>> and we're going to go to lunch. hopefully that wall will open over there. next on c-span 3, a conversation about federal marijuana policy followed by a portion of washington journal on social and legal views on marijuana. and lawmakers holding a meeting to discuss southern u.s. border security. april 20th considered a holiday in the cannabis culture, 4/20, former rhode island patrick kennedy and public

health officials talk about federal marijuana policy. this is held by a organization that opposes it and is called s.a.m. well, good afternoon, everybody. my name is kevin sabett the president and ceo of s.a.m.,s smart approach to marijuana and happy to be joined by multiple individuals representing organizations across public health and safety. a little bit of background on s.a.m. and then turning it over. s.a.m. was started in 2013 as a response of the growing

legalization of marijuana. the message is simple, and it is we need to slow this train down. we need to put people before profit and get the science out about the true harms of marijuana which everyday are hurting more people as the country slides deeper and deeper in the legalization, the commercialization of marijuana. we are here to fight against the false die comity that you have to lock people up in prison or legalize marijuana. we don't want to lock people up or criminalized. to be against criminalization is not to be for legalization and not for what we have seen as the commercialization of marijuana. it is more wall street than woodstuck, today's thc product is 35 times stronger than they used to be.

anybody over 30 will recognize thc products sold in your communities today. we are happy at s.a.m. to be part of a growing public health and safety consensus that we should have science not depocketi depocketing investors guiding. we are honored by the honorable patrick kennedy. spending his life fighting for ment mental -- mental health issues. and judge arthur burnett senior and mr. jake nelson of tripaaa.

medical chief of mercy hospital in san diego, dr. susan wife. at the national institute of drug abuse. senator ron rice, senator from new jersey and leader of the new jersey legislationive black caucus. senior pastor and senior adviser to approaches to marijuana policy. doug, the president and ceo of treatment centers. joined by a recovering addict, alexa who will share her story about marijuana addiction. one of the big myths is that it is not addictive. and a board member of s.a.m. we are concerned about the edibles and products marketed to

our vulnerable populations. we are also very heartened by the fact that even in the states like california and massachusetts that voted to legalize it, the majority of localities are voting to not have legal commercial marijuana where they live. it signals a divide to people who want to decriminalize and go to full-blown legalization. one bit of news. a recent string of polls by emerson college notten funded by s.a.m., farly dickinson university and mason dixon, funded by s.a.m. found that when people are asked about multiple choices in regards to marijuana, their first choice is not legalization. a majority does not opt for legalization when given other

policy choices. we are putting the marijuana industry account able. we want to hold them accountable just like the tobacco industry. it took us a century to hold them accountable. we are concerned that we notice the tobacco industry is merging with some sectors of the marijuana industry and cross-hiring and investing in the marijuana business. the this is not a surprise. we know how the story ends. we know how it ends with the opioid crisis. at s.a.m. we do not take money from the pharmaceutical companies, big pharma, alcohol or cigarettes and we are funded by individuals who have suffering heart ache from addiction. i want to turn it over here. we have a very prestigious group of folks here and i'm going to

turn it over to jake nelson, the director at aaa. to talk about impaired driving. we have a warning for impaired driving. jake. >> i knew that was going to happen. [ laughter ] >> soon as we crowded. good afternoon, everyone. in 2016, 10,497 people died from drunk driving. the rates have dropped over 30% in the last decade. the same period of time, the rates of marijuana use increased 50%. this is a drug that we know without hesitation at least doubles crash risk. it does it by impairing drive attention, coordination and

reaction time among other skills important for safe driving. mixing alcohol with marijuana -- this is the most common way that people who use marijuana and get behind a wheel of a car use it. they mix it with alcohol, almost two-thirds of a time. data suggests that legalizing marijuana for fun or recreational purposes has staggering impacts on traffic safety. we did a study in washington state, one of the first two states to legalize and we found the proportion of drives involved in fatal crashes doubles from 8 to 17% in the year following the change in law. this is an eye opening case study for other states consistent plating the same decision. this is a topic, the use of

marijuana and driving that people like to compare to alcohol and driving. the challenges is that law enforcements officers don't have the tools to manage this. there's no roadside test to detect the use of marijuana or recent use at the roadside. if we did have a device reliable, amajority of the time the relationship between how much marijuana is in somebody's body and the odds of a traffic crash is not established in the research. we can know .08 the odds of a crash. we don't have that standing for marijuana. that is a unique problem. impaired driving kills people. the data isn't good when it comes to marijuana. this is the tip of the spear and

it is many reasons aaa is urging people to put public safety over drug recreational use. >> i'm judge arthur burnett, in addition to serving 15 years in the federal court as a magistrate drug on intake and arrested for federal crimes here in d.c. i served 17 years on the superior court in d.c., both federal and state jurisdiction. so i have a total of 31 years of experience in dealing with people who are involved with drugs. drugs from the point of view of neglect and abuse in foster care. thousands -- sentenced of thousands of people who told me how they get started with drugs.

aiders and abetters in drive buy shootings. i recall a case of a young guy who witnessed a dry by shooting and fled to mexico to stay alive. he said he was an a student at fourth and fifth grade level. the drug gang beat him up and got him a bloody nose and took his shoes, if you want protection, you have to be one of us. they took him to the basement apartment and had a marijuana cigarette. this marijuana cigarette, the guy said, i don't want that stuff, i want to be an outstanding athlete. you said you ain't going to be nothing and it is laced with pcp. and he said in order to keep from being shot that day, see what a lot of people anded media

doesn't tell you, amongst some of our brightest young boys and girls at the fourth and fifth grade with outstanding math skills they are coerced into association with peer pressure from that school kids involved in drugs and so forth. you didn't get that high from marijuana, let's lace it with pcp, lsd. 31 years, i sat on the bench and heard cases. 5,000 to 10,000 cases. what i fear and especially with people unemployed. they are idle and subject to group activities. some people say peer pressure and mail i be the medical in me speaking. use of marijuana automatically leads to experiment meanting

with heroin, pcp and synthetic drugs. the criminal problems i have seen in the nation's capital -- capitol inindicates that the involvement of illegal drug, leads to dropping out of school and ends up shooting up the sleets where they kill a girl with straight as heading to college. i have seen innocent victims of homicide and drug warfare. it is more dangerous than the traffic issues and it is the beginning step to a life of crime. thank you. >> hi. i've been practicing emergency

medicine in san diego for 28 years and they say the world is a stage and the people in the emergency department have the front seat. working on the opioid epidemic i see a link to marijuana. i would like to share with you the stories i see and cases i see in the emergency department and what marijuana looks like at the morgue. every day in california, we treat patients with marijuana poisoning. everyday. the number of emergency department visits gone up by 830% in the past year from 2006 to 2014. over 1,000 people in san diego alone. picture a 25-year-old girl with loud autoable abdominal pain and

hearing her agony from across the emergency department. we call the condition skrom itting. screaming and vomiting and the hallmark for cannabis syndrome. she has been to numerous emergency departments and receiving dilaudid. and she cannot understand what is wrong with her. her cure would be simple, stop smoking weed and the problem is that her marijuana addiction is becoming an opioid addiction. everyday we treat cases of skrom itting. my next patient is spitting and thrashing about. and heart rate is up. six strong men have to hold him down until the sedatives take affect. the drug tests come back with just marijuana.

and it was just marijuana what landed another patient in life support hanging between life and death inhaling wax 90 to 100% thc. and tourists, recently i treated a man visited for a convention. came to the emergency department that hen couldn't talk right and arm was not working. i did a evaluation and everything came back normal and showed me a small package of gummy pe gummy bears labeled hangover remedy. it was heart breaking to treat an olderly man for a cancer diagnosis. the son saw a prominent advertisement and the would hope that the marijuana browny would help his nausea. i admitted him to the hospital

from a pot browny. a driver admits to be high on marijuana and he will not enter t the is it a tis sticks because no one died. what do the medical examiners see? death from all drugs went up 66% and death from marijuanaen went up 64% and a direct correlation with increased drug deaths and marijuana deaths. we can no longer turn a blind eye. who dies of marijuana? the death diaries counted 462 people who dies with thc dm their system. a one-year-old baby, a 15-year-old, a 19-year-old driver and a 55-year-old motorcyclists and a 21-year-old who jumped off of a bridge along

with 76 other suicides. along with 63 card ak deaths and associated with a three-fold increase of death from hypertension. if you have high blood pressure you should not be smoking weed. 30% of elicit drug use, 30% of prescription drug deaths, 30% of alcohol deaths. if thc was a medication, they would have a big black box warning. they have unleashed a public health disaster. [ applause ] >> hi, i'm susan and i'm from the national institute on drug abuse. i don't have stories that will tug at your heart strings to tell you i'm here as a scientist and we support a lot of research on cannabis to look at the

adverse health effects to understand how it works in the brain and body and look at the potential of therapeutic uses of the compounds. what i want to the talk to you today about which is what concerns us is the affects on the developing brain. there is a system, a signaling system called the endocanabanoid system, including brain development. one of the things we are seeing is increases in use by pregnant women being given advice through internet that this is safe natural plant to use to help with morning sickness. i would say we do not have indication that that is the cases and instead we know this system is important for how the nervous system develops.

and it comes on 16 to 22 days of gestation. the population of pregnant woman, 4% report using marijuana. 18 to 25-year-olds up to 7% and the youngest people who are pregnant, 12 to 17 years old, it is 17%. and most use it in the first trimester, the most dangerous time. we have more evidence has to do with adolescents. the brain continues to develop into early adulthood and it is a time of quite active brain development. and so we have many concerns about exposure to the brain. we have study that is are coming together to tell us that those who start young in their teens and use frequently are more likely to see a variety of adverse outcomes on brain development, function as well as

on academic achievement, employment, possibly their mental health, increased risk of earlier onset of psychosis amongst people who are vulnerable and increase risk to addiction to cannabis and other substances and cognitive impairment. so a number of the different outcomes we are seeing. one of the things we are not -- one of the things about the data is that they are not conclusive. because there are always other factors that have to be considered. one of them is that many young people who use cannabis frequently are not using it alone. there are other drugs on board and may have affects. we don't know what they look like before they started to use it. there may have been risk factors that lead them to the multiple outcomes. one way in which institutes are trying to address the problem is through a study we are funding

called the adolescent brain cognitive study, abcd. a study of a coheart of 10,000 kids beginning at age nine or 10 to look at the impact of the development of the brain and growth trajectories in general and looking at more than just the exposure to cannabis, although, in fact, the changing laws and emergence of electronic cigarettes is what prompted the study. now we have a broader group of institutes that are interested, we are looking at screen time and physical exercise and what are the resilience factors that can protect somebody. it is an issue we need to understand and what keeps us up at night are the effects on brain development. >> good afternoon. i'm doug team and for the past

23 years i'm the president and ceo of treatment centers and in the substance use treatment field. for those involved with the providing treatment for those suffering from substance use, we provide the respite and resurrection for the casualties that you have heard. thanks to kevin and patrick for shine ago light on this topic and being out front on helping our country know the other side of the story. what i want to talk about today is how did we get here? one of the things i have seen in 35 years is that when you put availability, accessibility and affordability with any mood-altering substance, it leads to more addiction. it's been the case with marijuana. last year, there was a study about attitudes and what struck out to me is 73% of all of those

poll between the ages of 18 and 34 felt marijuana was safer to use than alcohol. 11% of parents thought it was okay for their teenagers to smoke occasionally. when we look at the correlation of marijuana and other substance use. former director on the drug abuse institute. has extensive data. even for the teenager who casually uses it, they are more likely to smoke, drink, binge drink and use other drugs. if they use it regularly, they are 15 to 30 times likely to do those other activities. what does that mean at treatment

centers? a couple of statistics to think about. for the population over the age of 28 about a third of our patients will indicate they use marijuana 15% consider it the drug of choice. young adults, 20 and 28. about 60% use marijuana and 35% indicate as their drug of choice. adolescence, 90% use marijuana, 70% have it as the primary drug of choice. that's the bad news. there is hope. treatment centers provide respite and resurrection. even though there is no medication-assisted treatment for marijuana. abcity innocent treatment does work. following up on our patients we

use drug streams to corroborate whether someone is abcity innocent or not. about 60% have been for the first year. 20% are at the end of the year. 80% alcohol and drug free. and 10% to 15% have reduced use. quality of life better. consequences down. so treatment does work. we deal with the casualties. i want to salute patrick and kevin helping prevent those coming to the front door. we can help those when they come, in an ideal world, they would never show up at our front door. thank you. >> hi, i'm alexa and i am a recovering addict and my drug of choice was marijuana. i started smoking when i was 15 and i started smoking

recreationally at parties at 17 and by the time i was in college i was using it daily. i pretty much couldn't imagine my life without it. i literally couldn't do anything. i went to class high, i went to work high, i drove high. i used marijuana to feel normal. and that isn't normal. and i didn't realize that. i didn't even realize that i was addicted. it started as something fun and it quickly became toxic. and i damaged my relationship with my family. i wasn't able to excel in school. i had brushes with the law. it took me down slowly and i was at the point where i wanted to commit suicide.

and i luckily checked into the treatment center on december 28, 2014 and that's when really my life changed. it is the place that taught me what addiction and alcoholism looked like and that helped me realize that is what i was struggling with. because of that, i'm three years sober today. [ applause ] >> thank you. and yeah, i mean i'm lucky to be standing here today and i'm grateful for what they did for me and my family. it repaired my relationship with my family. i'm able to be a productive member of society, a daughter, friend and worker. i'm incredibly grateful to be speaking here today and i hope that we will continue to listen to the voices of those in recovery. those are important voices to hear. thank you for letting me share.

[ applause ] >> i'm bishop james from newark, new jersey. i'm a shchaplain with the new jersey state police. i'm a retired corporate exet cetera. clergy, cop, social worker, weird combination. helped okay straight the campaign to bring governor murphy into the mansion and yet, on martin luther king day and said we will though have legalized marijuana. as law enforcement we know what it does. let's look at the statistics in the state that is have already legalized marijuana. because it will devastate communities of color. and colorado for example, 55%

increase of youth caught in possession of marijuana in the african american community. you have to be 21 to have it. we are finding out from our kids from 11 to 17 years old. so you start off with a record. let's talk about the hispanic community. 38% increase in the hispanic community of kids using marijuana. let's talk about what it does to our babies. we're seeing from age 0 to 7 years ago old a 70% increase in poisoning hotlines for pediatrics. there is no epipen for your baby if he or she is allergic to marijuana and their brains will be fried. why would you take it on? being a social tiscientist, the last place they are going to

have marijuana is in the county where our governor lives. there are placed in new jersey that have passed -- you can't sell it here. where is it going? to the urban areas. what is the problem there? unemployment. you will not retire from pse and g and law enforcement or a major corporation if you test positive for marijuana. so therefore, the whole economic system will be brought down. where will you place these shops? let's take a look at denver. denver has more marijuana shops than it does mechanic donalds and mcdonalds and starbucks combined. you must pay with cash. can't pay with a card or check. if i'm a local fella that

doesn't mind sticking up drug dealers, your place is a prime place for my dealing and redealing. i talked with my friends in the dpa, we're finding out that marijuana legal marijuana is sold on the black market like anything else that there are plenty of it around if there's a commodity. s soybean, corn. you don't put it in the warehouse, you sell it to someone. i happen to sit on the board of a hospital. i happen to know a week ago, we had 28 weeks in 24 hours come in and they're out of their mind because of the combination. you need to understand that there is no standard for marijuana. i went to college in the '60s, the stuff i spoked was 4% thc, now it is 38% thc.

there was no opioid problem in the country in places like new wark, camden, new jersey. places like trenton or paterson. these are the hoods, yal. it got on the park way and went to places up county and places down county. and when the people who didn't look like me, their kids started dying. then there's an epidemic. you can't put this, i say it to governor murphy, you want to know what it will do, stick around and talk to me. the last thing i want to point out, newark, camden, paterson and trenton, we have the the birthrate -- i refuse to allow something else to bring down african american and hispanic

children that our chance may have a chance in life, a chance for employment and a chance to live the american dream. let me quote scripture as i go to my seat, the scripture says, what profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? and what will a man give for his soul? there's another question asked and needs to be answered. our governor made a promise that he was going to let everybody out of jail that went. this is not social justice but social injustice. last week he sere-based all of the reentry dollars. he has no intention of letting anyone out of prison. don't believe the promises that are made. they want to have marijuana

sold, s-o-l-d but they are giving up your children, s-o-u-l. [ applause ] >> good afternoon, i'm new jersey state senator and i'm in washington and my son is ronald c. rice and does a lot of youtube stuff and he is down here. i want to be clear who i am. i'm the third senior serving senator i have been there 32 years. a former law enforcement officer, detective ninvestigato, deputy mayor, vietnam, background is criminal justice. -- then got ordered to vietnam.

i'm a college grad, i've been to many. the thing that disturbances me the most is i'm a product of the civil rights movement and the south. january 1955 i was 9 years old. so i can read and write. if you go back two weeks 1956, that was board versus brown. so i know what it is to live in segregated communities. i know the struggle to allow us to go to school and get education to better our lives and mix and get away from the craziness. in new jersey, we're being sold and what offends me the most is not so much for quote, unquote white folks who are trying to make money. but what black leaders are doing after all of the struggle for quality education and life

experiences. it is they are accepting what is being told. we are accepting that all of a sudden, that in new jersey we're told that we need to legalize marijuana because it is a social justice issue. there are more black people in jail for personal use and we were told the same thing by the same groups and it messed it up and took away our constitutional right. when you look at this, the question i have is okay, why do we allow people to use data we know better than anyone to sell their products? so my talk to my colleagues putting in the bail, if you agree with us, we have been saying it for years that it is discriminatory and more of us in jail, turn us loose. they said they can't do it because it is complicated.

why is it complicated? because we have to legalize. i'm telling you this, it is insulting to me and people of good will and people who look like me who come from the movement i spoke about in the history of struggle and the history of slave families. what you are telling me is that even though i should not be in jail, you are not going to turn me loose unless i help you make some money. we have been asking for years before opioids, i have asked for $100 million to deal with drug treatment center and they give us free needles. a free needle has air and you put it in your vein and you die. in the meanwhile, they want to give us legalization of marijuana. what i'm being doetold by my colleagues in new jersey, there are so many people dying from

the opioid problem when they went to colorado, legalizing march wan that there would be a shift of opioids to march wijua and there won't be as many deaths. i said you are transferring the problem. we need to deal with both. if you look at transferring the problem, you make it less deaths but the social justice issue is one that you pr-- if it is not money, if you want to talk social justice, ien shouldn't be in jail, we can decriminalize. that's what we can do. we can make it so you don't go to jail, you don't have a criminal record and you can go get a job and you get treatment and expunge records. but you're not going to make money off of us. what i tell them in new jersey. we held three hearings.

i have said let's talk about what we know before we do this. we know all of the things said here today based on colorado, washington, california and elsewhere. but let's talk about what we know about new jersey, because you have to put things in perspective. what i know about new jersey and new jersey, my office is five blocks from a village called south orange new jersey which is predominantly white, upper class, wealthy, middle class people. and seton hall university. and what i do know is that in new wark where my office is, down the street people get shot on a regular basis and they are homeless et cetera and i have a bodega on every block, sometimes two. there are people we are trying to help with subsidies, taking

food stamps to the bodega and cashing them off and not buying food, if you have $100 they will give you $40 and they are going to the corner to buy drugs. with that study, for tloos four or five years in colorado, if you legalize marijuana -- common sense dictates to me, if i legalize marijuana i'm going to get a substantial increase use of never use it. within the aggregate of the people, there are going to be some food stamp people who are going to go to the same bodegas. unintended consequences. my kid goes to school and the teacher says why are you trying to take the kids food, did your parents feed you? yes, a little bit.

in my state, they are not going to call the parents. they are going to call dyfs and they are going to come out and take the kids out of the home. unintended consequences. it is happening now without legalization. low-income people and working people struggling paying $1,200 a month to live in slum property. all of a sudden there is a new population never used drugs, they like it and start to shave off the rent. they go to the landlord, i'm a little short. you have been here a long time, we'll see you next month. next month come around and bishop say you are evicted. now people back in the system who are homeless and the final thing i want to say is that

seton hall, new ark is a college state and it is five blocks away. if newark legalizes marijuana, and south orange doesn't want it, i'm telling what's going to happen. i'm not guessing, i know. the students at seton hall university and the majority of the white population in south orange is going to new wark and somebody is going to get killed. and it is going to be violent crimes. the newspaper is going to say it is racial had wh it is not. it is about the drugs and money. if you are black, they are going to kill you too. >> that's a fact. >> if they decide that ween don't want and south orange wants the population

predominant predominantly black community, they are going to go up and be inquisitive to see what cup cake and gum mys and lipstick is all about and when they cross the line they are going to be stopped for right reasons not wrong reasons and it is going to be addressed as profiling. so listening to people without doing research and putting together what we know with legalization and what we know is happening now and being objective. in closing, let me say this. as chair, we are having two hearings. we are not going out telling people that we are for or against of the legalization of the recreation marijuana. we want people to know the facts. in new jersey, thanks to s.a.m.,

we have people providing information on the other side. i'm going to leave this with you, for s.a.m. and others, what i want to do when i go back and we can have the discussion because i test this last night. i kept saying that people don't know the difference. and that we need to do a grassroot campaign on knowledge. i need to talk to the senior citizens who have to walk down the street. i have to talk to the parents in a single, head of household and pta folks and everyday working people they are not following people around they are just listening and hearing. when i test this last night, i asked people who were elderly and middle-aged people at a debate. i was on the side talking to them. they raised the question, i said do you know what recreation marijuana and the lady said, i think so. that told me something. if you think so, let me say this to you, if you legalize mar

marijuana, do you know that commercialization right out here on south orange avenue, you are going to have stores selling lipsticks and cup cakes. oh, we can't have that. we need to talk to people, not folks who are following folks around from information from one side to the other side. we need to get in the hood and talk to real people. thank you very much for this opportunity to come down and share my concerns and my concerns are coming from an educated informed person who live in a community that i represented over 30-plus years and one who understand this stuff very well and the relationships. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. i'm christine miller a neuro sin

too scientist. given a free pass by the politicians and the media. there is no other drug in america that can be sold without a listing of side effects. but marijuana is sold in dispensaries with no serious warnings whatsoever. the side effects that i care about is the disorder that i dedicated my career to researching. psychotic disorders and you heard doctor mention she sees examples of that in her clinic on a pretty regular basis. my experience is that marijuana-induced psychosis is now the most well-replicated finding we have in schizophrenia research. more well-replicated than any genetic finding. i looked at a lot.

more replicated than any environmental factor. now, it is true that those who have a family history of psychosis are going to be more at risk. but that's about 10% of the population who has a first or second-degree family member with some type of psychotic experience. and it doesn't mean the other 90% are safe. the effect size is large, 50% thc increases the risk five-fold. one out of every 20 regular users being at risk for developing a chronic psychotic disorder if they don't quit in time. there is no single paper that is definitive. rather, it is a consolation of studies that looked at the

question from different angles and illuminated the causal basis. there are hundreds of studies i'm talking about. i will list a few. numerous epidemiological studies showed a does-response effect between the amounts of marijuana use, the concentration and psychotic outcome. for a psychological research, this is one cause. they have answered the obvious questions which comes first, the marijuana use or the psychosis. so they follow teens, thousands of teens until they reach the young adult years and they find that the preponderance of the evidence is that the marijuana use comes first. if you administer purified thc in the clinic under controlled conditions to subjects with no family history of psychosis.

40% will develop psychotic symptoms on the spot. fortunately, they're reversible at that point, but for recreational users who experience such symptoms and continue to use, about 35% will progress to what is known as a full psychotic break, where they have more than one -- multiple psychotic symptoms at once and they don't recover so quickly. they'll have paranoia, racing thoughts, hallucinations, delusions of grandeur. and of that group, about half will end up with a chronic long-term, often lifelong psychotic disorder. these are very large studies that have been conducted in europe, where they have centralized health care systems which enable, you know, a good collection of data for controlling for demographic factors. the two studies i'm talking about totalled over 20,000 patients, and they looked at

other drugs as well. marijuana was by far the most effective at reaching that sad end state. it was worse than lsd, then pcp, then cocaine, then methamphetamine. i like to say lace your lsd with a little marijuana and you're more likely to become psychotic. there are many studies to talk about. i don't have time now. there are more. but i'll move on to the fact that this type of mental illness, like all mental illnesses, carries a heavy stigma. so the families that have experienced it aren't that willing to speak out. you know, for obvious reasons. they want to protect their loved ones. there is a website you can go to where a few families have written their stories, momstrong.org, and i highly recommend it. you know, i'd also like to point out, let's see, my final two points. marijuana is often compared to the legal drugs alcohol and

tobacco, and i have this to say about the alcohol comparison. unlike alcohol, if you are using two servings of marijuana per week, if you're not driving, even if you're not driving, that is not a safe level of use. that is exactly the level of use that raises the level of the risk of psychosis significantly. and compared to tobacco, where you actually have sort of a window of time, a grace period, if you will, to correct your yu youthful mistake of picking up this habit. until the age of 40, if you quit by then, you might be okay. with marijuana, the severe psychiatric effects come on very early, very fast, you know, and can be extremely devastating at a young age and last a lifetime. so you don't have that grace period. you can't be forgiven this

youthful mistake. and you don't know, you know, who it is going to affect. so to conclude from the press hear, i hope there will be more reporting on this dark side of marijuana. there are world experts who can be reached out to. dr. robin murray at king's college in london. dr. jim van oss in the netherlands. from our government, i think a surgeon general's warning would be a great first step, much like the warning given for tobacco so many decades ago. thank you. [ applause ] >> first, let me thank everybody who has spoken already today. i really appreciate the eloquence and expertise that all of you have brought to this and the service to our country that many of you have exhibited throughout your lives. my name is patrick kennedy. i've had the honor to be the

author of the mental health parity and addition action which says basically mental health ought to be treated the same as overall health. i spent my life campaigning to see that this parity law as it's known is fully implemented so that we can address mental health and addiction challenges in this country just like we address diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and cancer, and every other illness. and i found that it would be inconsistent for me on the one hand to be around the country trying to advocate for adequate coverage and reimbursement by insurance companies for mental health and addiction services while ignoring that there will be a new addictive industry that will put more people in jeopardy of both mental illness, as you've just heard, and in jeopardy of more addiction.

it would seem to me, while we're in the midst of a five-alarm fire in this country with addiction and mental illness, suicide rate never been higher. twice the car crash rate. overdose rate surpassing well past what we saw in the height of the hiv/aids crisis. our country would wake up and say we must have a problem here. and if we do, it would seem to me the last thing we would do is pour gasoline on the fire. if everybody's now looking at pharma and saying, they got us into this mess because they had unscrupulous practices of selling more oxycontin than were needed because they were making bigger profits, and the more people they got hooked, the higher those profits would be, why would we at this stage in our lives as a nation say, well, let's repeat that mistake?

and instead of oxies, we'll have all these new forms of this new addictive drug, thc, because it's not marijuana, it's elixirs. i don't know if anyone's heard what an elixir is, that fanta with orange and -- because you've got now another chemical to bring to the table. and, of course, there are edibles. what the hell are edibles, people tell me. those are the things you might not be aware of how much thc is in what you're eating. hence all the emergency room visits because people thought, well, i only took a bite or two. it never made any impact on me, so i finished the brownie, and next thing i knew i was hallucinating in an e.r. but let's not look at just this

in anecdotal, in terms of these individual cases, let's just look big picture. our country clearly loves to self-med caters. -self-medicate. more than ever before by the stresses and anxieties brought about by a shifting economy that does not share wealth equally across this country and leaves more and more people feeling insecure about their financial well-being and the future of their families. that's the truth. and so we have more and more kids disconnected. they think they're disconnected because they're on their phones and ipads, in fact, that's leading to more isolation and lack of human connection. so we're thinking, what should be our response? our response, according to all the experts, should be we should be giving those kids social and emotional learning skills.

we awed to be equipping them with coping mechanisms and problem-solving skills. i had the honor of rededicating the ft. bragg john f. kennedy special warfare center, and the general said to me, you know, congressman, with the green berets, we had the most mental health, you know, training and delivery for our green berets than any branch of the service. i said, these green berets don't need mental health, they're the best of the best. no, no, no, we don't look at it that way, we look at it as a force multiplier. i said what's that mean? he said because of the stressful situations we put our special operators in them, what makes them so special is their ability to navigate the stressful environment. so they look at stress management as a protective shield.

all of these kids, all of america is heading into a global economy that's causing them a lot of stress. are we going to give them the shield, give them the mental health skills to navigate and cope with all the stress coming down? or are we going to look the other way and allow an addictive industry to say, oh, we've got an easy way out? and furthermore, that easy way out is going to get you caught and imprisoned through the kinds of illnesses that you've heard described here today. it would seem to me we want to -- i know with my four kids, soon to be five, i want to help make them as you were saying, bishop, as strong as they can be growing up. i think everybody wants their kids to be as strong -- and i don't want anybody to grab them and take them down.

i don't want any enemy coming across the border and taking my kids hostage by addiction and mental illness. so those that are out there selling this stuff and promoting this stuff, you're going to have this team right here and many others saying, not on my watch. and i want to thank senator rice in my new adopted state of new jersey for leading the charge and doing it as eloquently as he's done. we're looking forward to turning back this effort to legalize marijuana in new jersey so that we don't make it the garden state, but, instead, we say it's a state that is going to be safe for our young people. [ applause ] >> thank you, congressman. and thank you to everybody on the panel. we have seem for questions from the credentialed press. yes? >> senator kennedy, you know

senator of colorado just struck a deal with president trump to not enforce the federal laws in colorado. how do you feel about that? >> well, the president has been very forthcoming about the impact of addiction. in his family's life. so much so that it's -- he makes no bones about the fact that he does not drink alcohol, doesn't even have one single drink, because of the impact. that should tell us a lot. and he understands this personally. so, you know, the biggest issue here is denial, in our lives, those of us who come from homes with alcoholism and addiction who live with it in our own lives. the people with addiction are often the last ones to know. it's a single characteristic of

a mental illness or addiction, the person suffering from it is the last person to recognize it. i would say as a society collectively as a nation, we're in a collective denial about the scope and severity of addiction in this country. and people call it opioid or they call -- you know, at the end of the day, as all of these experts can tell you, it's addiction, it's addiction, it's addiction. we can substitute one for the other, but the bottom line is we have to understand this for what it is, and i think obviously it detracts at a time when we're in an all-out crisis in this country of addiction. it makes it more difficult for us to have a clear and consistent voice and policy about this to be giving, you know, a wicnk, wink, over here while saying it's not a smart idea over here. it's disassembly. isn't that what we call it in

recovery when we try to have it both ways? i certainly hope the president, depends on how true this story is, makes sure that his policy is consistent, because, frankly, he has a commission and has been supported through the rest of his administration to really ensure that this is not legalize. -- legalized. so i'm hoping this literally not the case it's made out to be. >> i'll say one more thing about that, too. the president's commission, his assistant secretary of health who has talked about the harms of marijuana, as well as some of his other appointees. as well the president's own base. law enforcement groups will soon be releasing a letter opposing the president's move and so-called deal with senator gardener. we've seen the underground markets in legalized states get even stronger. one of the promises is that the

criminal element goes away. it adapts. it's able to infiltrate that legal market quite easily and this has been a huge problem for law enforcement to be dealing with in these states. so we have the major law enforcement associations opposing that recent move and we'll be sending out a copy of that letter to the folks here. yes? >> on that same point, we in new jersey have met with the association of police chiefs, and they have come out in new jersey against legalizing marijuana. >> senator schumer today proposed decriminal easiizing marijuana, not legalizing it. >> we don't have the full text on that bill so we can't comment on it. we would call it descheduling,

not decriminaliziig. it would allow states to full-on legalize. we have to wait and get more details before making a final judgement. it is important to make that distinction. that would allow states to fully legalize and commercialize if you deschedule it. >> how much difference do you think this is going to make in the long run in terms of possibly, you know, legalizing marijuana across the country? >> well, think the issue is that there is a big industry that is trying to fund, you know, advocacy in their area. there are dozens of lobbyists from the marijuana industry now that, unfortunately, are funding candidates on all sides. first of all, we're going to be -- we have to do a better job in the public health community of keeping those candidates and politicians accountable. the public has a right to know if you are a lobbyist like john boehner was for big tobacco and now he's working for big marijuana. and we have to start doing that. in terms of that piece of legislation, again, i don't

think actually marijuana is much of a motivating factor for voters. when you ask opinions on marijuana, people have all kinds of opinions, depending on how you frame the question. we found when you offer decriminalizing, more people choose that. as a motivating factor to vote, to lead on it politically, none of the polls and what we're seeing is that this is really a motivating factor. i think a lot of this is, unfortunately, members of congress hearing from very loud voices of special interest groups, not very loud voices of the grassroots. i've got to tell you, with the amount -- the thousands of kids in new york state that have died from the opioid epidemic, with over 90% of them if the statistics are correct, marijuana having something to do with that history, i don't think this is necessarily a smart move politically for people of either party. that's a message for senator schumer as much as it is for president trump. >> can i say something quickly

on decrim? this is very quick. rumor on the street is that $100 million is going to be spent to get the bill side. on the decrim side, those promulgating legalization, they continue to tell people that we like decrimizization, but it harms minority people. because even though you're going to come out of jail, still get a fine, if you don't pay the fine, you're going to jail. they give the impression through the conversation that if you legalize drugs you don't get arrested. some kind of way the press and the public have to make it clear, you're going to get arrested whether you decrim and legalize, and i think that's important, because that's the way it's being sold, and i think once the public recognize that wealthy people and special interests are spending a lot of

money -- go back to the history of george soros, they're not going to do that. once they recognize people trying to make money off their backs and recognize there is another way of doing this social justice thing that keeps coming up in our faces in our communities, they will see it differently. i hope senator schumer takes a look at true decriminalization. >> there is no sense without having some sort of health intervention as well. it doesn't help us to have the same kid arrested and fined ten times over again without health intervention. there is a lot of lip service saying addiction is a disease, addiction is a disease, but if it is, we have to treat it as such. you intervene early. offer evidence-based health care and health interventions. so, you know, we support bills that remove criminal penalties that have a health aspect to them so that we can actually

move towards discouraging and reducing use, as opposed to perpetuating it and giving someone who already can't afford it, probably, a huge fine versus some time in prison. that's also not the right way to deal with it. >> yes, please? >> thank you. yes. good afternoon to all of you. thank you so much for the impassioned wisdom that you provided here today. i'm kathy henderson. i'm an elected representative in the district of columbia. and my community, we are still fighting hard against that awful, awful proposition 70 that passed here in the district of columbia. we've mobilized the police, who are now working harder to shut down the pop-ups that sell the brownies. they were coming on sundays at 2:00, lines in the community, taking up all our parking spaces, you pay your $10 to come

in, you get your little white bag and you come out with all kinds of illegal edibles that we don't want. so we're fighting back. my question is, is there an -- now we have a member of the council who has sent a press release to the u.s. attorney's office and the police asking to decriminalize prostitution and the whole. i understand this is a proponent of marijuana, sitting on his porch smoking as if it's okay. my question is, what more can we do or is there an effort to really go back and revisit the issue, the slippery slope that happened in the district of columbia? >> well, i think there is an effort. and we need to hear from really grassroots activists, more from people like yourselves and others here so your collective voices are heard. right now they're drowned out by a deep-pocketed special interest group that has unlimited funds

because it's in their business interests to pass legalization. they benefit when they pass that. us trying to prevent bad legislation, we don't have that kind of financial incentive. the only thing to counter it, we hear individual voices -- i'll also ask people, download for free our advocacy app, the s.a.m. action a.p. in the apple or google play store, and you can actually get alerts to be able to write elected officials, to be able to show that collective advocacy that needs to happen. again, we see this as a bipartisan issue. we don't see this as, you know, one party or the other. we see this as a public health and scientific issue. whether it's going to take five years, ten, 50 or 100, we know, as patrick says, we're on the right side of history. we know that as a country we're going to collectively come to our senses at some point. we just hope we don't have to pay the consequences before

ree realizing it. >> one added comment. judge burnett, i testify frequently before the city council. we need to see people talking about the negative consequences. there is a move in the country today as a result of bail issues and talking about imposing bail where people can't make the bail and sit in jail, too. this would be another way of having these people sit in jail because a fine of $300 is imposed for marijuana usage and the person has been unemployed for two years. where is the $300 coming from? so the whole idea of just decriminalize and posing a fine puts us in the same box we're in, people sitting in jail pretorial on bail th pretrial on bail they can't make. >> i've reached out to my national affiliation and i've asked them to for all the full gospel churches in the usa to a meeting with my senior bishop to

say i need a statement. i'm reaching across all lines. people of faith have to operate on faith, and you have to call them out for who they are and what they are. you know, they talk about social justice. i, too, remember the riots. martin luther king was in newark the week before he went to memphis. so at 17 years old, i got to hear martin. martin said something. he said, you must do the analysis but you can't have paralysis. you need to call on your faith leaders. you need to call on every organization that you know that moves in the community. 20 years ago, there was a group of clergy, we came together and made national history because we negotiated the first treaty between the bloods and the kripps in the city of newark. i was part of that group. you can get gang bangers that really will help you out or ex

gang bangers. that's who the community believes. lastly, let me say this to you. martin said that we must know there is always a time to do right, and the time is right now. >> well, with that, we'll end it. we thank everybody for being here today. to get more information, get it at learnaboutsam.org. also, the other organizations mentioned today. thank you. the funeral service for barbara bush is saturday at noon eastern, from st. martin's in houston. speakers include her son, jeb bush, friend susan basic and

historian john meechum. listen on the c-span radio app. this weekend on book tv, c-span2. live coverage of the "l.a. times" festival of books. all day saturday and sunday. and at 8:00 p.m. eastern on sunday, a conversation about james comey's week with jeremy raskin of maryland and former deputy assistant attorney general during the reagan administration. and on american history tv, c-span3, saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on "reel america." a 1969 nbc report looks at the women's liberation movement. and sunday at 8:00 p.m. on the presidency, clifton truman daniel, president harry truman's eldest grandson talked about why his grandfather felt to necessary to move the family out of the white house during its restoration between 1948 and 1952. watch this weekend on the c-span

networks. this weekend, c-span's cities tour takes you to asheville, north carolina. with the help of our spectrum cable partners, we'll explore asheville's literary scene and history. saturday at 11:15 eastern on book tv, we visit the boyhood home of novelist thomas wolf who wrote ""look homeward angel." >> he told some secrets, which you shouldn't do in a small southern town and he said he got death threats from his first book. >> go inside the grove park inn where the great gatsby author stayed during the summers of 1935 and '36. >> he hat lost his writing career by this point. he came to asheville and was

really looking for a place to belong, a place to recover, a place to rest. he came here most importantly to recover that muse. he wanted to write again but he needed something to write about. when he came to the grove park inn, he wanted to find stories in the people staying here. >> on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on "american history tv", we tour the largest home in america, the biltmore estate build by the vanderbilt family. >> a home with more than 33 bedrooms, 65 fireplaces, an incredible massive staircase, architectural beauty surrounding the home. >> we'll visit the late pastor billy graham's religious retreat, the cove. watch c-span's cities tour of asheville, north carolina, saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america.