these seemed to be pretty predictable environments but there was always the chance something spontaneous was going to happen especially when it involved president obama so for this picture in particular he was always ready to have his picture taken that sonny was the younger dog so this is just a picture. i like taking candid shots. for me this is a picture i go to when i want to feel joy.

good evening, everybody and welcome. before we jump into the event, i want to thank you all for coming. events like this couldn't be possible if it were not for your generous support and showing up to them so thank you for your support we appreciate it. we have the honor of hosting them only here to talk about the book the rise and fall of marijuana in america. she received her phd from george washington university and grassroots is based off of her dissertation. the inspiration for such a sure she will tell us more about it as she starts her talk. emily has been featured on the history channel, npr and her book can be found in the "washington post," the atlantic, history news network and run washington. we are excited to have emily here today because here in colorado we had a very intriguing conversation going

about marijuana even before it was officially legalized in 2014. her book adds to the conversation with research and interviews which expand the conversation even more than we could hope to so without any furthedo so without anyfurther m welcome to emily. [applause] thank you for having me here. in a the establishment of on so many cultural events. i caught a cold from my toddler son. i haven't been to colorado since 2010 and the city has not really changed. you are at the forefront of the movies we are discussing tonight. legalizing is huge before people even used pot and beer even

professionally you set the pace so i would like to set the pace by situating where we are in our current moment. we are not a month into the second year of the trump administration. it is. we would have elected but rather than the four states that legalize, all of them dot higher approval ratings in both the

support is and was overwhelmingly bipartisan. republicans and democrats support and a majority o the mas agree that it should be alcohol or tobacco. as the nation we have a difficult time agreeing on anything. a gallup poll suggested they now support the legalization. we don't agree on anything. in november of 2016 the dispensary in california opened their doors january 1 of this year. not only does it make it a block of legalization but will expand

northward but it also nearly doubles the market and basically overnight. the sales in 2017 total of about $20 billion before california hit the market. they are expected to generate about $5 billion of sales alone and 1 billion in taxes. this is huge but three days after it went into effect jeff sessions revoked the administration. federal officials will allow them to stand but it's more than anything since 90% occur on the state level and also because neither seemed to have the people or the resources to be old to go after that it is a

symbolic shift in the social acceptance i'm going to focus on it. when the news about the sessions went by, people kind of lost their minds. it's already a very chaotic industry and anything that remains legal on the state or federal level of faces as an awful crime. they feared we hadn't learn from our past states but i wasn't really surprised. my book was released almost exactly a month to the day before they went live and i predicted they would revoke. i didn't expect it to happen

this quickly but the reasons for doing so are more complex than your racism that benefits those that can afford even higher taxation rates. they've brought us to this point. the pendulum's constant swaying between acceptance and criminality they shift to match the circumstances but the pattern remains fundamentally the same so that is wha what myk and my talk tonight are. it's to bring us to this point and perhaps we will see the same

pattern or perhaps you won't. there is history before 1964 of course. i can give you a bibliography if you are interested. by the time 1964 rolls around, the federal government views hadn't evolved much since the view from the us if you are familiar with that. a government official stance that it's pretty much led to a number of affordable things including heroi heroine addicti, suicide, murder etc.. instead i start in 1964 when a young man walks into the san francisco apologist is, lights up a joint, declares he's

starting a campaign to legalize marijuana and asks to be arrested, which he immediately is. action is the first shot in what will become a 50 year battle over marijuana in which tens of thousands of average ordinary americans essentially went to war would be supported or opposed it, the two factions went on to change the law three times, first in the 1970s when it sprinted to a dozen states then when it was re- criminalize and defender in the social acceptance of medical marijuana in the 1990s which paved the way for the growing acceptance today. today's growing social acceptance has a counterrevolution which we can sesee in the actions of jeff sessions and the prominence of

the activists and other pharmaceutical manufacturers are lobbying against the legalization law because essentially they cut to the bottom line and it all starts with this guy. he's particularly interesting because he's 28-years-old and isn't lucky hippy as we come to know them today. 64 is about a year. he's a pretty easy-going normal guy, short hair, likes to spend time with his dog he launches a revolution with the help of his attorney james white who is also interesting historical figure in the conservative media like a libertarian who wants to describe himself to the right of kerry goldwater which is

extreme. to tell an individual what to do if they are not hurting anyone else, he's also a researcher and takes up schoo old government rs including the commission of the team 94 and the panama city now commission of 1925. they do not deserve to be jailed for its use. they were incarcerated for about a year and immediately upon release, he advances the movement but he stayed with it. he calls it marijuana puffing and distributes it to the san

francisco bay area and also forms a new organization that is essentially a legalized marijuana that also quickly spreads to the san francisco area and teams up with things like that and becomes very popular. she's also in the san francisco at the time and is quite prominent. he is so moved by it but when he returns to new york for the first chapter with the support he quickly goes national. they also get wrapped up in something else which is the burgeoning youth movement at the time. they backpedaled in a growing number of people saw a familiar

story that the government can lie. it was currently playing about winning the war in vietnam and about the necessity of segregation and now people are finding it was about the effect of marijuana as well. before we go any further i need to retract a little bit on where they come from. it's on this high trajectory and there was no distinct federal law which is kind of incredible. there are state laws of course. they recognize this threat

that's posed in the administration. so that is what he does. he may recognize that the schedules come schedule one is drugs that are considered incredibly prone to abuse.

it also sets up and this is essentially called the national commission on marijuana and drug abuse. they would do incredibl find afe things to benefit the criminalization of it and it helped the harder drug use to the generally planning nation and things like that and there was a strong arm bringing in the office and promising him a federal judgeship if the results match with nixon is looking for.

but things don't work out that way. which is rather extraordinary. the commission finds no connection whatsoever that they tried to blame them. 12 million were regular users. they also found they are basically no different from the average american citizen. they were no more lazy or violent or whatever. they decided that they were essentially unfair. they have watergate, vietnam and the international scale that make them fairly minimal in comparison.

they completely ignored the report. but other guild, they released the finding in a paperback i think it cost a dollar 25 and it becomes incredibly popular especially by 1973 after a wave of politicians are elected across the 72 elections and they want to put the recommendations in practice. one of the publications was responsible for implementing the law in oregon so by 1973, it is the first state to pass statewide decriminalization turning it into a parking ticket or something like that. and what is remarkable is that the sky doesn't fall. marijuana rates don't rise, people are supportive of the law and there's a couple of national organizations founded by keith

strop who will remind you of cop, that is how you can remember his last name. they've de- criminalized possession which meant more than a third of the country was living where it was nothing more than a civil science. it seemed like their moment has come, by 76 and by 78 people think that the national criminalization isn't around the corner. they are spinning across the country.

they introduced the national lexicon but there is one significant growth industry, and that his paraphernalia, marijuana paraphernalia. the market is bringing $250 million a year. it's the equivalent of 1 billion today. an enormous market is able to succeed thanks to the increasing interest in the drug but also because of the panoply of new magazine and various titles ever devoted to this new culture and needed advertising dollars so the result of this room for advertising thing.

there was a boardgame but i thought was quite fascinating and things like that so while they are being promoted and marketed a people start to notice there is a bit of a trickle-down effect and it skyrockets during this time to the point where by 1970 9/11% report smoking pot every day and those as young as 13 report that it's the ticket. so the situation with the nationwide incredibly rapid acceptance of the decriminalization compounded by this powerful and very profitable boom in the paraphernalia and darius to the marijuana use this launches the counter revolution.

the movement has gotten kind of a bad rap over the last couple of years people dismiss them as angry or hyperbolic but they are legitimately terrified. it is prevalent and the only information that they could find is that it was going to do irreparable harm to their children. there were a lot of federal government reports but said it would make young boys grew breasts and render them infertile. they were terrified of a syndrome where kids would give up on life support before it had even begun. we are going to give them

options after school and a couple of them publish pamphle pamphlets. these things become so popular that they distributed over 1 million copies of the pamphl pamphlet. they join them in droves and the movement takes off. the national federation for use the most interesting thing is not only dependent activism spread like wildfire across the country was effective.

it's also the year ronald reagan gets elected to the oval office and his wife is a platform, she is the first lady. one newspaper calls her, and i am not kidding from a frivolous social planner with more ambition than lady macbeth. she needs a platform. it seems like a perfect fit so the first way to transform into the nation's most famous anti-drug activists within about a year and i have a chapter detailing how she steals the concept of just say no from an african-american grandmother in oakland and i don't have time to gthetime to go into this but i

highly recommend that you read it to talk about in the q-and-a. this is where we see the pendulum take a big shift. briefing from the acceptance to the decriminalization to the demonization of the drug in the 1980s. and this was able to happen because the parent activists change the conversation about the u.s. in the united states. that is the source of the inner power. the decriminalization powers are on the idea that they have the right to do what they wanted the privacy of their own home assuming you are not doing it coming you are not hurting anyone else. they turned the conversation around. it wasn't about and adults write any more. without the right of the child to grow up drug-free.

they were being locked up and criminalized for their marijuana use. you saw punky brewster, different strokes, the first lady, numerous programs i'm forgetting all of their names right now. as i said before when there's nothing scary or being accused that is when it becomes the target drug of choice. the united states is going through a fairly severe epidemic from about 1967 to 1976 until

the federal government got it under control of multimillion dollar programs to prevent the establishmensupporting theestabs across the united states. by the time the 19 '80s rolled around, there are other drugs being used but none that are as prominent and problematic as marijuana becomes. this isn't from the headlines. they are able to become the drug of the 1980s for two reasons into the first is being portrayed and the second is that it's so limited and doesn't seem like a national concern. these changes in 1986 when a new drug comes on the scene called crack cocaine. in june of 1986, what is the

sports term when you are selected, drafting, yes thank you. two days after this time he dies of a cocaine overdose, powder cocaine. it had such an impact on capitol hill legislators because it was basically like a home team and they go crazy passing anti-drug legislation with hundreds of news articles written calling it instantly addictive. one writer described it as destructive across america. by taking the national focus away from ramallah.

it makes it seem it paid in comparison to say where the epidemic in the 60s and 70s did it also sets up the stage for the resurrection and surprising substance. so the crisis hits at the same time as the hiv aids epidemic is starting to make national headlines as well. in the cities like san francis francisco, they are coming to this strange new disease, losing weight, getting symptoms of other diseases, dying in droves and no one is sure of what is going on. an activist known for the brownies that she would cook with a special ingredient, she's working with these young men. they are her neighbors in the district and find marijuana can help them give back a little bit of an appetite and relieve marsha. give it a littl a little strengy

start to feel better. others start to pick up on this and marijuana starts to be used to treat a variety of illnesses from glaucoma to the dossier should from chemotherapy and things like that. suddenly, after a decade, marijuana isn't a national forest destroying young people anymore. it's medicine. and one that can provide relief that very few understand. so to gather, a marijuana and gay rights activist passed away, so we just lost a big member of the movement, they pushed for the movement which allow doctors in california to recommend, not prescribe recommended the use of marijuana for the treatment of any disease. the first law passed in the united states. by 1997, "the new york times" reported nearly a third of americans knew someone who used marijuana for the treatment of

some kind of medical issue. marijuana transformed in a decade from the national force to eight potential panacea and the drug war began to change shape. people were left concerned about the drug use and the victims of the drug war itself. no one wanted to see a cancer patient getting busted for smoking pot. .. >> this isn't to say that people automatically stop being locked up for marijuana as soon as the first laws were passed. instead the arrest actually rise. in 90 pot accounted for 30% of

the arrest and that risen to 50% by 2002. in 2007 over 872,000 people were arrested for pot. that's possession not a surly intention to distribute. that's a bus nearly every 30 seconds each cheer. the majority of people rest were african-american males. therefore times likely to be arrested more times than white. alexander's a name you might know. a lawyer working for the aclu in california in early 2000. she noticed the trend. sure it's a book called the new gym crow, it's an incredibly powerful and influential book. she details the negative effects of a america incarcerating a greater percentage of its black americans the south africa did at the height of apartheid.

if anyone's interested in social justice she argues it's a renewed form of segregation. it's incredibly important argument. she never outright suggest that legalization is the answer to the problems. she mentions the word legalization wants and says not to be legalized but that occurs in a long list of other recommendation. she wants to change the cultural law-enforcement in the united states. her book is not a clearing call. instead calls for legalization is a social justice issue become the work of a new generation of activists inspired by the 20 history of medicine see legalization us a step to do

something to reduce the number of black arrest and equalize the playing field for blacks and white. social justice is the most powerful for legalization yet. everyone from republican light right leaving cops to the lieutenant of california suggest that's it's important not just because of the tax dollars raised for the state, but because the social justice effects it can potentially have. i live in d.c., 2014 we voted to legalize it. the argument had been so persuasive it pass legalization laws in eight states and d.c. will talk about vermont in the second. means nearly 70 million people lived where marijuana is legal and arrest supplemented in those states accordingly. so now we have to ask how's it

going. has legalization work? the answer is yes and no. marijuana arrests are down. blacks are still more likely to be arrested for marijuana even in legalized states. especially here in colorado. the state with the most transparent available statistics. few states have included additional legislation to expunge someone's prior record. it can still haunt a person will into their future. mostly white people are starting to control larger and larger sections of the industry. so they will continue to profit off of the system that is spent decades incarcerating blacks. california's most forward thinking on expunging background. still very piecemeal legislation.

if legalization activists pin their hopes on making america live up to its crete they could have some disappointment. pot is not what makes america racist. legalization won't disrupt a system so that's tough. where does this leave us? where do we go from here? legalization is popular. new jersey might legalize vermont is going through that but a new counter revolution is for me. every revolution has a counterrevolution of its own. the pendulum will never stop moving. jeff sessions is renewing the federal threat against pop against his comments no good people use marijuana. more problematic the farm is

launching a lopping cane campaign against legalization. this that $500 lopping against areas of 2016. other pharmaceutical manufacturers including purdue and things like that still have a lot of money to organizations that oppose legalization. worried that it will lower the number of opiates prescript. they're not wrong. opiate overdoses have fallen in legalized states. doctors prescribe 1800 fewer prescriptions for opiates. i'm a historian not in oracle. i can't say for sure but i wasn't surprised by sessions

doing this. essentially we should see it coming. there's some sense that were doing better than we did before. this november colorado will celebrate six years of legalization. that's a year more in the 70s wendy criminal law decriminalization laws are being passed. were also learning from our past mistakes. adolescent marijuana use is down. sales are essentially zero. big marijuana has informed the sky hasn't fallen. the problems decriminalization encounter 40 years ago the paraphernalia industry adolescent use, they don't seem to be appearing today. at least not yet.

so bravo colorado. there are still problems it can encounter. all legalization laws were passed through ballot initiatives those are only available in about half the states. if you new york, new jersey and pennsylvania it's not an option. passing new laws is slower and more conservative. over 50% of governors are republicans. sometimes less prone to supporting marijuana laws. maine legalized in 2014 but the governors opposed to implementing the law. he's been doing it. there's no interest in changing the federal standing. we should assume that the marijuana on a federal level

will remain a schedule one drug. the real reason it's treacly is because of its own history. cannabis is the only truck that has had the distinct ability to move back and forth between legal and illegal. and it has done so repeatedly. these are state laws may seem to change quite a bit. the pendulum doesn't stop swinging and that's because activists keep rising up to push it in the opposite direction. only about 60% support legalization. recent reports show only 10% of americans actually smoke pot with any regularity. why legalization is important that doesn't have the same

personal think that issues like a marriage or universal healthcare deaths. we are talking about an intoxicating truck. the reason ideas keep changing this because arguments about the drug is about more than the drug in its use. oftentimes it can mean many things at once. for some it might represent freedom from government interference in personal life freedom for mass incarceration or to do it you will for the same time it could mean fear, fear the person behind jenna highways high that children could access the jogger the countries and what you thought or hope to might be. as a national community we hold multiple ideas of what this means. after over 50 years we work to

shape marijuana laws to fit are conscious of right and wrong. no other drugs have brought this many people into the streets. whether they're worried parents or social justice activist today regular people have long seen marijuana a threat and a promise. i believe that because change is to be expected it's possible to change for good. that only comes by working together there to succeed they to recognize and respect the feelings of their opposition. silly when that respect is achieved that any bipartisan change can occur. making enemies never works.

it's really only making friends is the way to do it. until we learn how to do that is probably around the corner i'll always think -- after researching the subject since 2010 i think it's like the old saying about the weather, when you think the law is final wait five minutes or five years will probably change. thank you. i be happy to answer questions. [applause] for the q&a if you want to raise your hand my friend with the microphone will get you on record.

>> there's a lot of people asking is marijuana a gateway drug, i see a lot of people, the greyhound, i see a lot of bad things going on every night. is it a gateway drug? >> the research on the is inconclusive. for the most part their reports that will say that it is and there's reports that will say it isn't. the problem is because it's a schedule one drug and hard to access enough many organizations and universities are scared to get into it. research from abroad is not considered relevant to american understanding. for some people it is in some it isn't. i've heard stories on both sides. parents who have what wash

circuit smoke pot everyday and those addicted to many harder things and lost those addictions because they're only using marijuana instead is a gateway drug? for some people, yes for some people tobacco, alcohol math, it would be difficult to panic. the argument is made by both sides. >> any other questions. [inaudible] in your book you talk about how

the policies lead to the demise of the parent movement can you expand that? i thought those fascinating the reagan administration embrace of the parent movement was the downfall of it as well. kind of remarkable. comes together and 76 nancy reagan embraces it. but she starts to realize within her spends larger offices on how federal government can be so small you can drown it in a bathtub they're going to work hard on preventing drug abuse going to schools and forming community groups the federal government doesn't have to fund the set activities.

the fun budget for education is splashed even though these become very dependent on federal grants to do their work. activism is a free it's expensive to print material and put on conferences and traveling to things like that. while the government is celebrating that is a free community base activism activists are taking money from the federal government to do these things. so the budget is starting to get/. nancy reagan is promoting this is a free program benefit in the country was also fundraising doodles of money. she starts having tennis

competitions to raise money for drug abuse suffers. people are donated being checks between $10,500,000. the money is no longer going to parent activist or nobody knows where it's going. a lot of organizations and businesses promoted because it gives them a halo of good deeds. it's a give-and-take relationship between the white house promoting anti- drug abuse effort to become well-funded because of it and well respected in the radiance go through the roof. the parent movement really lose

faith in the reagan administration. by that time nancy reagan is in california she has millions of dollars in the nancy reagan drug abuse fund. there's not a lot of track about where that money goes to. in the same way that activists got too close to the carter administration the parent administration does the same thing it gets too close to the reagan administration and that it doesn't work out. the last chapter of my book i have six recommendations whether you support or oppose access to marijuana.

one recommendation is not to get too close to the white house. administrations last 4 - 8 years. drugs can or can't be a very good platform for officials. it's hard to pin your hope on whoever is or is not in the white house. the parent movement had a success because of the reagan administration but then it caused it to self implode all because of money. >> did the dare program in the mid to late '80s was that now come, where they riding the wave of that? i read recently it wasn't successful. der has had a lot of problems. if you're familiar with it it's a drug resistance program caps

on covered to classrooms and talk about the dangers of drug use. it did not decrease drug use and may have inspired it because now kids do it to look for. those in 1983 by a los angeles police official. he formed dare with the support of the white house but not really associated with just say no. there are still some programs that have their delaware still has their license plates you can get for your car. it's not a huge widely available as it was.

any other dare graduates here? the whole front row. he mentioned that activists should not get too close to the president, overseeing out of the trump administration is the complete opposite. people have been hostile to the president to think it's a mistake to write off the president or sound strategy right now? >> to write off the president himself he has come down on two waves. he suggested he would be interested in supporting state laws.

a medical rights but it's jeff sessions involved of the doj. most recently i think they're going to close an office which is not super well-funded. still an organization that offers some suggestion and control for the white house drug control strategy. it's made by people were supposed to be objective. white house is suggesting that even though i have this opiate epic epidemic going on the government is focusing more on this overt symbolic attack while doing little to counteract it. i don't see trump coming out in support of this. and whether that was a process

to revoke everything that has obama on it i'm not sure. i don't see it being a huge priority i cannot imagine that trump is going to say to sessions to back off any other questions? >> you mention the big driver of the pair movement was to come across any data that showed her estimated the amount of paraphernalia that middle schoolers got their hands on the 70s. was it more of a fear that they acted on before it really hit? you mentioned marijuana use was

high with actually selling underage paraphernalia. >> interesting about what happened 70s mrs. difference between equalization and legalization. dispensaries and bouncers, have to show id and show all these things. decriminalization of those are set up our dealers to ask for cards. interesting thing in the 70s is that did not have that shops are prevalent but only in certain parts of the country. is being sold at 711's industry did not have its own set of

stores not as much as it crept into are ready establish places, music stores and cafés and things like that. 1977 showing to record store to get a star wars record first son was overwhelmed by the balls and pipes that were there. one of the television shows in the 80s, the facts of life, trudy was a sweet innocent girl she sees a ball to record store is like how do you make music how do you make up on. there's a joke that this was available in these places. that was one of most problematic things.

it wasn't like a liquor store, the stuff was just there prevalent. specifics for how many kids are buying these things, they're not widely available. a few reports from newspapers like they gave $300 to an 11-year-old and 13-year-old and sent them throughout the city to buy paraphernalia and they were able to. these are just a few coincidence covered by newspapers but it seemed relatively easy to access this stuff. >> any other questions? >> thank you for coming out, it was wonderful to talk to.

thank you very much. like to plot this great audience. [applause] [inaudible] >> c-span, where history of wholesale a, 1979, c-span was created as a public service for america's cable television companies. today we bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought you by your cable or satellite provider. here's a look at authors recently featured on book tvs

afterwards. her weekly author interview program. patrice discussed her life and the birth and growth of the black lives matter movement. david from argued the trump administration is damaging democracy. and kaylee mcinerney reported on the grassroots populist movement in the u.s. in the coming weeks former usa today editor-in-chief look at improving workplaces through gender equality. frank kaplan argues against college for everyone. and ira shapiro will share his thoughts on partisanship in the senate. >> you can differ with people maybe were moving left, but

politics was supposed to be about finding a way to overcome some of the differences through extended discussion and a real legislative process, principal compromise. it was not supposed to be about one party winning on their own. the times in history when one party has been able to do this on your are very few. ab 1933 and 34. fdr dealing with the depression, lbj and 64 and 65, even lbj reached out to republicans and fdr had republican support the first two years. when senator mcconnell started doing healthcare and trying to get 50 of his 52 votes from his

caucus my reaction was, that shouldn't work and couldn't work and it's not supposed work that way. you're supposed to be looking for people on the other side to get 60 or 70 votes. corsi would say that would be impossible but, this notion that one party has to rule by themselves brings us to some bad places. >> afterwards airs every saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern all previous programs are available to watch online on our website, book to be don't work. >> next, former u.s. trade negotiator and senior senate staffer argues that the u.s. senate h