followed the transition of government on c-span as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the united states. and republicans maintain control of the u.s. house and senate. we will take you to key events as they happen without interruption watch live on c-span. or listen on her free c-span radio app. [inaudible]

good evening. thank you for coming. nearly four years ago as many of you know we have have the distinction of being the first state to legalize cam in the best. the innovative waves. it has come to be known as the geek -- and green rush. joe wanted to seek out the true history of cannabis. a book that is being applauded by people across all walks of life.

please join me in welcoming joe dolce. >> one of the hardest things about this is to really figure out what it is and what it isn't. there are 70 facts and fictions about it. it's very can using. does it stimulate nativity or does it kill brain cells. my favorite one when i was growing up was that it grew breasts in men. when i first started to do this book. i started looking at all of the information is very confused. it got me a little bit more engaged. a cousin of mine woke me up one morning and he said you want to see this new hobby of mine. he took me downstairs under his house into the basement

through a locked door into the small chamber and it turned out he was growing a few plants. and he had been doing it for about a year. the girls looked pretty happy. and afterwards later in the day he said i wanted you to try something. he said i want you to try something called super lemon haze. i stopped probably when i was in my late 30s have become too powerful too much paranoia not enough pleasantry anymore. i just moved away. i had spoke to him in a very long time. and i tried this and he took a

few hits. it was great. i felt excited and stimulated and thinking about the same things. we need to reacquaint myself with this plant. i started talking about it with my people. he said this is a interesting topic. there are some people that use it. i've used it my whole life. i can't believe i can't travel. you should definitely write a book about this. i thought i was quite ignorant. i started finding all the various discrepancies and what it is and what isn't. so i decided with my birthday coming up i decided i was

going to go and investigate a little bit. my first stop was to amsterdam. i went to the 25th anniversary. it was a pretty disconcerting experience. the sun comes out a couple times a day. it's in an old warehouse it wasn't heated. everybody there it was out of 1960. a lot of white guys with roster here. i was only guy there with no beard and walking around with a notebook and a pen. i was not getting the warmest welcome here. and towards the end of the four or five days i spent learning about what life is like an ins and outs of

religion religion american guy who was packing up his boots. i used to live here. i moved back to denver a couple of years ago. the energy is all there right now. you have to come see it. i came to denver in january this is my first port of call really and i was invited by a bunch of growers and oil makers into their inner sanctum. in behind it they were doing other things. i met oil makers and people making concentrates.

and people turning the plant into oils in chatters. they were super high concentrated. you just using the oils. i spent a good for five days with them watching them. it was all the small businesses that were just starting. they were doing this in the back room. i didn't care about the law. or the market. they just wanted to do this. they just didn't have enough product to make the chocolate bars whatever the other products they were working on. they really are in some kind of a boom time here. the final day i have done a

lot of recording. it's a super concentrated oil i said sure, of course. typically you will have it the size of a sesame seed this is more the size of the appleseed. we went out to dinner. i'm sitting at the menu. in the words start dancing on the page here. for many minutes. maybe it felt like a half hour. maybe is 15 minutes. i was just uncomfortably vomiting outside. making a mess.

i called back and and said to my host take me back home. i remember the last thing i saw was the sad side of the busboy having to wash away my mess. i think anybody who has used this has probably have a moment like that. but i couldn't figure out what happened. i get up in the morning and i started googling. i could not get an answer. there was more of the myths and hype verbally. but no answers. and at that point i thought okay now i need to figure out what this plan is and why this happened to me. this is a very odd experience. to historically used as antinausea. they went to israel what

happens in the u.s. is a schedule one drug which means it's highly addictive. that restricts all research in the united states. the only people that can relate research easily of the national institutes of drug abuse. in their mandate is to find all of the harmful effects of cannabis. and they really haven't found very many. is that we do what we do is we pay the israelis.

i spent several days with him. the system of receptors was discovered. the receptor system is dense in the brain. that is what they respond to. they found the receptor system and they did know what chemicals were triggering this. when i had receptors in our body to respond to things in plants.

sometimes it's coincidental like with opium. but the differences there are no can have a noise. that controls the heart of the lung. that's important. if you take too much they're sending shutting down those two essential organs. because cannabis doesn't have any receptors no one has ever died. it's just a fact. after a couple of years they did find these chemicals their

bio identical. it's an amazing thing if you think about it. we share this substance with this plant. there they are doing a research with pts the good evidence there has been experience. it was administered within four hours. they stop the killing of the brain cells. it's quite amazing. but none of this work is widely known.

it's not widely known because most pharmaceutical companies can't take up the clinical research because the drug is still illegal so many places. they also have the largest state-supported medical cannabis program in the world. i met people who were being treated for all sorts of diseases like a mac i who had ms. and his hands were rigid. with some cannabis he was actually able to pick up a fork and had lunch with me. and i met someone else who was in is in a nursing home for dementia who have a terrible time.

he spent his childhood in a chicken coop in france he have suffered his whole life and now dementia was kicking in. his therapy was three hits in the morning and three in the afternoon. he was quite he was happy he was talking to me. he was actually doing paintings again of chickens. that's the only therapy that he took that worked for him. it's a very peaceful place. the head nurse confessed me. and now we can at least keep them calm and keep them happy and their pain has really dissipated. that was all very fascinating to me.

it turns my way of thinking. i live in new york. we don't have a high experience of legal cannabis. so we don't have the benefits of being in colorado being able to to a dispensary and see products and see products that are labeled and tested. and labeled for impurities i spent a week interning here to see what that experience would be like. i was amazed that people coming in a former nurse, a business guy. some patients and no interest at all. when you come here. not only is educational i don't feel like a criminal anymore.

this is like a new world opening up. after spending this couple of days at a dispensary in colorado that it is actually a radical institution in the world. because it educates people. it really changes my and i think it is a so -- slow process but it is an important institution. it started to realize that i have a book and that though world was about so much more than getting high. i think everybody should have the freedom to change their consciousness as they want too. i think we do. and we do sports or a meditate or we sing we do all sorts of things. and they recounted the story

of him being a kid spinning around until he painted. he said that is an instance of we all do things like this to get out of our everyday minds i started thinking about it in the world of cannabis and i started to look at some of the data and what will the future look like if everybody plays a ball if states like colorado are the model for regulated cannabis what will the world look like. the data was quite interesting. if you look at colorado in the last two years they have sold a billion dollars. it created a hundred $35 million of taxes which created 27,000 jobs. that's pretty good in one year in a state of 5 million people. the giver of all travel he is

a man in his 80s. he actually said that cannabis tourism is the next great boom in american tourism. i looked at the stats about all of the people that had visited colorado in the last year and 50% of them said that the availability affected their decision. that exist. in colorado. the problems i had been able to find a relatively minor compared to the benefits. they have an increase in people driving under the influence and i went and looked at the numbers. last year there was an increase of 35 people. there was another increase in children eating their parents at a pulse.

i went back and looked at the numbers and there was 150 er cases i thought about that for a second and i said that's bad parenting that's not bad lawmaking. but the thing away with you when you're done with it. i couldn't find that many problems that were really happening in the states. we have a bar on every corner in america. i think societally this is not a big call for pandemonium. then i started looking even more broadly. california is having a ballot initiative in the selection called proposition 64.

california is a big deal. it's 40 million people compared to colorado. all the other states are less than half of that combined. it is the sixth largest economy in the world. and they already produce more cannabis or high-quality cannabis than all of the other. then all of north america. the projected revenue is about $30 billion a year one. and also does something interesting. it provides restitution to people's property has been confiscated during the drug wars and a lot of the taxes go to restitution for these people. entire communities have been destroyed. it also creates a five-year moratorium for small operators

to start businesses and consolidate markets before corporations are allowed to come in. five years is not everything is not nothing. there is something else that happening california that is even beyond colorado. they have a very loose medical program for 20 years. and it's not a hard program to get into. i was a people use it for other purposes and in california it's always been the friendliest cannabis state that i've been to. it's just a part of culture. they were all professional people working in hollywood. what were they mixing. what kind of edibles with a mixing with how many hits of

vapor because some of them have arthritis and some of them wanted to manage this pain or that pain. and it is just in the culture. it's prevalent and it's excepted. i thought this is a very powerful thing. if they legalize then you have california oregon washington all of canada is voting. that is an enormous number. it's enormous territory that's probably getting create some kind of tipping point in north america. you cannot build a wall to keep it out at that point. there are 70 educated people about cannabis. the fear element goes away. i think over time the

misconceptions well also fade as more people learn to figure out how to use the plant for them whether it's medically or for other purposes. i think the most important thing is that eventually and i think people in colorado already work on this is the creation of standards. with alcohol you know that a shot is a 6-ounce glass of wine you can moderate here and take as much as you want too. if you need to use alcohol typically -- differently you need to do this. it is harder to establish standards for because smoking is not the same as eating. as we all know. i think was of our people can figure this out. that we will be able to see how much we are using and to

what end. it's really interesting. people were really mixing them in interesting ways so i was in a company i cannabis from the company and one of the owners had to make a conference call. he was feeling a little anxious about it. is a calming smell molecule. he took his thing and have his conference call and i thought he is designing his high for a specific use that's very next level. that's not here as a joint. smoke until you get to what you want. i don't know.

i think those terms and wait to get very fuzzy and very confused. our society is a very pharmaceutical base to society. and certain people i know in new york are using all sorts of chemicals to go up, to go about down. this is part of it. it's not exit addicted. it opens new ways of thinking about our relationship to the world into the plant and all plants.

it's a fascinating thing to look at. and there was one person who is talking to. and she said to me you know adam and eve you remember the picture of the apple tree they're always talking about. sometimes i think it was a cannabis bush. and you need to rest need to eat and you need to run to chase the animal and be intimate with your loved ones at night that is what cannabis does. it regulates those five basic functions. if i was going to be thrown out of eden i would really want to have a plant that helped me accomplish all of

those things the next day. and by the way it enabled me to wake up and get out and do it again the next day. i think that something to think about as we think about what this plant is. and what it might be able to do as we hopefully take away some of the restrictions so that science can actually take the lead over all of the other myths. that was the journey of my book basically to do various locations to talk to these people i hope you will buy it and read it until one other person about it. maybe two. do you have any questions? and comments any experiences.

there are only 32 people who ever had access to government weed. it says it ran on the tape. he was good stuff. i definitely wasn't coming from the u.s. government. in the freak moment in time. tens of joints from the u.s. government but they've inspected the cannabis a great researcher went down to inspect and he said it was just terrible quality. and they have nothing to do with the cannabis that's being grown today.

it's very fascinating. i've heard more stories like yours. when you look at that regulations that we put in place in the look of the science that we have seen what are the regulations that your dislike this has no basis in any science. i'm not answering any questions. the number of words in the cannabis laws and regulations 227,003 hundred 98. here are the number of words in government regulations. that is a difference of 210,000 words more or less. that's a regulated colorado

is. and i know it's tough to do business as an operator in colorado believe me i know it very well. and they are evolving and changing. but here is what i think is a great thing about it. the guys that wrote those laws they really did a great job. the laws are really working and i think in the big picture of all of this the point is to establish trust your law enforcement the most genetically programmed. with the legality for 70 years. they had been operating in gray areas. it is super important to establish a societal trust. if you have tough regulations and are well articulated people can follow them. and i interned at a the dispensary called denver

relief. they followed them to the point. if there is something in that regulation it wasn't happening. it's insane. you have to measure every gram that comes in. they can see it before it's moved out. and it's everything. every gram as a charter. western into oil. it's a big process. emily also makes it very challenging for people who are not good at compliant regulatory following understanding how to coexist with local governments basically to get it done.

it takes a lot of effort. it is not something that a hobbyist can really do well. if you're working in colorado. i would say the laws are tough in the science and the fact that it's not a killer substance should somehow modify some of those regulations over time. i think as doctors become more aware of what's going on with the plant that will happen. they will get their voice back. they stop talking about cannabis in 1942 was made illegal in this country. they fought against that rule and they lost. i will tell you having written the book i just traveled around a little bit in the beginning stages here. i mean doctors all over the place who want to talk about

it. they know it's the biggest receptor system in the body. it has an effect on almost every human illness. it's quite something. so do you think that once it is federally legalized there will be all of these anti- smoking campaigns. but privately funded. to think that will happen at some point as well. there's always can be opposition. we live in a country that started by the puritans. it has not gone away.

i think cannabis is overused you can make yourself stupid. if you cannot do that you will miss out. rightfully so. advertising is limited as it should be although i still see crazy billboards out there. there is no advertising aimed at people under 18 no dispensary could be within x number of feet from school. the zoning things will take place. i think this can happen all the time. i think that's it beauty of the democracy though. it's fighting against alcohol consumption.

i went to college in edison, illinois. it was the capital of the wtc you. they still have an office there. that's the way we roll. see mike do you draw the line and at drugs or substances that can cause an overdose unlike cannabis. unlike cannabis. i feel like imprisonment is not a useful societal way of dealing with drug use. i wanted to mention this. if you look at the other countries that had decriminalized both cannabis and drugs and their two in particular the numbers are quite interesting. holland decriminalized weed in the 1970s. today they have the lowest use of teen use of any country in europe. and you can buy it in any coffee shop.

portugal decriminalized all drug crime, they can afford to keep imprisoning people for person possession and things like that. so they created treatment programs. there has been a great savings to the country here is what happens typically. when you decriminalize like a percentage point and then it within a year or two it levels off. sometimes it even goes down depending. we know that most of the people working in and that part of the government have deemed the program successful. it has gotten a lot of people into treatment. as for all the drugs. so their hiv rates have declined.

actually forgot your question. there's a huge benefit to thinking about the way we think about drugs the drug war we been doing it for a long time. it started with richard nixon in 1968 or 69. it cost something like $36 trillion. it has run countless lives. like everywhere we been in in my life it's unwinnable. i think we need to think about a more economical and efficient modern way of dealing with the issue of drugs and substances. and i'm not sure illegality is the way anymore. and doesn't it doesn't seem to have worked. as far as i can tell. especially in a society where opiate use and we read all of the time about where at a

moment here. if you get it right. >> about six or eight months ago he wanted to get a job in one of these cannabis shops and they wouldn't hire him is not the same. california law exonerates felony. i'm not sure what it brings it down to. but it changes it. is a tough problem. what have you thought about. what is the hardest thing for you as a grower?

does local compliance. and doing whatever the county or the city wants. they get really restrictive recently last october. our constitution says you can be a caregiver for 70 people and not they will restrict it. i know that's been a struggle. i'm curious about that. how are you ever made aware of when regulations are changing. if the here and be into with it. for me there's no roundabout way. i'd be curious what you would see at alcohol today.

that 6% alcohol by weight. his regular chocolates. i'm curious about it because there is that the reality of things and how it's just pretrade in the mass media it's interesting. it's interesting. i voted against proposition 64. the sunni people i know that cannot afford an apartment does that happen in other cities in other states.

the rental market in denver here in israel. they cannot find an affordable place and they waited against it because they don't want more people coming in here. >> i'm not sure that's a cannabis problem. it happens in every city that i've ever seen. it's obviously happening and denver. this is a boom town. we were actually roommates. you can't blame it on canvas. if something creates jobs it seems like a pretty good thing for me. i think we can blame the housing shortage.

you mentioned a 2 million-dollar tax. are they all paying income tax. this is the future after the law is passed. i don't know the specifics. pics were coming and listening again in the other questions you've heard from all of the people in colorado and i think you've seen around the planet different people actually supporting cannabis than actually here denouncing. it hasn't been until the last couple of years that the first statement has been can you smoke it. at least we are over that hurdle.

in the past i have ran into crowds that said can you smoke it. if you tell them. i want to know how warm is it. they're on sale. thank you for coming and listening. i appreciate your time. thank you. we will have a signing here. that's it. thank you for coming. [inaudible]

that's so nice of you. i can't believe you came here again. you're watching book tv on c-span two. book tv television for serious readers. ..