar counts? Do you think sugar is a drug?

I don't really think sugar counts. Sugar is something that everyone needs to live. You don't need alcohol or caffeine or nicotine to live. Sugar, you do need. Your body runs on it. So, I mean, people can use food. It gets very complicated when you start talking about non-drug behaviors and their addictive potential. The only one that I'd really put in that category is gambling. People talk about being addicted to shopping or addicted to sex, you know, addicted to work. I think, again, that's a little bit of a convenient way for people who want drugs to be legalized, to confuse people. Now, gambling clearly has dopaminergic properties that can be, it can be very easy to get addicted and ruin your life gambling. So I think that's a little different. But, but, I mean,

my core belief on this, and this is, you know, it's not necessarily that popular view is that as societies have looked at this stuff over the course of millennia, not even hundreds of years. They've made distinctions and they've made like reasonably smart distinctions with, you know, again, the weak stimulants, that would be like nicotine, caffeine, you know, in Africa, there's a, there's a plant called cat that people use, um, uh, coca leaves, people chew coca leaves, right? And then alcohol. And then, you know, people, opium, right?

So the poppy leaves. But once two things happen. One is that scientists figured out how to make completely artificial substances that have much more powerful effects on the brain, but that might be an amphetamine, a methamphetamine, a fentanyl. And the other thing is that they figured out how to refine the active chemical. So cocaine, people can use coca leaves their whole lives. It's a minor stimulant. It's helpful for them when they're at altitude and have altitude sickness.

Cocaine is a dangerous drug. So you do, basically, to go back to your original question, I do think that the big three are legitimately different and generally safer than the stuff that we've made illegal. The psychedelics are a little different because most people are not going to get addicted to those. They're not going to use those that often. Most of people don't want a psychedelic trip every day. And then the big one, you know, that's problematic, obviously, is alcohol. Alcohol is something that is, you know, people do get addicted to.

It does cause violence, cause drunk driving. there are problems with alcohol, but alcohol is also a pro-social drug. It's a drug that a lot of people consume without too much trouble. And so it's a drug that we as a world have generally decided is okay to keep legal. And so people will pick on me. That in and of itself. What's that? No, I love how your points are often unpopular.

I hope you're not addicted to that. But I think that I've always said the contrarian, the contrarian is an interesting person, but hopefully the contrarian doesn't get addicted to being contrarian. Okay. You know what's an interesting point to me? I do believe, essentially, and this is kind of part of my conservative leanings in nature, that tradition has value. And if things survive, as you point out, hundreds of years, in some case millennia,

there is inherent value in its ability to survive, meaning if humans continued with that practice, it doesn't give it carte blanche. It's not the full imprimatur. because slavery was around forever. That doesn't mean that slavery is good because human beings did it for thousands of years, right? But on the whole and on the average, anything that we did as a species for thousands of years and retained its place gives it, we should have some humility before overturning the table. We should be like, whoa, okay, everybody that came before me seemed to think this was a decent idea.

Am I the genius now is the right one in the hundreds that came before? me you're wrong. I don't. I don't. So I think that's interesting on the alcohol front. Like, alcohol has been acceptable in a way that very few others drugs have. And by the way, across cultures, across cultures. And that in and of itself kind of makes you go, okay, what is it about alcohol? Yep. There must be some sort of pro-social effects. Because you see, frankly, with gambling, you can actually see the tide swing in and out on gambling with cannabis. It's the same thing. Once cannabis reaches sort of a certain level in most societies, they will rebel against it. They will discourage or outlaw the use of it.

You know, that happened in Africa or in North African and Arabian cultures. It happened in India where cannabis use was strongly discouraged, even though it wasn't actually banned. So, yeah, I do think, yes, being humble about this. And let me make one other point about tobacco, which is one thing that can happen, and we're seeing it with cancer. Actually, with tobacco. Tobacco was, you know, a relatively safe drug. It was used in plug form, was used in snuff form, and then all of a sudden we figured out how to make very cheap cigarettes. And suddenly tobacco became a public health hazard, right?

It's really the cigarette that made tobacco into a major public health hazard. And so with cannabis, if people had to grow their own and they used it, you know, sometimes, and it was sort of low potency and a lot of work. And yes, you could get addicted to it. You could smoke a lot of it. You could use a lot of THC, but it really wasn't that easy to do. Now we're in a position where this very powerful chemical THC, which is the active ingredient in cannabis, you can just vape it. You can go into a store, buy it, and vape it by the hundreds of milligrams in doses that would have been basically unthinkable a generation ago. And so just or certainly two generations ago.

And so just like tobacco became a real public health hazard with the cigarette, what's happening with cannabis and THC is a new threat. I do believe that. Let's take a quick break from this very controversial conversation with Alex Berenson on marijuana. This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52 episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told.

Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast. or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with Alex Barrens and the author of Tell Your Kids, The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. Okay, I want to go, I'm going to dive a little bit more into cannabis and just a second. But I want to stay on alcohol for a second because I do hear this argument. I think there's some validity to it.

Like, if you were ranking these drugs by the way that they wreck your system, and I want for the sake of this part of our conversation, Alex, for you to set aside the 100 milligram user of THC. That is a different thing that I do want to talk about with you. But let's just say, I don't know, the 10 milligram dose, which is like having, I don't know, two or three alcoholic drinks or five milligrams, which would be like having a cocktail. If you're kind of doing an apples to apples on this stuff, alcohol wrecks your body in ways that it has to be one of the worst drugs for you physically, for your own body.

Yes, there's no question that, you know, even moderate alcohol consumption can damage your liver, you gain weight. I would say that that actually may be one reason that it has been accepted over the years, right? What do I mean by that? I mean that alcohol, you sort of have to, if you want to become an alcoholic, you have to push through that, or you have to push through the pain, the hangovers, the knowledge, the sure knowledge that your body is giving you. that this is a problem. And I'm not going to say it's not, because I would agree with you. With cannabis, because there really isn't, you know, a lot of physical symptoms.

I mean, now with the super, again, with the super high potency stuff, you can get this what's called scromedaing, this cannabinoid hypnosis. There's not a huge price to pay for doing cannabis, to your point. That's right. There's not a big price. For moderate cannabis use, there's not a physical price to pay. And so that can encourage daily use, escalating use, use in the mornings, And alcohol, you know, if you're drinking in the mornings, you know you have a problem.

And the people around you probably know you have a problem. It's going to be hard to work pretty quickly, okay? If you're using cannabis and you can sort of hide the psychoactive effects a little bit, you can get away with that for longer. You can become more addicted. You can wind up at higher dosages. Look, if you're going to say to me, hey, I just want to, you know, take one puff of my THC vape a day and go to sleep.

how is that any different than me taking one drink, you know, to put myself to sleep? It's not really very different. Okay. And you're right. It's probably actually physically less harmful. But the problem is it's very difficult to use cannabis that wage. Much more difficult, I think, than using alcohol that way. And let me give you the proof.

The proof is that about a third of the people who use cannabis, if not more, are using it daily. And a lot of those people are using all day, every day. With alcohol, it's, you know, it's much like it's much. lower, it's a much lower percentage of people who graduate to daily use because of this physical issue that you're talking. Interesting. So here's the data. And this is, I believe this is part of, yeah, this is part of the New York Times' new interest in

looking at the harmful effects of marijuana. So their stats say 18 million Americans use marijuana 21 plus days a month. That's a lot. Now, but, and then another 15 million use it four to 20 times a month, and then 11 million use it three or fewer. Honestly, anecdotally, it feels like more people are using it than that. I don't know how, no one ever knows how much someone's using it. That's to your point. Yes.

Especially again, with the bitch, you can't smell. There's no smell. So it's, it's, you know, there is literally, and that's another reason it's dangerous for kids, right, for teens, because, you know, they, can sneak off and use this stuff. And even if their parents want to, you know, be involved in their lives and are trying to manage it, they may well not know because it is so easy to use. Well, and you're talking about vape. I mean, there's so many different ways now in which you can consume THC. Like the old idea of rolling a joint, I mean, I don't even know who does that anymore. You've got gummies. They're making it in shelters and drinks, you know, and even in places that

are illegal. It's illegal like Texas. It's illegal in Texas. But it's really kind of not as well because Delta 9, Delta 9 is legal. I think I have the numbers right. Delta 8 is illegal. Delta 9 is not, but it's even more complicated than that because you can put Delta 9 into a drink as long as it's a sugar drink because currently, although the law is changing, they're going to change it back. basically you can give people about 50 milligrams of cannabis if there's 15 grams of sugar and 15 grams of sugar is not that much for a soda drink. So yes, it's incredibly complicated the legal landscape. And one point that I've made, you know, I think I even was able to quickly make it to you

last week on Fox, we've done a horrible thing, even if you believe in legalization, because we've allowed this completely fractured landscape where all these companies make all these absurd health claims where the stuff is sold in convenience stores with very little age restriction. It's a real problem, even if you believe in legalization, where the landscape is right now. Well, to the point of the Delta A, Delta 9, in the end, it's THC, right? Whether or not it's derived from the Delta A to the Delta 9, what they figured out to your refinement point is, I mean, I think they originally were saying, THC derived from hemp sources,

whether or not that's Delta 8 or 9, is legal, but they can refine everything and get you pretty dialed in on the milligram dosage that you want in whatever form of consumption that you want. Drink, smoke.

And we didn't even mention there's these things called dab rings where you're, you know, it's almost like smoking crack. It's literally you're heating up and inhaling this waxy substance. And that's pure T8. So by the way, I would just say that this cuts the heart of another lie that the cannabis industry tells.

This is not a plant anymore. I mean, this is just a chemical that people are ingesting, as you said, in every possible way. It's the only thing they don't do with it is shoot it because basically it's not an, it gets complicated on the, on the acid versus base. But you can't really inject it into your body. But every other way they'll use. Okay, so let's get into the risk that you've written about. I want to share it with you. The audience is mad, as you would probably expect.

Let's start with YouTube. I'm just going to share with you some of the comments. Brian says this show is brought to today by the state of Kentucky and big alcohol. And then Jay Elliott, who's a regular viewer, says this should be about alcohol, not pot. John Holzhauer over on Facebook says this show is brought to you by beer company. who are losing money to weed dispensaries. Give it a rest. John Schoon says, I've been using cannabis for 28 years, daily for 15 years.

What are you claiming is bad about it exactly? We'll get there, Jerry, Jerry Schoon. And then, I mean, there's a bunch of Karen, says Eric, crying about weed. Adam Peterson says, cannabis isn't a drug. Jason Crawford, weed is not like alcohol. Sheldon Hips, Republicans are way off on this issue. So, like, you can tell it's super unpopular. I want to say this before we continue.

Alex, I'm not a teetotaler. I don't care. Like, literally, I don't even judge. I would not, to the beginning part of this conversation, somebody that enjoys weed and somebody enjoys alcohol, I have no judgment on that. None, okay? I've seen it make you more social than alcohol.

I've seen it. It's social effects. Like, I'm not here. saying like, oh, this is 1960s, it's bad. What I'm interested in on the weed front is twofold. For a while, and if you're in the

comment sections, you have to admit this is true. We have pretended like weed is good. Period. Full stop. End of story. Like, it's medicine. It's good. It's like the miracle drug. And come on, man. Like anything

in life, that's absurd. Everything has an upside and a downside. Listen, if you think I'm being judgmental, I do eight of these a day. This is nicotine. I'm addicted to it. I'm not proud of it. I get mad at myself, and I have done all the research to tell myself that it isn't bad. That all it does is cause a little bit of high blood pressure.

But if I'm being honest with you, I know that my energy yo-yo's all day long. And that's not good. Are you using eight tens a day? That's a lot of nicotine. I do. I do. No, no, not tens. eight pouches a day.

They are eight milligrams. So I'm getting like, I'm somewhere probably between 60 and 80 milligrams a day of nicotine. That's a lot of nicotine. And I know it's not good. And I'm not trying to justify my habit. And that's what I'm doing with this weed thing as well. Just because you want to have a critical conversation and thought about it doesn't mean you need to be personally indicted.

You should always have all the information. And so, Alex, I think, you've written a lot about this. And the evidence is moving your way, Alex. The New York Times. I mean, it's always been there, but the popular recognition of the evidence is moving your way with the New York Times. So you've told us about this. Tell us the risks. Like, what are the risks to me if I take up everyday cannabis usage at what level and to what risk?

Well, okay. So again, if you're literally somebody who's doing this and you're having, you know, one joint today and not a huge joint. or you're having one gummy five milligrams THC before bed. I'm not going to claim your risks are super high. They're not. Just, again, just as with alcohol, just frankly, if you were smoking one or two cigarettes a day, okay? It's not great for you, but it's not likely to kill you. So here's the problem, right?

Cannabis, some people, you know, some people don't like the high at all, but some people really like the high, particularly if they've started using when they're relatively young. And they use a lot. Okay. And so once you get out of that, the equivalent of the one or two drink a day paradigm, you have a risk, a real risk, if you're using, certainly when you're as a teenager, of developing a permanent psychotic disorder. Now that's the worst thing I think that can happen to basically anybody in life.

All right. It is devastating for the person. It's devastating for your family. I'm not saying that there's a 50% risk or a 10% risk of that happening, but you are probably tripling, possibly even quadrupling or quintupling your risk. It might go from, you know, a half percent at baseline to 3%, a 1% to 5%. These numbers sound small, but the consequences are devastating. Okay, so psychosis.

Well, there's definitely a risk. Real quick, on the consequence front, on the consequence front, put some flesh on psychotic. risk. Like, what are you talking about? Bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia? I'm talking about schizophrenia and bipolar and severe bipolar disorder. Okay. These are conditions. If you are schizophrenic or if you have bipolar one, real bipolar disorder where you, where you have manic episodes where you cannot sleep for weeks and then you cycle down into, you know, suicidal depression, you are going to, you're going to I have a very hard time working.

You are probably not going to get married. You're probably not going to have kids. You're going to spend your life cycling in and out of psychiatric institutions and group homes until either somehow your illness burns out, which does happen for some people, or you die at your own hand, or you die as a result of the sort of metabolic consequences of the drugs that you have to take to manage this, meaning you get diabetic, you have a heart attack. people with schizophrenia have terrible life outcomes it is a it really it is a disease i would not wait time out i thought you said bipolar one by fuller one the same is what used to call schizophrenia yeah bipolar one is the same essentially bipolar one you're cycling in and out of psychosis too because ultimately those people will go weeks or months without sleeping and they actually have an even higher rate of suicide because they're depressed you know you're bipolar when you're manic you think everything

is great you're awesome you can fly the world is yours then you cycle into really really really, really severe depression. Those people kill themselves at a stunningly high rate. And by the way, again, they also can have, you know, they have, they act out sexually, they gamble, they ruin their lives, people with bipolar mania. You know, Kanye West, he is bipolar and you see how, you know, he's really destroyed his life. Okay. He's acting out.

I have personal experience. I have personal experience with this, okay? And I can tell you, this is just anecdote, that you. usage of drugs, and in this case, nicotine as well, but certainly marijuana, according to the doctors, exacerbates what you're talking about. Like it makes it really hard to avoid the death spiral. I don't mean literal death, the loop, the spiral down into the mania and depression. Yep. So, so, okay, so that's the worst outcome. But let's acknowledge that most people who use, even most people who use heavily, that's not the most common outcome.

Okay, so what are risks? Well, there's now really good evidence, and this surprised me too, that cannabis can cause heart attacks and strokes. It messes with your blood pressure. It messes with your, and this is not because of the smoking. The smoking is a separate issue. This is what THC does. It messes with the vasculature of your arteries. And so, like, you actually have a higher risk of coronary events, which people don't know.

Cannabis is bad from driving. There's this funny notion that, and maybe this was true when people were only smoking a little, and it was sort of low potency, that cannabis users just drive very slowly, they're stopping, they're not paying attention. Weirdly, people who get, and maybe it's, I would guess, it's probably related to the psychosis and the paranoia that cannabis can cause at high doses. I can point to, and I'm not exaggerating, dozens of cases where people have had fatal accidents driving more than 100 miles an hour and cannabis was the drug, not alcohol. So cannabis is bad for driving.

Then there's this scromitting, this cannabinoid hyperamysis syndrome. That's a physical thing. And I would bet that even some of the people who are posting on YouTube or X have seen that for themselves. Maybe they've lived it. You start to vomit uncontrollably. This is a really powerful drug. And then let's go to one more thing. Okay. And again, I think even people who would disagree with me or say that I'm exaggerating all this other stuff wouldn't disagree about this.

Cannabis ruins motivation for a lot of people. It makes them apathetic. It messes with their memory. They, they and I know multiple people, well, and I'll bet you do too, who went to college, they started to use pretty heavily. And now it's 10 or 20 or 30 years later even. And their lives are sort of stuck. They never got married. they worked and then they stopped working, maybe they work again, but really their lives are built around cannabis and THC in a way that if it were any other drug, you know, someone would come to them and say, you have a really, really big problem here.

You need to start living and they don't. And somehow we've allowed this with cannabis in a way that we don't with other drugs. Let's take a quick break from this very controversial conversation with Alex Berenson on marijuana. Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with Alex Barron's and the author of Tell Your Kids, The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.

Okay, you're right. That's going to be super unpopular. And I've said that before. And I'm not speaking abstractly or theoretically. I know that it can depress motivation. I hear a lot of people say the opposite. Now, I don't know if they're justifying it or if it has different effects on different people. but you hear a lot of people go, it makes me more creative, it motivates me, whatever, all these things.

I can tell you that I think in other cases, it definitely depresses ambition and motivation. But whatever, the one I'm most interested in is the one you started with, because that's the one that now science seems to be moving your way. You know, just like with COVID, Alex, like you're an insane person. You need to be censored from the internet. everybody should shut you up. And then a little time passes and oh, Alex Berenston was right about COVID. You're a little bigger on the vaccines, I think, than, for example, I have been. But on the original threat of COVID and that kind of thing.

That feels like the similar arc for you on marijuana. It's made you very unpopular. You've kind of raised the warnings. And now, time has passed. And people are starting to look at the research specifically on the psychosis. So that's the one I'm most interested in right now. now because that's the one science should be backing you up on now i want i go ahead no and it is and and you're right and i think you're right here here's why it matters so much okay these other things

let's say that you know and i think you you seem to feel this way too okay if i'm you know somebody who just i just decided listen this is how i want to live my life i want to smoke pot and i like it and you know maybe maybe i'm not getting married because of it maybe i'm not having a great career because of it. That's your choice. I don't think it's a good choice. And societally, if too many people do it, it's not great for the country.

But on a personal level, it really is your choice to live that way. But psychosis, and this is what, so I wrote Tell Your Children, which is the book that kind of got me in trouble all along. That was in 2019, okay? What I said, there are two parts to it. One is that cannabis causes psychosis.

And I think, you know, the science is even stronger now than it was in 2019 when I wrote that. But it was real then, it's more real now. But the second half of that, which I don't talk about as much, certainly in a two-minute interview because it's hard to get into, is that psychosis is a driver of violence.

And it is a driver of random violence. And so as a society, we do not want people walking around the streets psychotic. And the analogy I always use on this is people know this, okay? If you're on the subway platform and there's somebody at the end of the platform who's talking to himself, who seems to be, you know, having an animated conversation with somebody who is not there, you walk away to the other end of the platform.

Why do you do that? Because you know this person is not in his right mind and is a potential danger to you. And we don't want that as a society. And so that's why the industry hates me so much because they know that, yeah, they can say, hey, so what if Joe Blow wants to smoke pot and just sit in his basement? Whose business is that of yours? Or why is that your business? But if Joe Blow comes out with a knife and stabs me, it becomes my business.

And we don't want, as a society, to encourage behavior that encourages that. Okay, but here's the key. All right. And this goes back to that. You said, you know, a half percent to three percent or one percent to five percent probability for you. And Brett Cooper posted about this. And you brought that up in our two minutes on Fox News.

Brett Cooper, the conservative commentator, said that this is. is basically the story of her brother, right? That her brother became a habitual marijuana user. He developed severe mental illness. The question is, is if I don't, this is what I think a lot of people watching. And two of days grabs some more comments because I don't think Alex is afraid of the comments. I'm not afraid of the comments. So we'll bring you into the show.

But I think I'm guessing that a lot of people, if they're open-minded about assessing the risks of usage, right? if they're not just telling themselves, oh, this is harmless. Just like I don't with nicotine. I'm super interested. You should do that next, Alex. You should dive into nicotine. You may not like it. Every dude.

Well, if I don't like it, I don't like it. I don't care. I don't want to live in the dark. You know, by the way, every guy I know, basically, is doing this. Not every, but a lot, a lot are doing these nicotine packets. And we've joked. My buddies and I have all jokes. like wait until they come out in 10 years, 15 years on this and tell us everything we've been

doing to our bodies for the last couple years. I think that most people would want to know if I don't have a psychological condition, okay, I'm fairly healthy, but I enjoy THC. Can it give me a psychosis? Am I bending toward the arc of a mental health disease of some kind? And if your answer to me on that is yes, then when you start talking about that, about okay at what level and what frequency right so so there's no question that even for people who have no underlying genetic predisposition to this if you use a lot of t hc you can wind up with

short-term psychotic episodes you can get paranoid i mean i think basically everyone who's used cannabis or t hc at more than a little has had an episode of paranoia there it's just sort of intrinsic to the drug um now that for most people that passes. Okay. What I would say is there, you know, there's definitely, you know, severe mental illness runs in families. There's a strong genetic component to it. And so am I going to say that the risk is the same for everybody? No, I'm not. That's clearly wrong. I guess my, when people say to me, okay, why shouldn't I be allowed to use this? And certainly if I know the risks and I decide to use it, my counter argument is not, hey, we're going to throw you in jail. We should throw everybody who smokes potty.

jail. That's ridiculous. That's not realistic. It's never what our policies were, certainly not in the last 50 or 60 years. The number of people, you know, in prison outside the sort of deep south for cannabis possession or personal use was very limited. And that's not going to change, nor should have changed. The question is, do we want a societal infrastructure that supports this? Do we want a commercial industry that supports this? And if we don't, what is the the right path? Is it legalization where it's only available in state-run stores? Is it decriminalization? Is it some kind of moderate criminal penalties for use? So that's in our arsenal. Those are the questions to me that we should ask. And then also culturally, should we be promoting this? And to me,

the answer to that one is clear. No. It's a mistake to have people writing and pretending that cannabis is medicine. If people want to use for themselves, okay, but But don't tell me that as a parent, it's a good idea to smoke this with your kid as the Washington Post did a few years ago. Don't tell me how wonderful it is for pregnancy and nausea. Don't tell me that, you know, it's so much better than alcohol or I drive great when I'm on it. You know what? Just stop lying about that stuff. It's not medicine for most of the conditions it's supposedly medicine for.

It doesn't work for those things. As I wrote and tell your children, and it's even more true now, the condition cannabis treats is called not being high. And that's okay. I mean, it's it's not great, but people do want, they want to change their, you know, people want to be high sometimes. And they want to be drunk. They want stimulants. There's always going to be people who want those things. Some people are going to get addicted. What we can do as a society is discourage it and figure out how to discourage it. Well, I think you're right on culture. So culture is a big one. And I want to go back to your formula for society in just a second.

There's a lot to be said for just kind of like telling the truth. That's what we're doing here. I'm not arguing for criminalization either. Well, I don't know the levels at which I think it's right. But I just don't like the pretense that there's nothing wrong with it, right? Like social stigma has a value. There's something wrong with drinking. If I were drinking at work, that would be a problem.

Like everybody'd be like, that's not good. Like Will's, Will's drunk or he's had two cocktails before air, which probably they did in the 1950s and 60s. Yeah. But, you know, the, the, just the. I'm a huge fan of stigma. We stigmatized drinking and driving. Yes, stigma. That's right.

We stigmatized domestic violence. It's not okay to slap your wife around. We don't do that anymore. I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but we stigmatized it and it went down. That's good. We should stigmatize things that are bad. We should. Okay. What should we do law-wise? To your point, do we have good examples in your mind of other countries that have done this? We're in the entrepreneurial phase of this in America. We're trying everything. We're in the total like throw it up against the wall phase in America, right? State to state here. I mean, I know, of course, famously, Amsterdam has their smoke houses and smoke coffee shops, as they call them.

I mean, who's done this in your mind in a way that is a good societal model? Well, so interestingly, the Dutch actually have gone away a little bit from the coffee shops because they don't like pot tourism and they've seen problems with it. So, you know, I didn't really have a problem with where the U.S. was 20 years ago or 25 years ago. in states where you weren't going to get arrested, basically, just for possession of a joint, okay? And that was most states again. I think having, you know, having there be some risk of arrest is not the worst thing in the world. Discouraging people from using cannabis in public is certainly not a bad thing.

Forcing the industry to operate illicitly, which drives up costs is not a bad thing. And so, you know, you can have, I would say either decriminalization or low-level criminalization was an okay place for the U.S. to be. If you look at that chart, the Times put up, you know, in 2000, essentially outside of California and medicinal marijuana, cannabis was illegal everywhere, and we had less of it. When you make something illegal, you have less of it. Now, if we're not going to go back there, if people are going to say, I just don't think that's a good idea.

I think people should be allowed to use this drug because a lot of people can use it with no problems at all, and that's how it should be. Then at the least, let's have proper warning labels. Let's have a culture that discourages it, and let's not pretend it's medicine. If that's where we come out, you know, that's not where I would favor, but that would be a much better place than we are right now. All right. Before we go, Alex, I'd love for us together just address, again, a few more comments out there on what people are saying.

So let's start with Facebook. I'm just going to read these. I haven't read them yet. Christopher James Byersdorf. One thing I like about Facebook guys is there's real names. I really do like that. I guess it's better than having open places where people could use heroin anywhere or meth like they do in Canada. Well, yeah.

I mean, I don't know what that's an argument for, but I think you would agree, Alex. Marijuana is better than heroin. That seems like a pretty good... I mean, that's not a hard statement to make. We're on the same page on that, yeah. Okay. All right. Diana Jansen on Facebook said,

weed is a gateway drug. It is addictive. Smoking is bad for the lungs and brain. Edibles are highly concentrated. Dispensaries have loyal customers, so it's profitable. To her point on the edibles and the drinks and all that, you said 100 milligrams. What do you think?

Do you know this, Alex? Like, what is, are some, I don't have any idea. Like, I know if you go to Colorado, basically that they'll sell you a 10 milligram or a 5 milligram gummy or whatever you want. But what are like habitual users using in terms of milligrams? Like what is what is regular? I mean, I don't know that there's any regular, but I would say if you are, I mean, I've heard from people, right?

Because people will email me sometimes about their experiences with the drug, especially if they've stopped using, right? So there are plenty of people out there using more than 100 milligrams a day, which to your point about alcohol, that would be the equivalent of 20 to 40 drinks. Again, because it's not physically damaging in the same way, people will use massive amounts. And this is not an exaggeration. I've heard from people who use 250 milligrams a day. I've heard from people who use 300 milligrams today. That's 100 drinks, you know, at three milligrams. It's a drink. It's a crazy amount. And I'll say one other. The industry uses this to its advantage when it comes to cannabis and

driving because they'll say, well, you can't have a single standard for cannabis because some people can use a ton and they're and they're habituated to it. And I say, okay, even if that's true, let's say that's true. Can you imagine the alcohol industry saying we need to have a standard of, you know, 0.25 BAC for alcoholics because they drink so much. So we need to accommodate or, you know, change our laws to accommodate that, right? DUI as adjusted for tolerance. That's right. Do you think that's a good, do you think that's a good barometer, what you just said, so three milligrams is like having one drink? You know, whatever.

10 milligrams is three drinks. You know, so I mean, usually some people will say two and a half, some people will say five. If you're, if you're pretending it's more than five, you're just trying to make it sound better than it is. All right, Tina Michelle says mental health disorders in marijuana do not mix. you have people take and get prescriptions for mental health stuff, and they smoke marijuana, the two do not mix. I think that's very fair and something that I have noticed anecdotally, Alex is seen in the research. So we head over to YouTube now.

Monterey says, we have cannaboy. I've seen this comment before. We have cannabinoid receptors in our body. That should tell you something. So I've seen people talk about this that even in the sort of health world, Alex, you know, like the, I'm not saying he has said this, but the Huberman body max. maximization world, you know, which I'm kind of into. I'm into a cold plunge or that here and there, that we do have a cannibinoid system. And CBD or something, it doesn't take THC, you could do it

with CBD, has beneficial health effects. Look, we have opioid receptors in our body. That's why, you know, people get high on heroin or fentanyl. We have a, we have dopamine receptors in our body, which is why people get high on cocaine, right? The reason the drug works is because it affects the brain. So that that's it's like a it's like a it's like a it's like a trueism right. You're arguing in a circle. Yeah, the drug works because it affects your brain. Mike Silva says I'm smoking right now and it's got me laughing. Well, thanks for being good for you Mike. And then one more chair chair chair chair sherry Padgett says I don't drive when I smoke pot. They can say all they want but unless you use you do not know.

Well, I think using does give you some knowledge about this, but it also can be studied like any other drug. It is science and medicine and biology, so it can be studied. Yeah. People don't say that, again, you know, if I said, well, listen, I can't study cocaine unless I'm a heavy cocaine user. People would be like, that's not really true. And it's the same thing with pot. All right. I think it's a fascinating conversation.

I think the fact that it's unpopular makes it even more intriguing to me because I think that also some truth here. that people need to know about. And Alex has written about it. A long time ago now, seven years ago. Tell your children the truth about marijuana, mental illness, and violence. Great conversation. I'm glad we had more time to do it today. Thank you, Alex.

Thanks, Will. Keep up the good work. All right. I appreciate that, man. There he goes. Alex Barrensen. Let's take a quick break, but we'll be right back on Will Cain Country. You'll remember, Alex was a truth teller during COVID,

and he was totally obliterated. from the internet and everybody went after him and everybody hated him. And you went to Alex. I don't know that Alex got everything right. I don't think he'd claim that he got every single thing right. And as I mentioned, I mean, I think I'm not anti-vaccine by any stretch, but I have more skepticism than Alex does on some of these vaccines. My point is, here he is doing the same thing, telling truths, you know, without an agenda,

I think, a marijuana. honest, you might listen to him and the guy, he's got some. What are you guys doing here? You guys want to talk? No, I was just hanging out with you. Just wanted to be participating in this conversation. Two days and tenfold. Let's do it. Let's not take a break. Do we need to take a break? I don't want to take a break. We don't need to take a break.

You're just trying to get me on screen because I have food in my mouth. I saw him eating and I wanted to get him up. You're having potato skins right now for lunch? You're eating potato skins? He's high. Maybe he's high. Did you go to Applebee's smoking weed? It's frat Tuesday. Those are his munchies. Those are his munchies. How does one have

potatoes? Show me your potato skins. What are you talking about? Are you talking about the ones with the cheese and the... Who just has potato skins at their house? That's a restaurant food. You got that at a gas station? Aldi. Isn't that a gas station?

No, to the supermarket. It's the same thing as Trader Joe. Aldi's a grocery store? Oh. Oh. just munching on some potato skins here at midday. It just feels gluttonous, doesn't it? It's wild.

It's a wild move. It's fat Tuesday. Doing 200 milligrams of T.HC. Of course, it's all days to be gluttonous. You do it today. While we're talking about weed. Don't act like you're doing it because it's Fat Tuesday. This could be fat Thursday and you be doing it.

A plate of nachos coming up or what? That's true. Too well. Yeah, he didn't have sour cream on it. He's got a potato skin. see the cheese and bacon. Where's the sour cream? Ugh. Dan,

you know some 200 milligram a day users? I have friends that, before we go out to the bar, will pop 100 milligram edible. Dead serious. Dude. One edible that's 100?

Not like stringing 10 milligrams out throughout the day? You're talking about one sitting, one... 100 milligrams, one edible. One piece of candy is 100 milligrams. Come on. I swear on my life.

And then they go out drinking and hang out. And are they functional? Barely. But it's a tolerance thing. They've been smoking for a long time. So, you know, you build up tolerance to it just like anything else, your body. But like, it's an insane amount. It's an insane amount.

I mean... It's not all theoretical. Everything in moderation. I would be in the hospital for psychosis. That is the wisdom. That is the wisdom that you all. always have to come back to. It really is. Like, everything in moderation. Really? I mean, like, I know that I'm way beyond moderation on nicotine. I'm running some risks. Shut up, Ed. He said way beyond.

But I know that. How many milligrams you got there? But I do, who is that? Is that Confucius? Is it Jesus? Who said everything in moderation? I don't know. But whoever said it was right. That was some... Especially moderate. So there was some wisdom. Who was it, Pat? I just said especially moderation. moderation in moderation. Yeah, that's fair. Every once in a while, you know, every once in a while you've got to hit the gas pedal to just see how fast the car will still go. Sometimes you've got to see. I think that's a Luke Combe song.

Oscar Wilde. Sometimes you've got to let the ponies run. I agree with that, all right? Sometimes, because you've got to know you still got it. Still got it. But I can still do this. this, but moderation is the, let's make that the norm. I think that's right. I will say, I've seen people have way worse situation with alcohol than weed. I mean, but I will say

people who have smoked weed that were in high school that I knew did end up doing harder drugs. Like I would say 75% of them. So it is, you know, it opens up your mind to doing certain things, but not... Dr. Drupinski would definitely confirm that. Because, like, when you use marijuana, especially, like, in your teen years, early teen years, especially, that's when you're starting to ask for a lot of trouble. But if you start as an adult, different thing. Right.

It's a little different. I do think that's true. Much, much, I mean, you're talking about a brain information still. You know, and so you're doing things to the brain that are very, and by the way, drinking the same thing. I mean, drinking at a young age has huge risks as well. I have friends in rehab. 23. By the way, I think it's a logical mistake to do what you did, Dan. And it's tempting. And even I did it at the

beginning of the conversation with Alex, because I am interested in it. You can't justify something by comparing it to something else. You can't say alcohol is worse and therefore weed is good. And that's the mistake that people make, right? It's alcohol is bad. It is without a doubt bad. But I think we've moved in this direction where now there's almost, do you think there's more stigma with alcohol than there is with

weed? Probably not. Look at Gen Z. Alcohol's more socially. They make fun of us millennials for drinking. They're way down. They're like, are people they're like, are people getting drunk and blacking out? That's gross. Like, to them it's disgusting. Yes.

But they do ketamine. My age, it's, there's there's, a mock. They'll snort Ketamine and do that on the weekends instead of alcohol. I mean, think about those politicians that like get mocked mercilessly because they

might imbib, you know, imbibe and alcohol here and there. Right? It's like, you know, on that. I'm just saying, like, I don't know, certain Congresswomen who might have been Speaker of the House. Like, you can't enjoy a good vodka gymlet

once in a while. It ain't the 60s. Is that what Nancy did? She's got one. Nancy's got wine written all over her. You do wine all over her. No, no, she's definitely a, she's got a chardonnay. Maybe gin.

She's fancy. Really? Are you guessing? Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi was a vodka gimlet lady? I bet you, I would bet. I bet. I'm not confirming anything. No.

She's from Northern California, dude. Oh. She's a wine. She's got to be. With all her trades she's making. What is a gimlet? What's a gimlet? It is gin.

What's the mix in a gimware? Gin, lime cordial or simple syrup. And that's it. Four parts gin, one part sweetened lime juice. Sweetened. You know what I had this past weekend, speaking of all these things? It's underrated. You remember it every once in a while a martini.

You don't order it because you feel like you're being fancy. Should you hold your pinky up or? Boy, martini's nice. Everybody's shaking their head, no? James Bond drank. He's just vodka. I made that mistake once. Yeah,

James Bond drinking. And they poured that, like, crap in there. Well, I don't like that much olive juice. That's... Yeah, you don't want it dirty. No. It's disgusting. Straight up.

Yeah. Yeah. It's real cold vodka. That's all it is. It's super cold vodka. That's great. All right. Before we move on, and I don't know, we were going to talk about the trans shooter,

but now I'm having so much fun with this conversation. I don't know if I want to go talk about that trans shooter now. No. You guys saw the story. It's awful. And the bottom line is we'll come back to this. We'll talk about it. We got a trend.

We got a correlation now. That's undeniable. In the past 18 months, we've had, how many is it? I have a list. I still have it in front of me. Is it like eight or nine mass shooting incidences that involve a trans shooter? We had a fascinating conversation trying to sort all this out earlier this morning. You know, how much of that is mental illness?

much as drug or hormonal treatment, how much of it is. And this is where it gets confusing. Dudes transitioning into women. There are a couple incidences of women transitioning to men, which is super odd when you think about it. Why are women? Is that social contagion? Why are men doing that? The brain gymnastics is wild on all of this. It's so hard to have the conversation, right? And you know my favorite part of our conversation this morning? Are trans women, so men, who are they on the average and on the whole statistically sexually attracted to? Are they attracted to women still? They're not...

Transwomen, do you mean? Yeah, so a guy, right? Yeah. I feel like the anecdotal research and examples that come back as most trans women, so guys, remain attracted to women, remain in pursuit of women. On the whole, yeah. when they are doing the woman thing. They're not now into dudes.

No. Not usually. Well. Well, lesbian. Well, I don't think, yeah. I think the trans man also

is attracted to women. You got to think about the biology of the physicalness. I know. Dimitinic is tough here. But stop it, Patrick. You're making it confusing. Stop that. No, I'm just trying to help you.

I know what you're doing. confusing. You're not. You're not helping. Because you're... Yeah, eat your potato skins. Let's go back to the comments really quickly here. There'll be more valuable to Patrick.

By the way. They're asking for... They do. Well, we're going to get to it. I want to talk about Robert Duvall. Kenny Gates says, new people who might try experimenting with it should be aware of this. I agree. Just be aware.

Knowledge is power. Okay? Wow. feel like a lot of the weed community, the community, you know, like the, the regular user, you come on, if you're watching, I love you. But at some point, you know when you've made it part of your identity. Like, you know if it's gone from, is it part of your identity? You know what?

You've had to do 100 fish shows. And if that's some of those guys, you don't want to hear it. And I get it because at some point it's attacking your identity. But like as a habit, as a thing that you do, you might want knowledge. Jacob Morales says psychosis could be from opening dormant channels in the brain. Jacob over here digging deep. Anthony Zabrowski says, almost all your farms make you feel a lot worse. I'm a very successful business owner and a family man.

I wouldn't function without my medical marijuana. Okay to have your opinion, though, just saying. But I'd be curious, Anthony. This is on Facebook. I'd be curious, Anthony, how much, you say you are a medical marijuana user, how much, how often at what dose is. I'm really curious about that, because that is really key to this conversation from what I gather, right? Like, really key. Your buddy doing 100 milligrams on a Saturday night, like, he needs to research, do I have a family, he needs to research, do I have a family history of psychosis?

Because that's where I'd be super nervous. If this is running in my family, and I'm doing this high dosage on a regular... Is a lady? Yeah. It's a girl. I don't know. That threw me for a loop. That threw me for a loop.

It's not a guy. Oh. Give me your number. Rhonda Champion says, I suppose you think alcohol is okay. I've never met a person who smokes B-violet. Rhonda, I think we've had a long conversation. I don't know when you tuned in about, Rhonda, are you taking a 100 milligram tablet late at night when you go to the bar? Are you Dan's friend, Rhonda?

Might be her alter you go, yeah. Rhonda, we're not excusing alcohol. You can't keep doing this thing. It's like, I don't know. I'm trying to think of the right analogy. It's like, look, man, Joe murders people. Is it that bad that I burglarize? Like it's not like it doesn't you can't do this constant thing of comparing vices

There is a comparison of vices and there is a scale but one does not justify the other All right Let's talk Duval you said some people want some Duval talk Let's start with this What did you guys think I sent you guys that Godfather clip Did you not think that's interesting I talked about it with Alex? I had never seen that my feed is full of Duval clips right now and him talking to Bob Costis about Marlon Brando's performance in The Godfather.

Like, I don't think he was attacking Brando. He was disagreeing with him, though. And it was so interesting. I'm curious if you go back to Brando get mad about that. And I think that Duval's assessment of Vito Corleone's, he's right. He's right. Like, Tony Soprano was a much better, full, fully formed mafia character than Vito. It doesn't make The Godfather any worse of a movie.

It's a great movie. It's an opera on its own thing, but it's less truthful than, say, Soprano. So Robert DuValle was saying Brando was too soft as a Mafia Don? That's what he was saying? Too professional. Got it. Too administrative. Too calm.

He was saying, these are bad men that do bad things. And even the ones that rise up to the very top have that. in them. You know what I mean? Like, he told a story in the longer version that clip. He said, I knew a man whose father was friends with Lucky Luciano. And he had, and this person who was, I guess, Duval's age then, had been around Luciano and other mafia figures. And it might seem all normal, but there would be moments where all of a sudden the table gets flipped or a fit of rage comes out and violence is right there underneath the service. And with Vito Corleone, he could have been CEO of General Motors.

Right? He was too heroic. You needed to kneecap someone once. Like in the movie. Yeah, he needed to show that's who he was. That is true. That's in him. Buddy Sancy in Providence, the mayor. I remember listening to that podcast series about Buddy Sancy in Providence.

Just kneecapped a guy. But I will tell you guys this. Okay, so Robert Duval, rest in peace. There are very few pop culture figures. whom I've never met in my profession. I have a great fortune to meet a lot. I did not meet Duval. Resides in the heroic realm for me, and there's very few.

Like, when they die, and I understand this hits everybody differently in different ways, a little bit of me died. And what I mean by that is a little bit of my past, a little bit of my inspiration, a little bit of my cultural upbringing died. I'll give you another one, like, or two, when George Strait dies, or when Willie Nelson dies. I don't expect everybody to feel the same way that I do, but these are very formative figures in my life that have played a big role. I hear them in my ears all the time. And the most important character, I would say this, yeah.

I mean, like, honestly, the only one that's in the running for this is honestly Jeff Lobowski in the Big Lobowski. Like, that character, I loved him so much. And my buddies and I all loved him, and we quoted him, and we did it. And, you know, he was, and all the potheads who have been watching the whole time are like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's just like your opinion, man. But Augustus McCray. Robert Duval as Augustus McCray has such cultural significance for me. And I hesitate to even tell you to watch it, Dan, because it's from.

1991, I believe. I like Toonstone, though. It was a television miniseries, so it's a six hours long, Lonesome Dove. It's a commitment. And I've watched it. I don't know how many times. But, you know, the story is of two Texas Rangers, retired Texas Rangers, Woodrow Call and Augustus McCray. Duval plays McCray and Tommy Lee Jones plays Woodrow Call.

They're best friends, their polar opposites. and the story is the story of them deciding to drive a cattle herd to Montana from Texas and then go set up shop in Montana because Montana is this dream. Montana is this thing that people they have envisioned that people have told them about. And it's this great adventure of the cattle drive where they encounter outlaws and Indians and love and betrayal and friendship throughout the whole thing. And it's absolutely incredible. And Duval plays Gus.

This is an incredible book written by Larry McMurtry. And to me, there is no more, there is no better piece of Americana and American culture than this. In fact, do you have this clip of Duval with Charlie Rose, Dan, talking about Augustus McCray and Lonesome Dove? Listen to this. I mean, I would have to say my favorite part of all time is Lonesome Dove. I would think so. Why? Is it you?

Well, you know, when I met Larry McMurter years ago, he said I should. play Colonel Call and a lot of people said that they offered me call so I said to my agent look you have a good working relation with James Garner he was going to play Gus I said if you call him up you handle him and he switches parts I'll be in this budget otherwise I won't because my wife I was separate they already given it to him well they had offered yeah said he I played parts like Gus on stage but not in film more more muted in but the people that knew me the best said no you're more like Gus well even the author said I should play call so I said he said I'll get on the phone so he got on the phone

four hours later calling he said James cannot do this part because he can't be on a horse. He has a bad backpapa. I said, well, go after the other part. Otherwise, I don't want to be in the movie because I've done that part before. And, you know, Tommy Lee was wonderful, but Tommy was good for that. But I wanted to play this other guy because a certain part of me that could play that people hadn't seen, maybe more in theater. So, you know, somebody says, when is going to be another lonesome doubt?

I said, not for another hundred years. This character is like Shakespeare, I think. I said, let the English play Hamlet and King Lear. That's wonderful. I'll play Augustus McCray. I mean, he's like a modern day night. He goes on to say he loved life. He loved women.

He basically said that Augustus McCray and Lonesome Dove is America. Like, if Hamlet is England, if Shakespeare is their culture, Lonesome Dove and Augustus McCray is America. And I agree with that. I mean, this character was, in my personal vision, of America. This is it. This is the guy. These are the people that made America. Yes, you can tell your stories of your Rockefellers, and you can tell your stories of your New York bankers, and the men that built the railroad. You can tell the stories of the men became billionaires. But those men, those men out on the frontier, on the edge, settling America, bringing our culture and bringing

our values at the cost of their lives, at the cost of their blood, of the cost of their love, of everything, and the way in the spirit those men had to have. men. But in Gus's case, just a lust for life. A fun man, I love. It's the picture that has been at the top of my ex profile for over, well, ever since I've had an ex profile, 15 years. In Texas, men named their dogs after Gus and call. When I worked on some men named their sons after Gus and call. when I lived in Montana and I worked on a ranch and one of my best friends who was also somewhat of a father figure for me, the rancher that I worked for who's much older than me, when I left, that's what I wanted to give him. I gave him photos of Gus and Call. My wife used to work at a photo gallery in Austin and next door was Bill Whitliff. Bill Whitliff wrote Lonesome Dove, the teleplay, not the novel. And he took photos the entire time they were shooting Lonesome Doves, still photos.

And they're all sepia tone. They're awesome. They're behind the scenes. And they capture Gus and call. And I have those framed in my house. I have a whole book of them. This is it. This is the part.

This is the actor. This is the height in my mind of American art. And we lost Robert Duvall. He did other stuff, guys. I like... That I'm sure Harry Hogg in Days of Thunder. Yeah. Amazing.

Amazing. One movie... Amazing. One movie I like with him that was when I was a kid was secondhand lines with him and Michael Cain. When Haley Joel Osmond. Yeah, I don't think I ever saw it. It's a really good movie. He plays a war hero.

It's a comedy. I've been seeing clips. There's a lot of clips posting today of people giving tribute to DeVal. I saw a clip of secondhand lions, but I don't think I ever saw the movie. It's good. It's good. It's not the best movie, but he plays a really, really endearing and great character. It's really when I saw his acting jobs.

for me besides godfather but i saw him give a speech uh he said the russians have doisteyevsky the english have shakespeare he did a couple other countries the french have mollier he said in america we have the western and uh he's done other ones not just lonesome dove open range did you ever see that with kevin costner yep really good um i also saw randy quade post talking about duval he said i've never seen an actor rip a director as hard as Duval tore into the director on Days of Thunder. I was like, really? Oh, wow. Seems like a masterpiece to me.

And then, of course, Tom Hagan. Before we go, I have one more comment. I have one more comment that I wanted to save for the end here. Because it has to do with the other topic we're going to talk about, Stephen Colbert and James Talarico. Someone said, doesn't the FCC have a law about fair time? Will Kane Country has a duty to get Dr. Riley Kirk on, who's a cannabis doctor. So we have to have the other side, apparently. We don't.

I don't think people understand how the FCC works. We don't what, Patrick? It was a joke. We don't have fair. Oh, they're saying because of Tala Rico. Because of Tala Rico. We have to give equal. Does everybody know what we're talking about?

the fraud of all frauds, James Talleyco, the state senator from Texas, is running for United States Senator, was on Colbert last night. But he wasn't on Colbert. They had to do it as a YouTube special because they say that the FCC shut down the interview. And Tolariko comes out and says, this is Donald Trump afraid of Tala RICO turning Texas blue. And so he leaned on his FCC to make sure that Tala RICO wasn't on Colerico. Because that's really what Donald Trump's thinking about right now. Make sure Talarico, I will bet you that Donald Trump doesn't even know the name, James Tala Rico.

I'll bet you he doesn't know the name. The FCC has fairness requirements. If you put on Tala RICO, and people were saying, does that mean he, Colbert would have had to put on his primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett then? Yeah. I think so. You have to, yeah, but the internet is not the fairness doctrine. But Patrick says we don't have to, but I'm open to it.

The other side of cannabis. We'll put the weed doctor on. Yeah. We'll just hear the other opinion. I'm just saying we don't have to. We can do whatever we want. It's the Wild West, baby. This is Wilking country.

I have one last question for you. I feel like the Augustus McCray in podcasting. Will, one last question for you. If you could have interviewed Robert Duval, what would have been your first question? Oh, man. I don't know. Um, it's tough. First question's always hard with someone who really enjoy.

I think you always get political first. Also, when somebody's out there that much, what's your opinion on abortion? And they get those. So I do at dinner parties. That kind of thing. Yeah. Do you think God's... What do you think about these trans athletes?

We think about heaven. Is that hell real? Well, that would be interesting. Yeah. That might open a really interesting conversation. Yeah. I actually saw. that he was very Christian.

It was a big deal for him to do that movie, The Apostle, with Billy Bob Thornton. And he was... Hollywood was pushing him against doing that movie. And he's like, I wanted to show, like, because Hollywood always showed pastors and

preachers as like hucksters. And he's like, I wanted to show the way I experienced it. So, it's all that interesting. I watched that movie. I can't remember super well. I need to go back. Didn't he win a... Did he win? Did he win

Oscars for that movie? Or was it shut out? That was like his opus. I remember when it came out. That was like his opus. Like, didn't he write it and direct it and do the whole thing on The Apostle? Sounds right. I think so. All right.

We lost a good one in Robert Duvall. That's going to do it for us today. We thank you for being with us here on Will King Country. We hope you will follow us on Spotify or Apple, and we will see you again next time. Listen to ad free with a Fox News Podcast Plus. subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon Prime members you can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon music app