that resolution that would authorize the judiciary committee chair to pursue civil action to seek enforcement in federal court of his committee's subpoenas and other matters. so we expect that to get under way shortly. when it does, we'll have it live for you here on c-span3. in the meantime, a portion of this morning's washington journal. you probably know rick steves as a travel writer. you may not know he's an advocate for the legalization of medical marijuana. why did you get involved in this work? >> i've spent time traveling in europe and i've seen how europe has dealt with its drug problems and ever since the 1990s, i thought it just doesn't make sense that we're locking up people for recreational use of marijuana. i've been outspoken on that. i'm certainly not pro marijuana. i'm pro civil liberties and pro smart policy. and we've got a policy now which is as wrong-minded about marijuana as our prohibition against alcohol was back in the 1930s.

and i'm just working as we are doing all across the united states to take apart the prohibition against marijuana, one state at a time. and in 2012, i was a co sponsor and lead spokesperson for the law that legalized tax-regulated recreational use of marijuana in washington state. and along with colorado, we were the first states to actually legalize marijuana for recreational use. and because of that, i've got a personal insight into how it works. so every two years, i go on the road and talk up the wisdom of taking the crime out of the equation. and dealing with marijuana as a health and education challenge, and civil liberty. >> you're on the road here in d.c. today. what are you doing in d.c. who are you meeting with? >> i've got a busy schedule meeting with legislators who are interested and should be more interested in moving out of the state by state legalization realm and into the federal realm. you know, i think 47 states now in our country have some kind of legal marijuana. and the federal government needs

to just wake up to the fact that this is going to be more and more of a confusion, and a conflicting situation with legal businesses in one state and illegal in the other state. and this is how it works in our country, the way i understand it. states are incubators of change and that's how it was with prohibition against alcohol. the federal government didn't say, well, this was a mistake, let's stop doing it. state by state, we legalized alcohol. first beer, then hard liquor, then even home brewing. we're doing the same thing now with marijuana, and we have a track record. so i'm just really excited to -- after work -- in 2012, i worked in washington, 2014 oregon, 2016 massachusetts and maine. 2018, michigan. we won in all those states. it's time now to tell the federal government, we have a track record. we know you are nervous about this. but the numbers are in. you can listen to cherry-picked statistics from both sides, but the numbers are in right now. and it's time to reconsider this

insistence of our federal government of criminalizing marijuana and legalize it. >> before rick steves' day in washington begins, he's chatting with us and you on phone lines. a little different in this segment. if you support legalizing marijuana 202-744-8000. if you oppose it, 202-744-8001. who is jerry on jim french's kiro radio show back in the late '80s. >> jerry. that was me. i was asked to represent the responsible local businessman who spokes marijuana back in the '80s in seattle. and i thought, yeah. i believe in this. i believe it's a big lie that decent people are lying to their work mates to their friends at church, to their family about their enjoyment of marijuana. and i wanted to talk on the radio in seattle about the

responsible use as an adult of marijuana as a way to relax and have fun. so i went on -- but i wasn't bold enough to go on as rick steves, the local businessman. i went on as jerry. and i thought i was incognito. and the next day i was walking to work and somebody rolled down their window and said, "hey, jerry, right on." so i think people have been ahead of the curve over politicians and corporations and so on. and we've come a long way since then. i don't need to be jerry any more. >> let's chat with a few callers. charles is up first from jonesboro, arkansas. that line for those who support the legalization. go ahead. >> caller: hey. i've got a problem with the way they're rolling out this marijuana in arkansas. $15 a gram. you buy an ounce, it's $3 -- $595 and people are hurting and sick and in pain and this is being done to them. this isn't being done for them. the governor let two

distributors start in the southern part of the state. people have to drive so far to get it. it's not a concern about the traffic. they're not concerned about the safety of people. i mean -- or the hurting people. this is a disgrace, what's being done to arkansas. i thought it was going to be something -- i expected something better than this. >> well, okay. jerry, we have to be patient. and we've got to remember different states are more nervous than others. and every state writes the law according to what they think will pass in their law. and then legislators in the states tweak the laws to make them more smart. and i know when we legalized marijuana in 2012 in washington state, we got a few things wrong and then the legislator tweaked it. colorado had to learn to package it more smartly in the interest of children's safety and so on. and each state is struggling with this. but you've got to remember, you can complain about the new laws, but the alternative is, people

getting arrested. and having their lives derailed, because they're caught with a joint in their pocket. and what motivates me to get out here and talk, it's really a race issue. it's not rich white guys like me getting arrested. it's poor people and people of color being arrested. and to this day, i mean, in 2019, we've got 6 or 700,000 people in jail for nonviolent marijuana offenses. no, 70,000 people in jail and 6 or 700,000 people a year arrested for nonviolent marijuana offenses. and it's a flat out racist issue. so i hear people complaining about the laws. but for me, it is a huge step to just move toward legalization. where we stop locking up people for smoking marijuana. it's a serious problem, as i mentioned to john earlier. i'm not pro marijuana. it's a drug, it can be abused, needs to be taken seriously. it needs to be carefully regulated. but right now, we've got a booming black market in some states, and a highly taxed, highly regulated market in other states. and we can make a choice.

you can't wish marijuana away. it's going to be here. you've got to decide, is it going to be a black market that empowers and enriches gangs and organized crime or a highly taxed legal market, like in my state. when we legalized marijuana in 2012, it was rivalling apples as the number one crop in our state and all going to gangs and organized crime. today it employs tens of thousands of people, highly taxed. our government in washington state got $300 million of tax revenue last year. and not because more people are smoking pot. but because that wasn't going against organized crime. to me, this is a huge success, and it's -- again, it's not because more people are smoking pot. it's because that business is there and we are now taxing and regulating it. and an added benefit of that is, we have credibility now when it comes to talking about the real problems of hard drug abuse, and we can focus on the opioid crisis so on. and this to me is just progress.

so i'm sorry that in arkansas we've got some things about the law that you don't like, but we are moving fitfully forward, and i'm in washington, d.c., today, because i think it's time for the federal government to relieve us of all of this si silliness, state by state by state, and recognize that, yes, it is time to reconsider the prohibition against marijuana. the mayor in 1930s said the society has a law on the books it doesn't intend to enforce consistently, the very existence of that law erodes respect for law enforcement in general. that's what we have right now. we have chaos, we have inconsistent laws, and it's going to just get worse, because we're not going to be able to roll back this rising tide of sensible marijuana policy from the states. and i'm excited that the federal government is seeing now might be a good time to reassess the prohibition. >> texas is next, for those who oppose legalization of marijuana. go ahead, you're with rick

steves. >> caller: yes. i'm just totally appalled at all of this. they gripe and gripe and gripe about the smokers, the secondhand smoke. and the medical cost. what are we going to do when all of these people are out there smoking all this marijuana -- what about the medical cost? we're talking about plain jane people smoking regular plain jane cigarettes, and now we've got thousands and thousands and thousands of people who want to smoke marijuana. well, at least if it was controlled, there wouldn't be that much medical problems. but now we're just going to throw it out there, everybody, here it is. here, let's all smoke. let's all get sick. now, the democrats are going to raise the cost of medical insurance. and force that medical insurance on everybody out there. >> becky, i think you are living in the misconception that a lot of people are, that there's a whole reservoir of decent people that would love to ruin their

lives smoking pot if only it was legal. the fact is, in your state, just like in mine, people who want to smoke pot do. we legalized six years ago, and smoking rates have stayed roughly the same, and teen rates have absolutely not gone up. if you legalize in texas, it's going stay about the same, and teen rates are not going to go up. i know that, because that's a fact. you know what your saying because that's a hunch. my governor was not in favor of marijuana and he was elected the same day we legalized. today, six years later, he's so thankful that we legalized marijuana, because, again, we have a track record. use stays roughly the same. duis don't go to up. crime doesn't go up. teen use doesn't go up. what we do is take a thriving black market industry and tax the heck out of it and we have more civil liberties. it's also much nicer not to arrest people of color like we have done in regards to our war

on drugs in the past. so the whole basis of your complaint, becky, is the assumption that use will go up when we legalize. and use will not go up. there's never been a society that has seen a correlation between how strict the laws are in marijuana and how many people smoke it. in europe, the most liberal country of all, the netherlands, smokes about half the european average per capita. it's counter intuitive, i know. but what i'm telling you is, people who want to smoke pot do. and they do it as criminals or as law-abiding citizens in our country, depending on the state. >> lake elsinore, california, stanley on the line for those who support legalization. good morning. >> caller: yeah, i'd like to start with kim reynolds out of iowa, the governor. she just recently vetoed the iowa medical expansion. and about that, i'd like to say, they allowed five businesses --

huge businesses -- to go ahead and grow a certain amount of cannabis with low thc for iowa. and those companies can do whatever they want. those guys can run around and say, i grow weed all day long. and they don't get arrested. but if a little guy from the streets in iowa like me who got caught with 13 grams, which is a small handful of cannabis, i was facing 37 years with a mandatory 15-year sentence for nonviolent cannabis in iowa. and there's two reasons that cannabis is illegal anyway. there's only two reasons. one reason is that the companies have to get their hands on it and make sure they take control of it 100% so that they can get all the profits and they can control it. the second reason is because it will make people think outside the box if they take a puff. and they definitely don't want us to do that, because they want to make sure that we're inside their box. the other thing is --

>> we'll let rick steves focus on that. >> well, you know, this is -- this is the nature of the beast when we have a prohibition. and, you know, the odd thing is, somebody can be arrested in your state and do hard time, apparently, and in my state, somebody can invite their friends over and have a party and instead of drinking wine you can smoke a little marijuana. you know, as i said, for six years in washington state, it's been taxed, regulated and legalized. you can step into a marijuana shop and it's about -- it's sort of cross between an apple store and a pharmacy. very strict -- you know, in our state, it is so shipshape, because people need to have 100 percent compliance to all the regulations. and not to be in good with the government, but to be in good with the bank so they can do their banking. and it's a very tightly organized situation in a state that's legalized properly. and you look out my window, i look out my window every morning and think, wow, here's a state where marijuana is not an issue.

it's old news. it's boring. grandma is rubbing it on her shoulder, you know, it's lost the sexiness. teen use is going down in my state. it's not an issue. and in other states, people are all up in arms, and people are -- people's lives are being understood. and people are angry at this and angry at that. there's two ways to approach this. >> it was an issue for former attorney general, jeff sessions. what did he change about guidelines for enforcement and prosecution when it dacame specifically to marijuana? >> he derailed the cole amendment -- the cole memo. this was a memo from the federal government saying we're not going to get in the way of the state's own oversight of their laws, as long as it doesn't leak outside of that state. you know. and states were very thankful for that and then they had some stability and they could proceed with their laws. this is a serious issue. the people i'm working with in drug policy reform, it's -- most

of them don't smoke pot. i mean, they care about their community. and there's a racist law that's demoralizing the police force giving teachers and parents less credibility when ittim comes to talking about the serious issues of hard drugs. this is a very serious law debated long and hard. when we passed marijuana in washington state, we had the federal prosecutor, appointed by a republican president, on board with us as a co sponsor. we had the president of the bar association. we had the children's alliance in our state. several hundred organizations whose mission is dedicated to helping the well-being and safety of children. they supported legalizing marijuana. state legislators whose reputations were unhelped, and family wellness and so on recognized the most dangerous thing about marijuana is when it is illegal. because then a kid with bad discretion can be caught with a joint in his pocket and he can't get into school. can't get a job.

can't get a loan. and that sends him down the wrong track. john, after we legalized marijuana in washington state, i swear, i've never been hugged by so many big, black baptist pastors. they were so thankful that we took the crime out of the equation, because they cared about the ravages of the war on drugs to their community. not the problem caused by marijuana. that's why the naap endorses these issues. the naacp looks out for what's good for the african-american community. and, of course, drug problem is a huge issue in the african-american community, and they endorse legalizing taxing and regularlizing marijuana smartly, because they know the most tragic thing about marijuana for people who are struggling is the fact that it's illegal. >> about ten minutes before the house comes in for the day. taking your phone calls with rick steves as we discuss marijuana legalization. sighlous is online from rutland,

vermont. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. in vermont, i went to several sessions and testified both in front of a house committee early on with this and also at the governor's commission's held around the state and various meetings. and the -- there are some issues where marijuana hasn't really been studied that much because of the legal ability of it, which is an issue. and what i was advocating for was because of the smoking, even the california proposition 65 has -- you can go online and find us where it shows that marijuana smoke is a cause of cancer. well, the smoke contains methanol and formaldehyde. and it's not filtered, typically, when someone is smoking it. so there is a health consequence there that maybe have more of a tail. but then you have the black market that exists, which is

what i lot of the elected people are saying, which still rick is saying, if you still had this big, black market that's going to be there, what we're doing is replacing the black market with the legal market. but they're not labeling the packaging with any carcinogen warnings or anything like that. there's pros other than smoking, in the extract area, because you can control the dosages. you still eliminate the black market. and but then there's some additional cons, where some of the commission hearings, there was some people that ran some companies that were heavy equipment companies, relative -- and it was a question on legalization, and whether or not this would be a right of employees to be able to use this stuff. and some heavy equipment -- you know, people with high cranes, heavyweights and very dangerous work environments, really want people to be on the 1 baball 10

percent, and not be drug users and not have any evidence in their bloodstream, and thc has different effect on different individuals. >> thanks for bringing this up. >> these are points i deal with every two years when i go around the united states helping legalize marijuana. i do not support legalized marijuana bill that does not respect employers' rights to have whatever standards they want in their work force. and laws that do pass i think generally allow employers to have whatever standards they want to have in their work force. and i think that makes a lot of sense for the reasons you said. if it is true that marijuana causes cancer, that's not grounds for making it illegal. it's the civil liberty. if somebody wants to eat something that's not healthy for them, if somebody wants to smoke cigarettes, that's a civil liberty. it needs to be studied. it needs to be educated and labeled appropriately. but i don't buy the fact that because it causes cancer, we should lock people up for

smoking it. silas mentioned how the black market can be thriving. different states have to finesse the tax rates to decide how much of a tax revenue they want and how much of a black market they want. if you want to really get rid of the black market, you've got to have less taxes. if you want to make a lot of money, more taxes. but then it makes the street marijuana more competitive to the legal marijuana. so i know in my state, we were a little bit greedy on the tax end, and i think oregon learned from that and they had less problem with the black market. remember, this is what the dutch call the gray area. you know, for 25 years, the dutch have not arrested a pot smoker, a joint in the netherlands is about as exciting as a can of beer. but they have never dealt with the back side. what the united states is doing, which is really bold and innovative and complicated is dealing with the whole, you know, mass production and distribution and back side of the whole retail business. and it's -- it's tricky. and we are learning about it. but what we're up against is what i call the ppp.

the pot prohibition profiteers. these are entrenched interests that would find it better for their bottom line if we keep marijuana illegal. it seems petty that any corporation would want to make something criminal, so decent people get a record or go to prison for it, so they can make more money. but that's what's happening right now. and i don't want to get into all of that, because it just sounds so negative. but there are pharmaceuticals and there are big beer companies that are always spending money against me. funding the opposition. every two years, when i go to different states around the country, i'm up against opposition and they're funded by pharmaceuticals, big beer, and companies that have all sorts of -- types that make money by keeping marijuana illegal. and i'm in this, again, for civil liberties to end a racist policy to turn a thriving black market into a highly recognized legal market and to get rid of a failed prohibition. >> five minutes before the house comes in. want to get to one or two more

calls here. we'll take to olympia, washington. travis on the line for those who support legalization. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. mr. steves, i was a medical cardholder in the state of washington around 2008 when i first got mine. and then once they started putting that -- making you sign up for the registry and stuff, everybody -- a lot of people got spooked, as far as now the government has me on the registry. >> right. >> caller: and then one more point i wanted to make was, the problem -- you said we made $300 million, i believe, last year. >> right. >> caller: the problem, i believe, here in the state, the state is not telling us exactly what they're spending it on. they said they were going to spend it on things like education and stuff like that. but they really haven't been putting it out to the public what we're spending the money on. >> oh. >> caller: thank you. >> thanks, travis. you know, when i was working very hard in washington state to legalize marijuana, and back

then it was dicey. it's no longer dicey. there's just regrets of political establishment that feels like it's 2010 when we don't know what's going to happen when we legalize. now we know what's going to happen when we legalize, and i just want to stress the numbers are there. adult use stays roughly the same. might creep up a little bit. teen use stays the same. road safety stays the same. crime stays the same. and we take a black market and turn it into a legal market. travis was talking about this medical registry concern. our opposition in 2012 in washington state was not from the right. it was from the left. it was from the medical marijuana industry. because they didn't want all of the encroachments on the world that they had in the status quo. we wanted to open it up and legalize it. and if we can just break out of this prohibition, we won't have all of this nervousness that people have relating to medical marijuana. as far as the $300 million that my state raises every year in tax revenue, it's a billion-dollar industry, highly taxed so $300 million goes to

olympia every year. it's legally earmarked that goes to where it's supposed to go. and i've read the policy papers from our government and it's all right there if people know where to look for it. so i really like the thought that states get the luxury of earmarking this money to whatever they want. when i was in michigan a couple months ago working there, they wanted to make sure veterans got a cut of that money raised so they could work on ptsd syndrome and veterans' health. they wanted to work on drug awareness programs. they wanted to work on public safety. and they wanted some for their general fund. and they wanted some for their education. so they earmarked that and anticipated tax revenue that way. and it's an exciting opportunity that states have to take this money that was going to gangs and organized crime and now put it into their coffers for what they think is best for their community. >> jane in illinois for those who oppose legalization. can you make it quick before the house comes in? >> caller: this is a reprint

from "reader's digest" from 1979, issue. i'll just quote. says dr.ethel sayerson who conducted a study, thc exposed babies that survive acted differently from others. they didn't seem to have normal breaks on behavior. they showed deficiency in attention, the kind of subtle behavior differences, characteristic of marginal brain damage in early development. all young people who want to smoke pot should not have children. because of this danger. >> well, jane, don't tell that to my children. they graduated from notre dame and georgetown, and i think the fact that i smoked pot was an advantage for them. but that's a whole different discussion. i'm afraid if you're reading "reader's digest" from 1979 on an issue as complicate and had fraught with government propaganda as marijuana and drug policy, you need to update your material. we have a whole society wired by a generation of reefer madness propaganda. our government has spent

billions of dollars confusing the public because they're trying to keep marijuana illegal. our government is manic about keeping marijuana illegal. one reason i'm so outspoken about this is because from an international point of view, we have made a trade agreement where everybody has had to sign it, and if any country dare legalize marijuana, they'll have to have a trade war with all of the signatories of this bill. it's just too scary for a small country to try to take the crime out of the equation. when you hear the term "decriminalize," that's sort of like afraid to legalize. because if you technically legalize, you can get in trouble with the united states. i was leaving a hippy communicate in koeppen hagen a few years ago and as i was leaving, my friend said be careful with your marijuana in denmark, because every year we have to arrest a couple of pot smokers in order to maintain favored trade status with the united states of america. i couldn't believe it. and then -- >> the cost of doing business

with america? >> that's -- if you legalize in another country, you're going to have trade consequences with the united states. it's hard for our country to implement that now, because 47 states have some kind of legal marijuana right now. but our country has been so regressive when it comes to wellness. in europe, my friends tell me a society has to make a choice. tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons. here in the united states, they always remind me, we lock up ten times as many people per capita as we do in europe, and we are either inherently more criminal people or there is something screwy about your laws. i think there is something you skrooy about our laws. we have had a lot of callers talking about hearsay and the sky is going to fall. i'm telling you, people smoke pot already. it's not an issue if you want a pot-free society or a pot head society. we have marijuana in our society. it can be a huge legal black market industry, or it can be an