it's okay to be wrong as a whistleblower and it's really wrong to keep a secret you think his wrongdoing. lastly, i would be remiss if i didn't mention every part of government has an inspector general and the igs are the first and most logical report and i hope they will always do that. with that mr. cummings we stand adjourned.

>> "an appetite for wonder" is the name of the book. the author dr. richard dawkins who has written god delusion as well as the selfish gene, bestseller. dr. dawkins why did you choose to write an autobiography at this point? >> i am getting on a bit and it felt like a good moment to do so.

my mother is 96 and is a very useful resource to tap her memories and this being a wonderful experience in effect interviewing her to write the book. it seemed like the right time to do it. this is in fact the first half up to the age of 35 up to where i wrote the selfish genius. a watershed in my life i suppose then it didn't make sense to divided into two books. this is the first one taking it through childhood, school days, university early work as a scientist and after writing this selfish genius at the age of 35. >> why was the selfish gene a natural halfway halfway point for you in a sense? >> the selfish gene gene changed my life and before that i was the ordinary scientist. and then after the selfish gene and i stayed on the faculty at

oxford and went on teaching and went on doing some research but i became i suppose more of a public figure writing books for large audiences. >> who were john and jean dawkins? >> john and gene were my parents. they were well my mother is still alive. my father was a biologist. he did -- at oxford so his career became similarly to mine. we went to the same school, rather expensive english schools and then he went to oxford where ice i've read zoology he did research and i did research and he would intuit which is colonial service which was a thing in those days and we don't anymore of course. i asked malawi it's central east africa and then he was called up

to fight in the war in abyssinia i was worn around that time. my mother was an art student from a cornish family and they had a shared love of wild things, wildflowers and they both knew all the wildflowers so i was brought up in an atmosphere of scientific inquiry and love of nature. >> were you brought up in the anglican church? >> my parents had no interest in religion. i was brought up in anglican schools. that was the thing that only happened. it's quite hard to find a school that wasn't in some way churchy. >> and when did you lose that connection? >> i suppose finally at the age of about 16 when i was in

school. but i had my doubts. i think i had my doubts around the age of about nine when my mother pointed out to me that there were lots of different religions than the one i was brought up in. >> so when you asked your parents about religion and about god and how did they respond? >> i think my mother told me to to -- christian stories as though she believed them which i believe she didn't. and then while i went to school i got it all from school. >> richard dawkins, how did the selfish gene, about as a poke? >> well, about 10 years before i wrote it in 1966, i was asked by my boss a nobel prize-winning scientist if i would stand in his lectures for him. he was on sabbatical leave and i

wrote the course of lectures in animal behavior which pretty much foreshadowed the shellfish -- selfish gene, genes discarding this obsession of bodies and all that rhetoric in those lectures in 1966 and i need lee thought at some point it might read it all write it all down and they finally did so in 1976. when the selfish gene was published but you couldn't find in the selfish gene almost the same words as the lectures that i gave in 1966. so i don't know why i delayed it so long. i actually started to put not tend to piper but -- paper but typewriter to paper in 1973 when there was a strike in britain so there were frequent aristocrats than i could not do my research.

i thought at the time i would start writing that look. >> because you didn't need electricity. >> he didn't need electricity in those days, a manual typewriter. >> in "an appetite for wonder" you talk about john maynard smith. who was he? >> he was a very wonderful man. he was a distinguished biologist a very wonderful character. students loved him. he was funny, irreverent, constantly talking to students about work. he didn't do anything things that professors did about fussing about where the next graph was coming from and things like that. he just got on with it. his tools of the trade were pretty much a pencil and paper as a theorist and he inspired students and he inspired me although i was never actually a student. many of his ideas are incorporated in the selfish gene.

>> after the selfish gene was published ,-com,-com ma how did your life change as a as a professor corrects did you become a celebrity professor and a. >> not immediately. the book did sell very well and i think it's sold 1 million copies. it did cause a bit of a sensation. and i did find myself being invited to do lots of things which i hadn't been before i suppose, talking to people like you i suppose. that did start to happen then and i suppose it did change my life and set me on a new course of writing other books after that. >> here in the states you are quite well-known not only has as a scientist but also as an atheist. when did you start writing about that in earnest? >> the selfish gene has intimations of that and it

doesn't feel that current. all of my books, i made the next book i wrote which was the benign watchmaker is all about the argument of design which is still i think the dominant reason why most people will believe in a supreme being. they will say look at the world of nature and the trees and the flowers. it's all too complicated to happen by chance and of course it is too complicated to come by chance. that's not what it's all about. it's about natural selection. the blind watchmaker was an attempt to explain that to people. and it was taken as an atheistic book by many people. i think the title in america was why evolution shows --

so the blind watchmaker was at least interpreted as an atheistic book and all my other books since then could be interpreted in the same way. the only book that is explicitly atheistic is the god delusion published in 2006 which is i think my biggest seller in fact. i sold 2 million copies in english. but apart from that i books haven't been devoted to atheism and the way the god delusion has. >> richard dawkins your hero you say and an appetite for wonder. >> indeed yes. charles darwin was a brilliant thinker. one of the things i find surprising is that darwin's idea which is so simple and anybody should be able to understand it came so late. it came 200 years after newton and really you might think what

newton did was clever and more difficult and calculus working out objects in understanding gravity and the laws of mechanics and the laws of motion. these are all supreme achievements of the human mind. 200 years before darwin and you wonder why somebody like newton or indeed aristotle didn't think of darwin's simple and powerful idea. >> richard dawkins as someone who has written about science and written about ideas about ideas what was alike it like to write by yourself? >> quite difficult. there's an embarrassment factor writing about yourself and i was persuaded by british and american publishers that is worth doing and i should overcome such embarrassment factor. i hope it's a humorous book. i would like to think it's humorous and i would like to think there are plenty of laughs in it. finally have to say i enjoyed writing it. >> did you end up enjoying it? >> yes, i think i did.

>> why? >> reliving memories. it's not exactly a systematic history of my life. it's more of a patchwork of memory that i had in mind when i started writing so that kind of rackmount -- random memory and i hope brandon memories of put together in such a way to encapsulate a light. >> it will be in the booksto of. is this a and american? >> that is the american cover. >> what does the english cover look like? >> the british cover is sideways on view. it's not smiling. i suppose you could say it's more poetic rather than cheerful. it has me holding up a little jar with an insect and gazing at it and inspecting this insect. >> why different covers? why would that sell --

>> i have no idea. publishers have their ways and i actually like both covers and i'm quite happy to have both of them on there. >> "an appetite for wonder" and the making of a scientist. richard dawkins is the author and it will be in bookstores in september of 2013. this is booktv on c-span2. >> honor next "washington journal" we will talk with duane matthews of alumina foundation for education about higher education.

coming up next, "after words" features columbia professor dr. carl hart on his book, "high price" a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society. the challenge is everything you know about drugs in society. he is interviewed by guest hosts for five a correspondent with the hill and a "fox news" correspondent. >> host: welcome to "after words." i am juan williams in their guest today carl hart up with his book "high price" a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society. dr. hart is a member of the national advisory council on drug abuse and he is also an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at columbia university. he is a board member of the college on problems of drug dependency and has conducted 22 years of research and

psychopharmacology and the science of drug addiction. dr. hart welcome to "after words." >> guest: thanks for having me. >> host: this is a fascinating book and let me say up front it's your personal story as well as the work or the results of your work in science. but the heart and soul of that i would say and if i'm wrong i hope you will tell me i'm wrong is that you are saying you know what, i think there are 20 plus million americans who do illegal drugs. >> guest: the national government conducts a survey every year and this has been known for some time. there are 20 plus million americans who use drugs on them regular basis. >> host: then you also say that over the generations over time people have always use drugs. >> guest: people have always use drugs and people will always use drugs. that's a fact.

i will have to use that one. i didn't know that one. >> host: when. >> host: okay but your point in writing this book as a scientist is that given these realities, the impact that drugs have on social policy, on race, on our culture is oftentimes distorted by a lack of evidence-based thinking that instead people rely on anecdotes or on fears rather than on the facts. so is that at the heart and soul of this book? >> guest: that's the heart and soul of this book. drugs have been used as scapegoats whenever there are social problems and so forth. we use drugs as a scapegoat. the problem for me is that people who look like me are often scapegoated more so than other folks and the scientists who knows the facts about drugs, that's very disturbing. >> host: okay. i would think is a black person it would be very disturbing.

>> guest: that's exactly what i mean. >> host: let's stop for a second and try to understand something that is race related in this regard which you say is just an outrage which is the fact that when you look at something like the 1980s and the crack-cocaine, people identify this as a lack community problem but in fact more whites use crack them blacks and similarly more blacks went to jail, arrested for crack use than whites even though more whites were using the drug. how do you explain that? >> guest: i explain it by, it's kind of simple. the short answer is racism and this isn't new. when i say racism i mean that's what we do is we put our police resources and communities of color, primarily black communities and you can easily catch people doing something

illegal. no matter why. i drive my car and is sometimes bypass the speed limit. if they want they can give me a ticket. that doesn't happen because the resources are not where i am at most of the time. i hang out on the upper west side but if you want to catch people doing crimes you put your police resources in those communities and that is what has happened. this isn't new. one of the things like the crack-cocaine thing, it's important to know in the early 1900s cocaine was used by a wide number of americans. it was in coca-cola for example and it was in a number of products. now there was concern when black people started to use cocaine. for example "the new york times" ran an article in 1914 about black folks being the new seven minutes but black cocaine being the new southern menace and the

way that cocaine was talked about black people being under the influence of cocaine was talked about was that it caused them to be more murderous. it'us them to rape white women. it caused them to be unaffected by bullets. all of this nonsense. this was going on then and it's going on now although the language has been tempered. such easy scapegoats because most of the population don't use drugs. you can't say these things about alcohol. even though alcohol is pharmacologically act as and just like any other drug like cocaine and the rest that you can't say these crazy things about alcohol because many people drink alcohol and they know the effects of alcohol. fewer people use cocaine so you can tell these incredible stories about cocaine. >> host: you think that is still the case today that you

could credibly, on c-span or anywhere else and say oh yeah people who use cocaine gain superhuman strength or as that "new york times" article said if you shoot me and my leg i won't feel it if i use cocaine? they think everyone would say you are crazy. >> guest: let's go back a couple of years ago. there was an incident in miami where this guy,, i think they called it the zombie incident where he chewed off the face of another guy. do you recall that? originally it said, the report was that the person was on bath salts, new drugs that whenever there is a new drug or a new form of drug you can say these incredible stories about the drug and be believed and certainly it was believed that bath salts caused this guy guy to choose this guys face off. now when the toxicology when we checked to see what was in this person's system there was no bath salts. the only thing that was in the person system was marijuana and not that marijuana was even in

the system or not that he had recently smoked marijuana. we just know that marijuana was in his system. now so with crack-cocaine, the things that we said about crack-cocaine in the 1980s, we said that it caused this incredible amount of violence. now we couldn't say that about powdered cocaine. week couldn't have said that about powdered cocaine because the number of americans were using powder cocaine is particularly americans who are middle-class. so we had to have a new route, smoking it, not powder cocaine but the crack-cocaine cause these incredible effects and we believed it as a country in part because we thought it was something new. in fact they were the same drug. >> host: you are saying something new oftentimes leads to this hysteric reaction? >> guest: that's right that there aren't any real new drugs on the scene. that's just the myth for the most part. many of these drugs have been

with us forever. >> host: wait a second. i hear about club drugs and i don't know all the names but the drugs that people take and there are more chemical compounds than marijuana. >> guest: let's just think about it. let's think about methamphetamine. that has been around since the early 1900s. when we think about ecstasy one of the club drugs in the early 2000 people discovered that. they thought this was something new. it wasn't. it's been with us since 1912. so many of these compounds have been with us. it's just that they get a new group of users and when that new group of users is a group that we despise that is a recipe for the hysteria that we see. >> host: let's go back to i think the central point of the book which is lots of americans use illegal drugs and your argument is not for drug legalization. by the way among the american --

who use illegal drugs president obama, president bush, george h.w. bush and also bill clinton and you say these are people who acknowledge drug use and of common to do great things and you point out is he just suggested that they weren't caught up in a network of police arrests that can oftentimes derail success in america. now when you look at the use of illegal drugs, your point and not for legalization per se but for education. and you talk about the idea that people should know what is in a psychoactive drug before they get involved. and one of your arguments that i found fascinating is most people who use illegal drugs are not addicts. by your definition it doesn't interfere with parenting with work or with relationships. i think most americans if they heard this they would say but

doc or hart you are taking away all of the hype and fear that we want our our children to hear and it might be better to say to children don't do drugs. even if your argument is true there are people who do illegal drugs and don't suffer the consequences. why is that better with what you said about the police in network of crime, why wouldn't you say it's better to say to kids don't do drugs? >> guest: well for one i'm a professor so one of the things they think is more important is to teach people how to think. when you say don't do drugs or just say no there is no sort of thinking in that. if you have a curious kid in which you hope you would have, your kid will be curious to find out for themselves. my issue is that why not give the kid the proper education, so if they choose to indulge and

many will not but if they do choose to indulge, they will be safe. that's number one. so i have children myself. i have a 12-year-old and an 18 euros and a 30-year-old but my 12 and 18-year-olds are in that age group are you worried. my kids, i worry far more about the environment in which we have created surrounding drugs, the hysteria because that environment allows police officers to look at my kids like they fit the description of a drug user. so i fear that interaction, my kid's interaction with the police a hell of a lot more than i fear the introduction of my kid with drugs because i can teach them about drugs. ii know that the drug effexor predictable but this interaction with black boys and police is not. >> host: both could be avoided by avoiding drug use. >> guest: my kids might avoided but the point is there are kids who want and so if they

do not avoid it, at least you were keeping them safe i having them have the education, giving them the correct information. not only that, you are not only teaching them about drugs but teaching them to think critically and how to evaluate information. that is what i value as a professor. you talked about legalization and one of the things i want to make clear is that yeah i am not encouraging legalization. i am ford decriminalization said decriminalization looks like this. what you do is drugs are still illegal but when people are caught instead of having a criminal record, they receive a civil fine just like they would if they had a driving violation. that way you get rid of this notion or this impact on their futures.

if they get caught they don't have a criminal record and they can go on and get a job. they can maybe become president but as long as we have these things illegal, that is less likely. >> host: so, in this book you talk about your own experiences and you talk about smoking marijuana and doing cocaine and look at you. you have become extraordinarily successful by any measure. and you say again that most drug users are not going to be involved in crime although you say addiction and crime are related. you say that most drugs users are not going to get involved with criminal activity. you say most have full-time jobs. so, what is the difference than if you are talking to your son, not to me, hugh say what's the difference between the smart way to use illegal drugs and the way to?

>> guest: one of the things that you have to do if people are using illegal drugs or any drugs, they should know what the effects are. for example if they take an amphetamine one of the things amphetamines are really good at doing is keeping you awake. sleep is a central function for human behavior and physiology. if your sleep is disrupted too much you can have all kinds of problems. psychological problems, health problems a wide range of disorders associated with sleep disruption so you want to make sure if you take amphetamine you're not taking it near bedtime and make sure you're getting the proper amount of sleep. if we are thinking about something like heroin, one of the things that we have failed as a country to properly educate people about heroin overdose. the country thinks it is relatively easy to od from heroin. that's just not true. it's not supported by evidence. the problem becomes when heroin

is mixed with another sedative like alcohol. 75% of the heroin overdose occur in combination with something like alcohol. given that is the case, the public health message is clear. don't use heroin in combination with another sedative. if you just simply blasts that message out to the public because say the number of lives. that is another thing. let's think about other drugs. let's think about cocaine. one of the things we know is that cocaine is cut off and with adulterants, with a drug called love love and love and assault. let them do so is an animal do you of the wormer. one of the side effects is that it decreases white buds sells and that means it decreases the body's ability to fight off infections. people can get sick and in extreme cases die. given that's the case we want to

make sure people understand that hey if you use cocaine a large percentage of it nowadays is cut. you might want to stay away from that. >> host: you might want to stay away from? >> guest: stay away from cocaine on the streets because of what is being cut with or you may want to know what your drug is being cut with because they adulterants are in many cases more problematic than the actual drug himself but the public health message isn't getting out there with what the real problems are. instead they are too busy trying to vilify our typical drugs, cocaine, heroin in her one as opposed to making sure we educate people. >> host: i think again we have come back to this idea that in nancy reagan's words just say no to drugs or the war on drugs. you point out in the book that it's a belief more than 3000% increase in the amount of spending on the war on drugs between 1970 and 2011 with very

little consequence in terms of depressing the use of marijuana heroin or cocaine. by that measure not much difference but again from a parent's point point of view, di really want my children to take the risk and say well you know don't use this drug without drug or know that this drug is cut with this. do i really want to educate them in this way if there is a risk that it might say to them well then you get no what, it's okay to use drugs? >> guest: if your parenting is focused primarily on drug education you are in trouble as a parent. you should be educating your kids about responsibility, about their future and about a wide range of things. if your parenting is focused on drug use, you are all ready in trouble. my parenting rarely focuses on drug use. my parenting is making sure that my kids get into the proper college and the school that i want them in. making sure that their s.a.t.

scores are where they need to be and making sure they understand responsibility. making sure they know how to write and communicate, those sorts of things so if your parenting is focusing on drugs you are in trouble. all of these things that i just described, that is the best drug prevention, not to just say no sort of thing if the kids are, if they are curious and they want to know about drugs, teach them because it they do indulge they will at least be safe because we know, i mean my research, myself, my research i have given over 2000 doses of these drugs so i know these drugs can be given safely and they know they can be administered safely. you don't have to look at my research. you can ask americans. asked the guy in the white house and asked the guy before him and ask the guy before him. if we think about it and president kennedy he used

amphetamines throughout his administration safely and we revere him. we think he has made a contribution so this notion of drugs being so dangerous is misguided and it's very limited in that focus. >> host: well is it possible, people who are like weekend users of heroin or cocaine and you say this doesn't necessarily interfere with their ambition, with her discipline. is that right? it seems to me almost counterintuitive that someone is using such strong psychoactive drugs that they are a fully functional member of the community. >> guest: when we say strong psychoactive drugs one of this drunk a psychoactive drug is nicotine but we don't make that statement. it requires a small amount of nicotine to have an effect. i think in every cigarette there is one milligram. one milligram of cocaine wouldn't do anything. the notion that these drugs are

strong is the myth. >> host: it's an myth? when i talk about alcohol and tobacco that they may be more deleterious to my well-being than cocaine or heroin? >> guest: the thing that we have to understand is that with education we can enhance the positive including alcohol, including cocaine and including heroin and with education we can decrease the negative effects. so the first thing we have to understand is that yes there are people who can use cocaine on the weekend and heroin on the weekend and go to work and pay taxes. the question that you asked about heroin and cocaine, just think about asking the same question for alcohol. are there people who can drink alcohol in the weekend and then go to work on monday and be responsible individual's? not yes but hell yes and the same is true with cocaine and

heroin. >> host: you even though again in the american public's mind those two drugs are far more powerful? >> guest: yes. the things that are in the american public's mind sometimes our -- to be nice. the public as i said has been miseducated about drugs. >> host: well here we are and here's your book. again the book is called "high price" a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society. tell us what would you say? you have this platform on c-span. what is it that we should no? >> guest: we are talking about what we should know. i made the notion that most of the people who use drugs for example are abducted. that's not true. most of the people use drugs do so and go to work. if you are going to use any drugs you should understand that you should respect the fact that

they have potentially powerful psychoactive substances. if you don't use drugs with that respect he run the risk of getting in trouble. so if you know about the effects of the drug you are taking then you increase the likelihood that you will be safe. >> host: where'd you go for such information quest. >> guest: my book for one. one of the things when we think about the internet, the internet contains a lot of information but there is no quality control and that's a major concern. there are other books that have been written on the subject like we talked about earlier. i have a textbook on the subject in which we talk mainly about the biological effects of drugs on people's behavior, on people. those kinds of books are very dry and the public gets bored. so i think this book "high price" is a strt.

>> host: explain again for the viewers, this book is not a textbook in any way. it's largely your personal story and then talking about drug use in your life and about your research in combination. when we are talking about drug use for example you mentioned that you have done cocaine and done it over period of time. i think you said you were doing it twice a month with a girlfriend but it's not the case that you ran out of cocaine you felt any compunction to go get more or you were somehow unable to function because you were using cocaine. instead, you talk about larger motivational forces in your life. your desire to earn money and your desire to have a lover. that these were other forces. let's transfer that now to the lab. you are working with rats. you said in this book you can't take rats out of this caged isolated environment and put them in a more social

environment and then you see that they make choices about drug use that doesn't lead them to kill themselves by constantly pushing the lever. what you are saying to americans is you have to see drugs as part of a normal life? >> guest: when we think about the lab many of us have heard about the stories where if you allow an animal to self administer a drug like cocaine they will do so until they kill themselves. many of us have heard that but what we don't know here is that those rats are those animals were so isolated the only thing that they could do was take cocaine. certainly if your life consisted of you being in this cage and the only thing available is cocaine that is what you would do. now, if you put another animal in a cage for example and animal of the opposite cocaine is no longer as attractive. if you put sweetwater in that cage cocaine is no longer

attractive. if you put a running wheel in that cage cocaine is no longer attractive. when we have these alternatives in our lives, and many of us do, it decreases the impact or the attractiveness of cocaine or other drugs. we know this as parents, as citizens. we all know this. if we have jobs we know that we have to go to our jobs in order to get the respect in that regard and all of the rest of these things because if we don't then we have nothing. sometimes drug use interferes with your ability to do your job and get this positive regard. the cocaine may have to go. that certainly was the case in my life. >> host: tell us. in your life. >> guest: cocaine as you pointed out it was just something i was experimenting with a girlfriend and that was

fine. it didn't interfere with my work. i had a job at something like ups and it didn't interfere with my work. if it had i wouldn't have done it because i know i was going somewhere and i had a future and i knew i wanted to go somewhere else. as i knew the cocaine would have disrupted my ability to make money in that situation. i would no longer have a girlfriend. >> host: hold on, this is an interesting point. let's say ups had a drug testing policy and that would have cost you your job. all you felt you were doing was experimenting with a girlfriend but in fact it had this dire consequence for your future. talking about young black men, marijuana, crack whatever, higher rates of arrest than whites even though white may do more the drug, says this terrible consequence for their future. in terms of public policy are you against drug testing?

>> guest: i'm against drug test. the fifth amendment, i'm against drug testing. testing. drug testing first of all tells you nothing about the level of intoxication of the person at the moment. the thing we are concerned about particularly in some sensitive jobs we don't want people to be intoxicated on those jobs. the best way to see if someone is intoxicated is to look at their behavior. there year-end tells you absolutely nothing. for example if you had a beer or alcohol in the past couple of days or so i can test your sweat and see whether or not you have alcohol metabolite but it tells me nothing about your abilities to conduct this interview, absolutely nothing. that is a sense that what we are doing with drug testing testing. someone could have smoked marijuana week ago. we test there year-end and it's positive. it tells us nothing about their behavior currently.

>> host: how would you then determine if i was a pilot or a driver of a vehicle or even a schoolteacher? saudi determine if this person is in fact abusing drugs or it's interfering with their capacity to perform the function you are paying them to do? >> guest: you watch their performance just like when you're on tv or you write your books, you look a performance. if your performance is not up to par you don't keep your job. it's kind of simple. the thing with the drug testing, it provides this false sense of security like you were doing something when in fact you are not. it tells you nothing about the area of interest. i want to make sure people are performing and they are doing their job. the drug testing doesn't tell you anything about that. >> host: one of the interesting point to make in the book in response to my argument about shouldn't we just tell

kids don't do drugs ,-com,-com ma you say when you say that to a child a child being curious and tries drugs and then says while my dad lied to me because i did drugs and it didn't make you go crazy and it doesn't room my performance in school. so the question then becomes one of honesty. you want the child to be able to believe you. okay but at the same time the child may think i am okay but maybe as you were concerned about when you were a young person, if in fact decreases the level of your performance whether it's on the basketball court or in the classroom. how do you deal with that? >> guest: so if the child is using drugs -- cohost the they say i feel fine and the next day i'm doing okay but in fact he see the child gets up later. not as interested in school and not performing as well as school. how do you respond? >> guest: you respond as they parent obviously.

if your child is not handling his or her responsibilities there should be consequences with that. that is what we do as parents. whether their child is not handling the responsibility as a result of drugs or as a result of some other behavioral activity there are consequences. it is kind of simple. drugs are not special in that way. >> host: well they are because as you know if they are illegal drugs they could lead you to jail. >> guest: of course it legality is something different. i tell my kids in terms of black people are more likely to be arrested for drugs. therefore if you ever use drugs you don't use them out there. you do so here because i'm worried about the police more so than anything else. so yeah that's a whole different level of concern there. white parents don't have the same level of concern about the illegality is black parents do and we have to understand that.

>> host: i think white parents of course are worried about their children getting arrested but you're saying in terms of ratios and statistics it's much more like lee for children of color to be impacted by the arrest and the it's and a damage to their future? >> guest: go to rikers i'll wear the young kids are kept in new york city. there aren't any white kids. we know that. >> host: in the book again, so much of the book and again the book is called "high price" a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society by dr. carl hart you talk about an episode in your youth in miami. you saw a white man get shot in retaliation for shooting and then your sister gets shot and this is all drug-related. so you understand the night of consequences that comes from people who think sure i can handle drugs, no big deal. i'm just a weekend user so isn't that contradictory to what you are saying about well, you know

it doesn't really damage them. >> guest: well, like my sister being shot, that was not drug-related. that was some adolescent east that some kids had. >> host: i thought there was a drug element to that. >> guest: the white guy being shot he was there simply to buy some marijuana but there was an incident that happened earlier in the day between some other white guys and the black guys in my neighborhood so that was more race. this guy just happened to be buying marijuana in the neighborhood. so a major problem here would be raised. that was the issue there. that was the racial tension in miami in 1980. >> host: correct but what i'm saying and then of course the shooting of your sister but what i'm saying is this drug element involved but drugs seem to be part of, and this actually emphasizes the point you make in the book, the larger social

structure, the larger social tensions, poverty, abandonment and all of these issues. when drugs come into it they can act as a catalyst. they can speed up negative reactions or exacerbate problems. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: that is why i was thinking it best just to say no to drugs nancy reagan's phrase. >> guest: it would be best if you are white and middle-class to say no to drugs, then they don't have to worry so much about the consequences of the environment that we have set up by just saying no. when you just say no, you act as if the drug itself is causing the problems. you set up this environment. police forces have to get rid of these drugs because we have said that they are awful. when in fact they are not in the people who will pay the consequences are people who look like you and me primarily so i can accept that as a black

person. as an educator it's just not consistent with teaching people how to think. >> host: because people are curious and people want to try it. >> guest: they want to try things and we would like to decrease the harm they do try it. >> host: i didn't understand one point you made which you said if you are a white kid it might make sense to say no to drugs but why would that not make sense if you are a black kid? >> guest: no, my point is that single approach, if you take that single approach you can be done with it but when you take that single approach there is also, there are also other actions that occur so we say just say no like we have done with nancy reagan. that means now we have set up this entire environment where drugs are bad and we have go after them at any cost and the cost primarily are borne by this black community. that is all i'm suggesting.

i'm not saying that a parent shouldn't tell their kids that they should use drugs or anything like that. no, i'm not suggesting that. >> host: in this conversation you referred to nicotine, cigarettes, alcohol is drugs. you don't have much discussion about that in this book, but the question occurs so what would you tell somebody given there are so many americans who smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, more than erdogan of cocaine and heroin put together so what would he say to them about the intelligent use of those drugs? >> guest: we think about alcohol for example. moderate alcohol drinking has been associated with improvement of health. decreased heart rate, decreased strokes with moderate drinking so there are clear beneficial effects of alcohol. essentially when people overindulge that is when they get in trouble and besides every society needs in intoxicant.

if you try to ban alcohol good luck because every society -- >> host: we did try that. >> guest: we did try that and we no longer have it. in terms of tobacco, tobacco also have some positive effects. it enhances your memory, alertness and some people understand that it keeps the weight off for some folks. so that product, that's a little more problematic to me because of the potential for cancers and those sorts of things but we still have to be mindful that the vast majority of the people who smoke tobacco cigarettes do not get cancer. they don't get all of those awful diseases so i don't want to get crazy about that either but i just want people to understand that there are potential consequences and there are also benefits. people make these calculations, these calculations where they

weigh the risk benefit ratio in all the things that they do, whether it's living in new york city or whether it's smoking tobacco. there are risk benefit ratios that we weigh all the time. >> host: so in these cases alcohol and cigarettes what you seem to be counseling is moderation in knowing what you are doing. >> guest: yes. >> host: is that similar to the way you view what we consider for what we have deemed to be illegal drugs, merrill won a, heroin and cocaine? >> guest: that's a difficult question but i will answer he gets on the one hand they are illegal activities so the short answer is absolutely. if you are going to be using these drugs know it you are doing. this is a whole different conversation that we have been having in the country about drugs. when we talk about drugs we are cognitively adolescents in this country when we talk about drugs. what i'm trying to do is to make sure we have a conversation in which we treat people like they

are intellectual adults. so yes if people are going to use those drugs, know what they're doing and they should also know about the dose, the amount of drug you are using, the amount of drug you use, moderation and the negative side effects. do all of these drugs have side effects? they should know everything about the drug. if they do that, they do their research not only will they be improving their skills in this area they will also be improving their critical thinking skills. >> host: which is you say is an absolute requirement for success and you say that clearly in your book. when you are looking at the psychoactive a fax, the mind altering effects of drugs which would you say is the most dangerous? >> guest: wow. it all depends on the user.

for example if you are an older person and you have say cardiovascular lead pressure issues you probably want to stay away from the amphetamines are those types of drugs. so it depends on who we are talking about and what conditions we are talking about. so, there are a number of young people in the country who are taking amphetamines for attention deficit disorder. it's essential -- a sense leave the same drug as amphetamine. a number of people are doing so safely. we would not encourage older people to take that same drug. what might he say for one group may not be safe for another group. >> host: okay and when it comes to this casual use versus addiction again your definition is it doesn't interfere with the parenting or work relationships? >> guest: is not only my definition but the definition

from the american psychiatric association. >> host: when we are talking about addiction and people who become addicted, give me a description of who is at risk and why they are at risk. >> guest: it's a difficult one. when we think about addiction one of the things that americans have done that is inappropriate when we think about addiction is that we act as if the drug itself is special. addiction has less to do with the pharmacology than the drug. it has a lot to do with whether whether or not people or plug-ins in society, whether or not they are responsible a wide range of social factors play an important role but what we have done in the country is that we have paid less attention to those things because it is less to really talk about the fact that this person was a responsible before they started using drugs. this person was overindulging in

a wide range of behaviors before drugs. so instead what we have chosen to focus on is the biology of the individual. what does their brain look like? can we tell if someone is addicted by looking at their brain? not know but hell no. there is no evidence that would suggest that sort of thing but yet that is where we are looking and we should be looking but that has gotten a disproportionate amount of attention rather than the things we know that are valuable. let's look at the person's environment. let's look at the persons, as a person. >> host: that is where you would go with an addict and if you are dealing with fanatics let's not simply imprison a person or punish the person. let's look at how we can restructure the environment. i think in the book you talk about a drug user and the setting in which the drugs are and here we are talking in terms of trying to conduct remediation or in addicts.

you are saying look at the larger environment and that individual. what if you can't control the environment? you can get them to good parents or you can give them a good school or these people are highly frustrated because they are not succeeding in the work world. what do you do with that person who finds them that they have an built-in drugs at the point of addiction? yes go like you said we can't control everybody's environment and i don't know the answer to the people we can't control but we have to decide as a society and they i think we have decided as a society we can prefer to lock them up. that is a choice we have made and i think that's a pro. inappropriate. how about if we see if we can give the person some sort of responsibility so they feel better about themselves? how about if we do these kinds of things. at least we will be trying to make sure that they are paying taxes and they are contributing to society.

>> host: now when we talk about drug policy right now in the united states there are a number of states that are legalizing marijuana and a large debate about whether it should be nationally legalized. what position do you as a neuroscientists have on their won a legalization? >> guest: there are only two states that have legalized marijuana, washington and colorado. it's important to understand something about those states. they are some of the whitest states in the union so when we think about marijuana legalization and other places it ain't going to happen. and how do i feel about marijuana legalization or legalization in general? i think that we should decriminalize all drugs first because we need to have a corresponding amount of education that goes along with that before we make them more widely available. without corresponding education, and i would predict we are

setting ourselves up for more problems. and so if we are going to ultimately legalize and society might decide that so i'm not saying that society should not, but what i'm saying is that we need to really increase our education about drugs. that means that we need to stop having police officers provide our kids education. we need to stop having politicians provide drug education. we need to make sure when people talk about drugs that we can ask the question, those facts are that information, does that information have evidence? >> host: you are saying you don't want the politicians and police talking about drugs as drug educators. you want the scientists and physicians talking about drug use as drug educators? >> guest: i don't even know if i want the scientists because they have a narrow focus of what

we need to do. i want the public and people to be able to say to these folks the information that you are relaying to me do they have foundations and evidence, not and it do but evidence. .. even though they used the drug the same rate as white folks.

so much of the fuel for this is -- this racial disparity in, and saying is that even the less the case, the states in which there are large populations of black people, there are no movements to legalize and marijuana. and that's because i don't think it'll happen in states that have large numbers of black people. >> at think there's something missing here. for example, most of the states with large numbers of black people are in the southern part of the country. for the all more lovingly down in the national level by republican conservative politicians who might think are less likely to be open to the andean of drug legalization. >> are you suggesting it is black politicians who are resistant to the --

publicans insists like, for example, the celebrated case of mr. martin down in florida, your home state, there is an argument there about a young man, i think book tv are 70 many died who had

used marijuana. should that be allowed into the court proceedings when it comes to evaluating who was? >> this goes back to the early articles written by -- about the negro cocaine theme. one of the reasons that the defense is so adamant about bringing in his drug use history is because they're playing on the perceptions of drug users, the perceptions, by the way to my trampling on the book are wrong that they count on those perceptions such that they see him as less than human and then they conjure up these images about drug users that there incorrect. bin it infuriates me that this becomes an issue. >> host: especially for young men of color. >> guest: a young black man.

let's be specific. >> host: you think if he was latino it would have less? >> guest: it's not that. the conspicuous characteristic is race, whether they're black or latino. it's and ethnicity. there are black and latino, the conspicuous characteristic is race and not so much there -- what they speak. you understand what i'm saying? >> host: you think it's color, but its blackness. >> guest: absolutely. at think that's important. the darker the skin, the neighborhoods, all the rest of those things. not to say that obviously in new york city we arrest a lot of hispanic and black folks. but i think in this case i'm asking you just to be specific. were talking about a black man in the bronx, this kid who was killed but a police officer who killed in is bathroom.

he was black because he thought that he had marijuana on them. so i'm just asking you to be specific. the turn like a person of color, it's okay, but were talking about a black cat. >> host: what i'm saying to you is in the history of the united states, you think about the chinese being caricatured as opium users and crazed on tracks again, you think about the latino community and a bunch of cocaine themes, the cocaine being sort of, you know, completely where in that community when they're all selling cocaine are something. >> enough familiar with that. >> host: you can even think of a star face, the movie. >> guest: but we think about things like star face we didn't pass new laws as a result of

star face in the 80's. miami 1980's, when i grew up. we did pass laws about crack cocaine when we saw the images of by people using cocaine. surface was a cuban immigrant who came here. no new laws. in the 1980's we have murder rates peaking in their country. there's no new laws. >> your argument is so many of these laws are rarely directed against black people? >> is the only my argument. the evidence is there. >> host: the most prominent argument in support of your case would be the argument that the disparity in sentencing for powder cocaine verses crack cocaine, and again, the point being crack cocaine, on going to try to hold to your line, used mostly by black people, not just poor people, but -- but black

people. pater cocaine use by white people. >> the data are that white people use more crack cocaine and black people. that's a fact. there is a perception that black people are using crack cocaine at greater rates. so the perception drove where law enforcement efforts replaced. and -- >> host: going back to your argument, if you are introducing cocaine at a law firm among people who have promised that is, family filling in town verses introducing it into a community where there is large-scale dysfunction in terms of poverty, racism, oppression, i could go on. seems to me there is going to be a different result. >> yeah. absolutely. we talked about this earlier. drugs or any other illegal activity can exacerbate all of those problems. >> host: right.

why then do you say to the society, you're wrong to try to crack down on that committee that while the more devastating impact. >> i would say you're wrong to crack down in terms of drug policy. singling out drugs by drugs is the reason for the problems the you describe. drugs are probably less of a problem that employment, education, all of these other things. >> love me argue with you. >> absolutely. >> what i know living here in washington d.c. and a black community is that if you have suddenly people pop up in crackhouses depress the value of real estate. private -- drives away retail sales, small stores. it makes the committee less attractive in d.c. the middle class. maybe i should move out of here. so those are very negative effects.

>> i would rather not see drugs come into my community whole scale, and that's why -- >> that's not the point. >> that will not happen. as now when i'm arguing. >> in terms of social policy. in terms of social policy it should be direct at the poor black neighborhoods. i think they're more vulnerable and can be more easily destabilize when you get drug dealers try to plan their flag in those communities, they become the most prominent personality. >> first of all, if you make sure the people and jobs and people have been meaningful employment, education, drug dealers are not the most prominent people in the community. >> if that the case, but if you going to poor black neighborhoods there is an

that's a fact, would you introduce drugs and it seems like -- >> i think that's short-sighted, the way you just characterized it. overly simplistic. on the one hand, first of all, when he said the crack houses, we still don't have to do our job as police officers, to do, sort of stuff. you make sure people are breaking the law. you still do that, but the consequences of catching people shouldn't be so dire that their lives are ruined as a result of being caught. you want to make sure, for example, all of this undercover activity that we do with the police, we don't need that. someone is speeding in a car and you see a police officer, you slow down. as opposed to some police officer hiding where you never knew the person was. you continue to speed. so the police officer does his job. as number one.

you make sure the people have an opportunity for meaningful employment. >> the woman saying is, if you're a drug dealer and you're looking for, the dollar will population to exploit, you're looking for places where you can, in fact, established dominance, would think that you would go to a vulnerable community, a poor community to do it. >> this is a myth. >> has were one of the year. >> and a drug dealer. on going to go to the poorest place again. that's not our works. i think they thought for example that these kids in the streets of d.c., miami, my friends, me included, but they're making all of this money. the warrant. this notion that these kids were making money, it worked. this notion appealing folks in the community, their only appealing if there's no other

alternative. >> true. i didn't do your point. as i said to you, that comebacks of them why they to those communities because they can be the super hero, the one that has the most money, the one his providing sneakers. >> of surrey, you did give my point. those communities have no money. drug dealers cannot survive if a community is that having money. >> the drug dealers in fact can develop markets among people who are vulnerable, needy, feeling as if they're left out by the larger society. looking for something. >> i assure you, there are white folks coming to those communities to buy drugs if the drug dealers are going to survive. >> so whites could come there. but that's where they are. you don't see the drive-by shootings, the kind of drug dealer rivalries playing out in

a flowing white communities even though there is tremendous produce. >> in the early 1980's he certainly did in miami. >> in the white communities? >> well certainly they ascended beyond the black communities in the 1980's. you raise the surface example. >> most of these incidents and the shootings, the rivalries among for dealers to replace and pure -- poor black communities. >> this certainly do, particularly when the markets and new. that happened with crack cocaine fighting over turf, it. >> she tells you this sort of thing anymore. i think that's a minor issue. i don't want to downplay the fact that people are killed. obviously that's awful.

that think that has been the sole point or one of the major points driving will we do with drug policy. i think it's shortsighted and limited. that's all i'm saying. >> okay. the book is called "high price: a neuroscientist's journey of self-discovery that challenges everything you know about drugs and society". our guest has been dr. carl hart. i just want to remind you that he is not only in author but an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at columbia university, a member of the national advisory council on drug abuse, a board member of the college on the problems of drug dependency, and has done 22 years of research in narrow psychopharmacology. it's been a real pleasure to learn about you. this is in large part a biography as well as a book about trucks society in race. congratulations. >> thank you.

>> wednesday night book tv in prime-time features a look at personal reflections. book tv in prime time here on c-span2. wednesday british prime minister david cameron takes questions from members of the british house of commons. live coverage as 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span2.

>> making the transition from journalism to bucks is exhilarating and completely overwhelming and frightening, but wonderful. >> what did you make that change? >> i made that choice -- i have long wanted to be working on a book because of the freedom allows you to really dive into the topic and losers often go off on tangents and have enough time to really explore fully. >> sunday taboos scientists living in space, the afterlife and the human digestive system. best-selling author mary roche will take calls, e-mails, facebook comments, and suites, three hours live sunday at noon eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> next, temple grandin discusses recent autism research . experiences living with autism. this is just over an hour. >> talk about tonight.

one of the things i might like to start talking about is exactly what is normal, mild autistic traits so that peaks and there's become mild optimism. half of silicon valley probably has a little bit of optimism. it's a very big spectrum. at one end of the spectrum you have maybe steve jobs, silicon valley computer guy, a guy who fixes your copier machine, and that the other end of the spectrum you have people much more handicapped and nonverbal, definitely going to have to live in a supervised living situation . you take somebody like albert einstein, doesn't speak until age three. what would happen to him into a school system? that sort of makes me shudder. what kind of drugs that would get him on. a little bit of some of these trees can given the advantage. research shown that in the

family histories of people their bipolar you have more creative types of people. the family histories of people with autism, you get more technical kinds of careers. a little bit of the trade gives an advantage. too much a great big disadvantage. chino, at some point its normal variation. one of the problems in dealing with autism, so many different people are covered by this word from people that can be very accomplished to people that will have to live and supervised living situations. diagnosis is changed. autism diagnosis is not precise. is not a diagnosis for tuberculosis. you either have a are you don't. that's a very definite. the american subject -- psychiatric association has about. and the first version came out they thought autism was caused by psychoanalytic problems. then there was a horrible face.

the second edition, they didn't even mention autism. they left it out. in the third edition he had to have speech delayed and onset before three years of age. then in the early 90's they added as burgers or you can have a social communication deficit and to lay. so now you have the mild and of the spectrum. so then it cannot and take the s burgers out and make it all on to some and make a new category called social communication disorder and say it's now runs it -- neurological. that doesn't make sense because social communication problems, that's part of the core criteria of autism. it's not precise. it's kind of a moving target. it just kept on changing and changing and changing. one of the things i cover in a lot of detail in the artistic framework is sensory problems.

you can have sensory problems with dyslexia, a ph.d., many different levels. they vary from a nuisance to being so debilitating you can't tolerate and noisy restaurant for transition or any can a place like that. and i was a little kid and the school bell went off and hurt my years. a lot of ways you can desensitize that, but the child initiate that. then there are other kids who can't stand fluorescent light. sometimes colored glasses help, sometimes using pale colored pastille paper will help. one of my big things is i absolutely cannot stand scratchy cause against my skin. there's no way you're getting will against my skin. the thing i found is that some cut niches and others does not. we need to do research. and in need to do sensory issues we have a lot of papers that

show, yes, circuits of the brain , official recognition and things like that. we know all about that. we aren't doing enough studies on how to deal with sensor problems. now, and one of the chapters of the book, my co-author is done a great job of getting a lot of material together. after thinking for going to the whole dsm and getting that done. one of my favorite chapter is right talk about the different kinds of brain scans. and what basically showed up in the brain scans also showed up -- showed up in the classroom, activities i did. when it came to athletics was strong and could run fast. when it came to skiing i could never keep them together and do those perfect -- that i found out my cerebellum was 20% smaller than normal. i found out that my fear center,

the a in a dilemma, the brains your center was larger than normal. that would explain why had so much anxiety problems. terrible, terrible, terrible anxiety problems. there is no control with antidepressant medication. a lot of people a super anxious. a little bit of antidepressant get help, but one of the skins that turned me on was one done back in 2006. scientists at the university of pittsburgh and carnegie-mellon found that i have a great big huge visual track. that would explain my visual thinking. and then they found out that might -- answer will spinal fluid in my left parietal. that trashed out multitasking. in one of the things i can't do is remember long sequences of information. when i had a job there were

about ten steps for setting up the equipment. unfortunately they had it written down molest. if i had not have that list would of been a lot of trouble. i would have had to make -- now will be a will to do very precise diagnosis with brain scans because the greatest imaging now, we need to think the defense department for the funding. it was originally developed for head injuries. and it maps white matter fiber tracks. they looked at my circuit in my brain, speak classes. my circuit has greatly reduced bandwidth which explains why had trouble getting speech out. when i speak with a year, it was really tiny. and in the future there will be will to use this kind of scanning to figure out exactly where the promise.

you know, sensory issues. you can get different types of language problems. some kids are alike. they speak just fine, but they have absolutely no idea what the tv commercials mean because the meaning circuit is probably not hyped-up. now one of my favorite chapters is where i talk about the different kinds of mines. because when i first wrote thinking in textures i thought everybody was of photo visuals to think like me. i thought everyone thought that way. then i started reading reviews. a kind of tell me that not everybody on the spectrum thinks that way. so then i started interviewing people about how they think. everything i think about is like a photo realistic picture. okay. but think about the united airlines terminal in chicago i see its glass structure dividend

of seeing the crystal palace. balancing the biosphere in arizona. the greenhouse at colorado state, kind of and glass structure category, but there are specific class structures. or i can get in the airport category. start seeing scenes of different airports. one from laguardia. an old dingy hangar. i drive by there in a taxi. interesting stuff. exploring the old hangars. probably all kinds of interesting weird stuff in there. that's one of the images that i have from laguardia airport. denver, that's my image for the denver airport. now, the more i got to thinking, the more different kinds of mines need to work together. on the photo realistic visual thinker. everything is pictures. could do algebra. a lot of kids that can't announce a broad but can do geometry.

many took a one to let them do geometry. another kind of kid on the high end of the spectrum are all mass geniuses. this is the pattern thinking mind. they don't think in pictures. it think in patterns. you have two kinds of visual circuits. you have circuits for what is something that you have circuits for wears something. the mathematical mind is the where is something. these kids often have trouble with reading. so you start seeing in third grade at the kid is get math, well, let him get our math -- del making debating at. another kind of mind is the world's tanker. this is the get it knows of a facts about his favorite movie stars, baseball players, one of the thing is that you relax. pinellas canasta by parents,. [inaudible question] tell what kind of a tanker my child is. well, and often shows up around seven, eight, or nine years old. the visual thinkers like me like

to do art. mathematical mines like mathematics, lagos, the visual thinkers like to build things. writers deriding. they have some, it's all words. they're just so -- so-so in math. the have auditory runners. it dyslexic students. she doesn't like anything through vision. and the reason is because she had a lot of visual processing problems. sometimes visual images would get distorted, kind of a pixel it. and we need to have the different kinds of mines working together. i found in my own projects i can visualize things, but then i have to have someone in as the engineering staff to do the engineering staff. the slick is something like the focus of a nuclear power plant. that's a project really needed visual banker's because the reason why those reactors burned up his then made a mistake that

no visual thinker would make. i can design a nuclear reactor, but i wouldn't put the hard to see cooling equipment the generators that run the emergency cooling in a basement that was not waterproof. that's what they did. it doesn't work under water. and all i have to know about in a clear reactor is that if that pump doesn't work and they're so much trouble is not running and may be a basement with submarine doors with some palms, something akin keep trying. i understand that. that's what we need to do for mines. even a working on the book, richard was my organization. also, he did the heavy lifting energetics chapter, looking a blow stuff, but that's another example of the different minds working together. on the movie, the mother of an autistic child, a producer of the movie. took a long time to get the right team of people. mick jackson and christopher,

the writer. the writer gives the structure. he understood my visual thinking. the move is a great job showing that. another example of different kinds of mines working together. one thing that is universal across the spectrum is what is called bottom-up thinking. everything is learned by specific examples. you want to teach a kid what up means, then go up the hill. i go up the escalator, jump up. i walk uphill. you have to give a bunch of different specific examples. now, maybe in government since were inside the beltway. we need to get a lot more bottom-up thinking. one of the things it really worries me in government today, you're getting people with the degree in political science and then they go work in government but they don't know anything about the practical world on how those policies are going to affect mr. jones over here,

sally over a year and somebody else over here. as the more bottom-up. because that's the way i look at things. the disadvantage is a half to get out and look at all -- lots and lots of things. all of -- these are all very good concerns, especially on the higher end of the spectrum. to many young people today, much more mild than i am, they are getting jobs. they have not learned work skills. you know, you have to stretch these kids. my mother had a really good instinct on just how much to charge me for knows a little kid. i'm seeing kids today don't know i shop. adana have a go up to the counter restaurant and order food. no, as burgers. go december forum. no, have good account earned it himself. we will start no one is not busy

in noisy. you don't just jump in and the deep end. remember, no surprises. when i was 15i was afraid to go to my aunt's ranch. unsafety many individuals. peter slen and i went to the us special boarding school. the first two years i was there i didn't do any studying. the data do? work. i cleaned a lot of forestalls.

i was really proud of the fact that i basically ran a horse barn. it was a lot of hard work. i got satisfaction from that. i think the headmaster realize that. when i was 13 mother had me doing a little selling job. add to shingle roof. i learned how to work. it was a discipline of work. at a bunch of internships. one of my, worked in a research lab and had to rent a house with another lady. i had a ton of work skills. when i get to arizona was working on my master's. someone went to the arizona state fair and found a sign painter and he put the work and a painted signs for the carnival i started knowing how to do that. and i'm walked up to the editor of the magazine and goddess carved images like it did the movie and started writing for the magazine. one little article in the time. prince of signs.

effluent to designing things. it was one little project at a time. that's all i build the business. people saw that was really weird. we have to learn is yet to sell your work rather than yourself. and show people my drawings. the other thing we have to figure out is how to get in the back door. one thing i learned is you never know where you're going to meet the person that you could share your portfolio to. well, get your kids are work on your phone, as computer programming. don't we put your good stuff on there. people tend to put a lot of rubbish in the portfolio. and you have to learn things like sex, religion, and politics , we don't need the subjects of work. parker hit home. extreme views on those topics are welcome. the other thing is, when he to find an employer that is willing

to work with a guy. there's a scene in the movie or my boss slams down the deodorant. that actually happened. that actually happened. was very upset at the time, but i think of some much for that. it really follows me. they have and when the discipline of work. there's a discipline to doing work, and i think we need to start teaching works hills. we will be resolved with 13 years old. it used to be paper routes. we'll have those in more. walking dogs. have them doing something that they have to do every day. as a discipline to that. working in the farmers' market. shopping for growing trees for old folks, making power point presentation, fixing computers. the other thing is we have to get kids involved with shared interest. they get these special interests.

get them into the crow buttocks' club, a sketch of a club where they can do a 3d drawings. there were during the teasing. and i have my science teacher. the kind of thing, the formal part of my talk getting into questions, that's the part really like. autism is such a big spectrum. i think it's difficult to shift gears of working with somebody of nonverbal to somebody and not to be working in silicon valley.

wallace him go out there and succeed. find a back door and talk to a perilous night. worked at the movie theater, got about a house, turning into reckless, and became an usher. he denied that. them the electronic things the run for the company now is running that. that's an example of the back door. then you have to get a boss that's willing to coach. another great job for a 12 year-old is a museum tour by -- tour guide. a lot of them will taken at 13. mark dessing had agreed people cannot go stomp around the museum, the stand to close. and think what i want to do right now, saddam some microphones, lineup and a switch back-and-forth. we have to give some really good discussion going because that's the part i really like. come on.

get up there. [applause] if no one gets up there on going to pick somebody. oliver sacks. we have an icebreaker. it. >> i'm just here to break the ice. al have a good question. i don't have words for my admiration for you. you talk about limited ability. i don't see -- i wouldn't i guess you with anything. >> the person with autism keeps improving. this is why yet to get them out and expose them to things. fixating on the optical

illusion. kids call me tape-recorded. i can figure out why. alloys used the same phrases. as you get out you get more and more information. philip the data base of the mind. imagine how autistic kid as an empty internet you have to fill the stuff. to understand something in the future, way up to something in the database. >> i have a follow-up. miasma can't stand loud noises. can't stand the feeling of guilt. i can't stand being granted in the back of an elevator.

>> as a point where these traits , it's incredibly complicated tons and tons of it. and a lot of these traits in the mild forms are part of normal variation. the nonverbal. sensor problem so bad that they have difficulty doing daily living skills. supervise toweling. severe autism and then the child so severe they can't do normal activities. we can do normal activities like up to grannies and have sunday dinner. we could go to a movie. we get to a museum. yet individual so severe you can't do that.

autism with other problems connected. there's a very big spectrum. a point where wind is moody become bipolar? i like the old term, manic depression. wind does that become depression it's a continual. >> well, congratulations. thank you for everything you've done for animals. >> thank you. it's a lot of work. things have gotten better, but there are things that need to be improved. eighty's and early 90's, there were the bad days. >> i first read about you about 30 years ago. i became an admirer. after questions. could you make a few comments about your empathy for animals? the second question i have is, do you still do this squeezebox? >> the me answer those two questions. one of the things that help me in understanding and also is being a visual banker. animals in translation.

and get down and see what they're seeing. they be afraid of our flection, cheney down. of those on the ground. if you get rid of these distractions that walk up the sheets. nelson found a behavior was the same. i won't say it's not stress free, but the amount of stress is about the same in both places . being a visual thinker help me to imagine. vision is the dominant sense. of course people think, they have to know they're getting slaughtered. and that's something that i had to answer when i for started. this was back in the 70's. it was fairly decent. the band the same way there's they did.

they knew their rig in the get slaughtered. it would urge him down. a 5-foot 6-inch fans. there were capable of jumping it, but they didn't. alloys can asked helicon care about animals and be involved with slaughtering them. first of all, it would not exist if we had not raised it. there are problems. pushing animals biology to hard where they get problems. i'm very concerned about that. less talk about -- i don't use it anymore. it broke two years ago i never got around to fixing it. spur some individuals did pressure is very common. it doesn't work on everybody? the problem with autism is it is so variable. okay. >> hi. thank you so much. it's an honor to be here. my daughter's four years old,

recently diagnosed with autism and is also very premature. a lot of medical issues. however were going through a lot of feeding schools of that mental -- i saw that any movie. at dawn of that is. >> the reason is i have not stop colitis. after i went on the internet presence and stopped the constant anxiety and stress, it went away -- it went away and i did have to eat the are written jell-o. the reason why i was eating that is because i had her read this colitis. after took the antidepressant a stop my nervousness and cure it. up live to do anymore. >> thank you.

>> hi. i'm curious of your thoughts, your work over the years when i read your books and articles, and i've seen you on liner in movies, the applicability of much of what you have written and ascribe to seems significant in terms of guidance for someone that hasn't been diagnosed in a curious your thoughts. >> i think one of the problems is kids aren't learning more skills. in the fifties they taught social skills and a much more systematic way. i think today, it hurts the people with artistic tendencies more than the normal kids. the model for. you have to teach them and shake hands and show them exactly how much pressure and how many shakes. that was talk back in the fifties. the haft to some. the other thing is you have to learn that even in a job that you loved there is going to be

brought work. i was proud of the fact that took care of the whole board. there was one part of my job i hated. kerry sawdust upstairs. i finally got a police system rigged up side of nafta do that. that wasn't fun at all, but every job no matter how much you like it has some groundwork. i'm finding that some of these are people today that are mildly on the spectrum don't want to do it. >> well, i remember you once talked about autism, and you would never take it. it makes things possible in a live. dallas found that interesting because when i was diagnosed with kasper's about eight years ago, back then i was ashamed and i wish i could be cured. now i'm with a group that

teaches autism acceptance. would you care to elaborate? >> i would not want to be cured because i like the logical way that think. on the other hand, i quit being a college professor first. when they set this book tour of the mother wanted to cancel my slaughter plant -- my animal welfare trading and asset absolutely not. going to have terrains a book tour around it. that's is my real job. in that think it's really great to except having it, but on the other hand, seeing kids today get so hung up on autism that they aren't doing other things. you know, it's a very important part of a lamp, but is secondary to my life start work, and i won't give that up. i have two reasons. i really like it, but the other reason is i think, better role model if i still have a real job

like teaching my class, the class that i teach. i've had situations where flight in new york can do a talk and turn right around, and do my class and turn around and fly back to new york again. that is certainly not on the fun side of things, but i think that's important. and the employment thing, the other thing, show that we have autism and are employed and are contributing members of society. that's another thing that i think is important. >> what do you do for a job? >> i work it the capital. >> kid. that's really good. and where i've seen -- ticket. congratulations. where i'm saying and diagnose is really being helpful is on relationships. different, not less. fourteen people on the spectrum visually diagnosed, 40's, 50's, were 60's because the

relationship from a step. the diagnosis really help them, but every single one of those people at a job. they have that job all their life and supported themselves. i deliberately picked people with a wide range of jobs from museum tour guide to a computer person. they all have paper routes when there are young. what we have to do is show the world that people on the spectrum, that's one of the things i learned. be proud of the back you have a job in keeping it. >> thank you. >> i just read your book tonight. thank you for coming.

the first of my grandchildren was diagnosed. two grandchildren have been severely damaged. it was helpful for me to by providing me with hope for the future. sometimes i feel there were talking about -- >> this is the problem. there are two groups. this is the thing that is a real problem. when i was a little kid i was severely autistic, no language until age four. we have to go in there, do the early intervention. you can't sit in the corner. once you do the early intervention, then divide the two groups. you have one is more likely. some that are very severe. then you have a few that have all locked in central. and describe a sensory jumbled world where they can control movements. is a good brain hitting inside a

person is doing all this kind of stuff. >> i feel is more than that. they exceed on the development of scale. the youngest ones lost everything, and even lost his ability to read and and one point in time what he did was bang his head to oppose there out, and the head permanent. there was a live this life. pediatric auto immune disease. and from the first extensive treatment you can tell from my motion we're doing anything we

can. he had one treatment, he and his brother had one treatment every month for six months. from the first treatment. >> that's really good. i'm going to have to go on to somebody else, but that's really good. one of the problems in autism is that it's a behavioral profile. is not a precise diagnosis. >> after we did that they had ulcers. >> well, the problems go with autism. one of the bad things that happened is you might have a child a lot of severe problems. since he has this label of artisan he is ducking treated for the gastrointestinal problems. when you have a behavior problem , especially with someone this nonverbal, year after rule out that his medical problem.

gastrointestinal, number one. starting with acid reflux. if you want to lick it urinary tract infections, yeast infections. >> i just want to say, now that they're comfortable in their own mind and that they're starting -- they interact. >> that's right. they are in complete pain all the time. it's bad things, not just some label. he as autism. he has not isn't unhappy possible have gastrointestinal issues which is just wrong. okay. >> as you may know, the community has grown tremendously in this country. >> which community? hispanic. okay. >> there's very little awareness so, are there any mention some of transmitting your book into spanish -- >> some of my books have been translated. the first chapter of thinking

and pictures is on the website is banished. i'm almost positive the autistic bramwell get translated into spanish. i can remember the spanish settlers from books to mislead have to go on spanish-language websites and put my name and. my first book is in spanish. that is still in print. >> in addition, he is in the visual category. he likes to draw. he draws beautiful pictures. however, when he's done dry in the picture he looks at the pictures. i don't know exactly what he's looking at, a witty seeing, when he does that -- >> some of these -- their different reasons for doing that. i can remember doing that to calm down. in an hour after lunch break.

things to come down. if you let a little kid do that all day, the brain doesn't evolve. and they get excited they go like this and can't control it. >> i know. >> there are different reasons. you can do repetitive behavior to calm down. that's one reason. you can do it because you just get excited because you can't control it. yet it thing, someone who has to rats.

with fixator behavior and repetitive basis. i think would get in there and start looking at these brain scans. for example, that's not true for everybody with autism. it's also not true that everyone with autism has an enlarged additional track. mathematicians probably don't have water in their parietal area. there is variation. the one thing that seems to be the most common, you go and take a bunch of people and put them in the scanner. you find that. the thing a stupid about that is the technology for putting face recognition and recognizing a motion and faces, that technology is over ten years old it's not being used. >> thank you. thank you for coming. you truly are inspiring. and a four year-old son on the autism spectrum. his lack of engagement in

attention. his internal. >> four years old. were you doing for therapy right now? >> one hour a speech to my two hours of the tea. >> you need to be -- deasy, need 20 hours a week of one on ones . people are going bankrupt and mortgaging their house, don't do that. if she tried to do it all yourself you will go crazy. get students, volunteers and watch what your speech therapist does and watch what your foretime person does and then to a whole lot more of that. people fight over which method they use. the denver start method is a little bit different, but the thing that is important is getting enough hours with an effective teacher who is gently persuasive to pull it out of the kid because one hour a speech a week is not enough. in dallas the time were you have

to act. don't wait. >> more toward therapy as opposed to the alternative, the program are things like that. >> well, i think the thing that has the most evidence based is the one on want their piece. and what my speech teacher did -- and this may work similar, she would hold the pickup and say come up. in the she would alternate between saying it the regular way fast and then break it down. the problem is i have problems with hearing the hard consonant sounds. have auditory processing problems. when they talked fast i thought they had their own special language. slowdown. these kids need interaction. i turn tanking games, board games are great. they teach turn taking. they keep having to wait your turn. those are things, the most important thing to do is get a

lot of hours of therapy. if you of any speech of all, is becoming in? >> it is. >> get more hours in. this is the time to put in the hours. the thing is, some teachers have a knack and others don't. get some students come and get some people to start working with. okay. >> hi. thank you for speaking tonight. my mom read your book in the early 90's 20 the right now. he's pretty much completely nonverbal. highly motivated. he was one of those kids who is a ba. ..

order the book from politics and prose. tito describes how he had a -- put only a t-shirt. his mother said he doesn't understand how it goes on. he spent five whole minuting pulling it down over his head and then slowly taking his arms through the arm holes because if you do it too fast, he doesn't