laws, enforcement, adjudication, technology, and data. first, we need strong and effective laws that both deter individuals from driving while impaired, and laws to keep them from becoming repeat dwi offenders. staff believes that states should establish a perse bac concentrated limit of .08 -- .05 or lower. furthermore, staff believes that nitsa provide incentives to states that take action in this area. second, i call it -- ignition locks should be provided to all offenders to increase effectiveness of the programs and improve calotte -- compliance with the law.

regarding repeat offenders, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. while staff is not recommending one specific solution to address the problem with thrift -- repeat offenders, we're calling on states to come up with specific plans to target repeat offenders and have a mechanism in place to regularly evaluate the success of these efforts. for laws to be effective and foster general deterrence, law enforcement is critical. to deter drinking and driving, individuals must be convinced there is a high probability that they -- if they're driving while impaired, they will be caught and the penalty will be swift and certain. research has shown that high- visibility enforcement that

incorporates well-publicized media campaigns and enforcement efforts, such as sobriety checkpoints, are extremely effective at reducing impaired driving and the crashes that result. we like to see states continue with such efforts and we like to see law enforcement increase the use of alcohol sensing tools to help more officers deal with drivers who may be impaired. with respect to swift and certain consequences, adjudication must start immediately, from the confiscation of an impaired drivers license at the time of arrest through the license suspension process. additionally, the staff believes that suspension laws could be improved by requiring individuals arrested for dwi install interlocked as -- as as a requirement for license reinstatement.

as states establish more dwi courts, guidance from nitsa will be needed to outline the best practices of the courts. next, technology can help to reduce impaired driving crashes. we believe that future in- vehicle pass about all detection systems such as dadss could one day reduce our call impaired driving. we believe we should work towards other with the development of this technology. all of the countermeasures we have discussed today are designed to work together to eliminate impaired crashes and fatalities. the largest circle uc year

represents approximately 4 million individuals who currently drive impaired each year in the u.s. lower bac laws, high-visibility enforcement, and passive detection systems are designed to have a broad deterrent effect that will keep people from choosing to drive after drinking in the first place. for those who continue to make that choice, revoking or suspending a driver's license at arrest, and requiring the net -- ignition interlock at -- as a condition will make sure that it will not happen again. for the small population that these measures are not effective, targeting these individuals and dwi courts are some of the best ever to use we have to make sure that repeat offenders are rehabilitated. we believe if we implement these efforts, we will see a reduction in the number of people who choose to drink and drive and

old alike, we will eliminate all called impaired driving. -- and ultimately, we will eliminate alcohol impaired driving. finally, we believe that states need to improve their collection documentation and reporting of bac results. regarding be drunk driving problem, -- the drug driving recognizes more needs to be done. this is why in november of last year we call upon nitsa to establish a standard practice for toxicology testing. we are also calling on law enforcement community to require

the place of last drink data involved in all crashes. these data also helped hold establishment and social hosts responsible when they serve obviously intoxicated and underage patrons who are then involved in a crash. finally, our ultimate goal is zero deaths, states need to set ambitious and measurable targets for reducing alcohol impaired driving and injuries and fatalities. more than half of the recommendations made in the state to report go to the states. strong leadership is needed at the state level to address this public threat to safety.

this map shows states that have low fatality rates in green, mid range fatality rates in the yellow and high rate fight out high rate fatality rates in red. public safety needs to be a priority for all states. we are hopeful that as states reinvigorate their i call is impaired driving efforts -- alcohol impaired driving efforts, this map will get greener and greener and we will one day reach our goal of zero deaths. >> here on c-span and c-span radio tonight, we are looking at the issue of whether drunk driving laws should be changed. we are showing you part of the meeting from two lisa go. among the recommendations was changing the current state level to .05 from .08. we will show you more from that meeting in just a moment as well as part of a conversation with the chair.

in 20 minutes, we will invite you with your phone calls and facebook comments and tweets where you can #reachingzero. the ntsb is using that as well. we will take you back to the meeting. robert, who asked the staff why they decided on the .05 number. a recommendation. one of 20 recommendations or so made to the state. here is part of that conversation. >> you notice if we go from 8.08, a crash rate of .69. points -- .05, percentage wise,

it a 48% reduction in crash risk, which is highly significant. that is not just moving it down, but moving the crash risk 48%. i could be wrong, but that is actually right. let's go to slide 19. slide 19, the second bullet point shows lowering it from .082 .0 five in one country,-- .08 to .05 inom

one country,they found an 18% reduction in fatal crashes. if you apply that to the numbers here in this country, that is anywhere from 800 to 1800 lives saved every year. that is highly significant. i am curiousthat we, and i am through with that slide. why did we go through .05? i know commercial drivers are .04. as a former pilot, i know the federal aviation regulations call for .04 bac. why do we go with .05 and not .04? >> you are right. commercial drivers are at .04. we would start with our recommendation in remembering that our proposed recommendation included 0.5 or lower.

one of the reasons we chose .05 is that is the reduction from research in the number of fatalities. our focus was on how can we reduce the number of fatalities. we have research. when we look at countries around the world that had pay bac below .08, the most frequent number is .05. we thought we would be very consistent with that. it is one of our pieces of evidence. .05 also represents a clear place where the risk is increased by 38%. that is why we chose it for the numbers that we used for the research supported the .05 and the rest of the world is primarily on .05.

>> on c-span tonight, the conversation is on whether drunk driving laws should be changed. in 15 minutes, we will open up powerful minds and get your thoughts on the issue. after two weeks ago, the national transportation safety board made the recommendation that states in the district of columbia changed their laws from the .08 current level 2.05. -- to .05. every year, nearly 10,000 people die in drunken related incidents on the highway. in 2011, here is a look at the fatalities. compared with accidents in other transportation, marine accidents, 800. 759 in rail accidents. 400 hundred 94 in aviation -- 494 in aviation

accident. we will hear from milwaukee county on that region and how they are dealing with the issue of drunk driving. next up, the chairman asked the staff the real world impact if states were to change the law and some cash and some of the other recommendations made by the ntsb. >> i think this is one of the big questions we will face as an organization, understanding what constitutes current legal limits. we have talked about high bac, what that means. these are terms we use to describe things, but when we try to connect this to actual behavior, what are we talking about? what are we asking people to do?

>> we are asking people to think ahead when they use alcohol. that is critical. if they go out to drink, that is fine. we want them to think ahead about how to be safe on the roads. it seems like a simple problem. it is. it takes a change in the way we think about this issue. -- i is it can affect that that it can affect change in our culture. >> have not have this campaign that have gone on for decades? -- haven't we have this campaign that can go on for decades that what is different about what we're doing? we look for that for decades. does not been as effective as it should be.

we need to do other things. what are in looking at it to have an impact on that behavior? >> the changes that happened in the 80's in the previous reductions did cause a change. they did cause a change in the way we think about this behavior. it is exemplified in the aaa survey. people do think it is inappropriate. some people are still doing it. we need to go further and think harder about what meaning to do to change it even further. with 10,000 people dying every year the message has not gotten through. we need to take the next step. if we move toward lowering the bac, we not only will know it will cause reduction in crash risks, it will leave people driving safer. it will also send a message in social circles it is not

appropriate to do. >> i understand that. -- are still asking for a we are still asking for a lowering of the bac. .05, .08, these are numbers on a scale. what do they mean to individuals, to the people who are serving? we talked about educating people at establishments that serve people. what are we asking individuals to be thinking about, if we are telling them, have a plan, that is true. we want them to have a plan. if you have a drink, wait a couple of hours. part of that is understanding how many drinks can you have and how long do you need to wait. >> one thing we know is the amount of drinks it takes to make a person reach .05 is based

on a lot of factors. it varies based on gender, based on weight, based on how quickly they are drinking, and the potency of those drinks. we also know the safest thing is to simply not drive after drinking. we know the risks do begin and there are impairments beginning with the first drink. for an average sized person, they can still consume a drink before they get to .05. a person of my size, i can go out and get a glass of wine with dinner. it is safer not to do that, but i know based on looking at information available that i can have one glass of wine. >> we are looking at the national transportation safety board recommendations on drunk driving, in particular, the recommendation they made that states in the district of columbia changed their laws, reducing the blood alcohol

content, the legally drunk content, from .08 to .05. it was one of the recommendations they made. in about 10 minutes, we will give you a chance to weigh in on the issue, your thoughts on that. we will open up our phone lines and take a look at twitter. #reaching zero. we are conducting a poll on facebook.com/c-span, asking you which you prefer, the current level or the ntsb recommended level. so far, the recommendations are 56 in favor of the current level, and 24 for changing it. the chairman, deborah, joined us on washington journal to further explain some of the recommendations.

>> how someone is impaired. we look at a .05 blood alcohol level. what do they know about driving safely? >> that is a great question. that is why we made our recommendation. there is a general agreement about impairment. you have delayed response times. you are not doing so well tracking objects. there are scientific -- there is a scientific basis. and laboratory test that you're 38% more likely to be involved in a crash at .05 than if you're sober. we think that's a really good indicator of where the risk lies and to go from .05 and aelow.

hundred other countries around the world have already done this. gone from .05 or lower. some of them are .0 or .02 or .03. host: let's go to the phones and hear from michael in south carolina, democrats lune. hi michael. caller: my comment is this. in an era where we are fighting and taking over our personal liberties and freedoms, it seems kind of ludicrous that we trying to take away another freedom on pools and another on the public. wouldn't you think it would be smarter to create some more transportation or some methods of transporting people from one area to another rather than criminalize more americans? it's like we're become criminalizing more americans and we have the immigration war

going on now. it seem like americans are losing more. guest: michael raises a question about freedoms i think that there's a very important distinction. americans absolutely have the right to consume alcohol. what we want to be clear on is the majority of the population, the vast majority of the population believes that impaired driving is a problem. they do not want to be on the road a drunk driver. we investigating a number of wrong-way driving crashes. in december we issued a report, a majority of high speed crashes where drivers going wrong way and hit another car, they involve impaired drivers. those are the risks out there when we face impaired driving. it certainly is anybody's right to have drinks, to have one, two, three, have 15, just don't drive after you've been doing

that. separate the drinking from driving. michael did raise a good point about making sure you have a plan. what we want to do make sure when people go out, if they're planning on drinking, have a plan. have a designate driver in your group. know if there's a free ride program in your community that you can call. be able to take a taxi and many establishments really do want to make sure the patrons get home. host: tony tweets, isn't distracted driving texting and phoning a greater threat than .05 alcohol level? guest: it's interesting tony raises that issue. one of the hot button points has been texting or talking on the phone behind the wheel. the ntsb over a year in a half ago, we came out with recommendations to the 50 states

asking them to ban hand held or hands freeportable electronic devices behind the wheel. we now have 40 states who have prohibited texting while driving. we have about a dozen who are at the hands free only. we don't have any states who completely out right followed our recommendation for the ban on all portable electronic devices. it's a huge area of concern. the numbers we have on distracted caused accident doesn't reach the numbers we see on impaired driving. one out of three people killed in highway crashes is involved with an impaired driving crash. host: in 2011 the number of drunk driving deaths is 9878 -- 9878. let's go to holly in new york. caller: hello.

i have a question, i just don't understand the extent of lowering it from .008 to .05 what you would end up gaining from that. also i thought when you change it from .10 to .08, this was all your logic to begin with. now you're doing it again. guest: one of the things that we know we've seen great improvements in the impaired driving fatality numbers since let's say 1982 where we saw 25,000 people killed every year in impaired driving related crashes. when those original laws began being passed in 1983 and over the next several decades the rest of the states in the u.s. followed. we also saw the drinking age

raised to 21 and a number of these interventions and these measures, the work of different groups like madd, really raised this issue on a public conscious. lot of public campaigns about not drinking and driving. we did see progress. we saw 25,000 fatalities in 1982 and about three decades later we're looking at 10,000 fatalities year. we did have a reduction. we are not comfortable saying we want to wait another 30 years before we see any improvement. we believe that has happened in the past, if you take these interventions including reducing the blood alcohol limit, you will see a reduction in deaths and fatalities. that's what we saw in the u.s. when we went from .10 to .08. that's what we're seeing in europe and australia when they went from .08 to .05.

in 2000 europe established a goal to have their impaired driving fatalities within 10 years. they achieved that goal. they reduced their fatalities by 53% and it went from 6000 per year to about 3000 per year e.u. wide. when you compare the u.s.'s numbers, we both have over 30,000 fatalities total and 10,000 in the u.s. are compared only 3000 inted. europe are impaired driving related. alcohol consumption is similar. they figured out to separate the drinking and driving. host: the executive summary said the u.s. drunk driving has plateaued. nearly one in three of all highway deaths still involves an alcohol impaired driver.

kevin tweets in and ask, how many fatalities occur do the driver and content between .05 and that .08 number? guest: that number is challenging for us. because you're not the legal limit. for the people who has been tested and only about 50% of the people have been tested for the positive test that we've seen between .05 and .08 estimated to be about 500 to 800 lives annually. caller: is a republican. i have a problem with the government taking over and controlling people's lives. i don't even drink. however do -- i know if there's an accident, you got to have the blood alcohol content of these accidents. i want to know how many

accidents and how many fatal accident have happened with people under the level of .08? that's really all i had to say. you can answer that. host: are you still with us? deborah hersman gave us some of those numbers. tell us more about what you think this will be an infringement. caller: depending on who the person is you can have one drink and be over the limit. let's say you're on your way home and you happen to hit one of those pit stops. for me it probably wouldn't be a .05 i'm a big guy. for my wife who is only 5'2" and weighs 100 pounds, she may have one drink with me. let's say she's driving and we stop and she blows .06 and she's not drunk. what you end up doing, you take

people who are honest law- abiding people and you're turning them into criminals. that is my whole point. guest: i think carl, it's interesting you talk about you actually don't drink. what the statistic show about 25% of the population are alcohol abstainers and they don't drink. about 50% of the u.s. population are considered low risk drinkers. another 10% are alcoholics and 15% are high risk drinkers which they have problems with binge drinking. it is interesting with the break down. we have people that want to address and people who may not able to separate drinking from driving. they need more intervention.

we have the other category, of course it's 25% who don't drink at all. this is really not going to be in position on them. the 50% who might be the low risk drinkers who drink occasionally and mountain have problems with -- may not have problems with alcohol, when you go out and it's your wife, alcohol affects different people in different ways. for her one drink may get her to .05. if that's the case, spend a little time after dinner on either having dessert, having a good conversation together, going to a movie. she won't be at that level. or since you're the one who doesn't drink, since you abstain, you may be always want to be the designated driver and be responsible for that. at the end of the day, yes your wife will be impacted she was caught at the check point but it would be even worse for her to spend the next few decades of her life and your time together

in prison because she killed somebody in an impaired driving accident. this will affect your family's life but the other family who was affected by the crash too. we see this 10,000 times a year, 10,000 fatalities year after year. we don't want to see those. as a country, we have to figure out do we want to do more and if so, what do we want to do? cleanse all of that conversation with deborah herdsman is on c- span.org. we are looking at the issue of changing drunk driving laws in the u.s. base on a meeting a couple of weeks ago. we will open up the phone lines for your thoughts on the issue. here is how we are breaking up the phone lines down this evening --

>> we are also on twitter and are using the #reachingzero and on facebook, facebook.com/c- span. a different question for you. we are asking in a poll what you think the level should be the current level. the current rate or the recommended level. here is how it stands so far on -- on ourcal page. facebook page. 51 say keep it the same and 29 voting to change it. among those recommendations, the ntsb would change the blood alcohol content level from .08 2.5 -- .05 or lower. they would develop and deploy in vehicle detection technology.

it calls on states to require ignition interlock for all offenders, improve the use of administrative license action, and target repeated offenders. they reinforce the use and effectiveness of dwi courts in the state and establish measurable goals for reducing drunk driving and track progress toward those goals. our question for you is, in particular, the .08 to 105 change -- .05 change. good evening. go ahead. >> good evening. my name is sandy. i am calling because i believe we are not looking at the right ways of changing the drunk

driving. i believe we should look at -- look at this on the level of impairment. you throw alcoholics into jail rather than treating them as if they have a disease. it is a different level of bac, different impairments should be really looked at in this country. >> what do you do about people who are caught at .08 or .05? what is the level where it should be set in connecticut? caller: in -- in connecticut, it is .08. if there was an accident or somebody hurt, just a traffic stop, you have to look at it case-by-case in different situations.

my question to you is will there be any changes in that? will they look at alcoholism as a disease rather than the rest of somebody's life? >> it is a recommendation body in this regard. they make recommendations for changes and transportation policy. that is what the meeting is all about. mike is in wisconsin and is a bar worker there. good evening. go ahead. caller: i think .08 is ok. my area of wisconsin take strong driving seriously. i see the same people. >> what sort of place do you work in? caller: my parents own a bar and that is the reason i am calling from that aspect of it. >> in terms of how you are trained to deal with folks who have had a couple more than two or three, what do you do?

caller: [indiscernible] i look for signs of people being drunk. there is a free taxi in our community. they are offered to people so they can take a cab home. the college problem is a big problem in the community. at the -- the kids get drunk, fall in the river, get into car accidents. we put in place a free bus ride for the students to get home. [indiscernible] i think it is pretty much the same everywhere in wisconsin. you go through and get an evaluation to see if you are considered an alcoholic. >> we will hear from the sheriff in milwaukee county in a few minutes. mike mentioned college students being drinking.

in the new york times today, they took a look at the issue of drunk drivers with this headline the chart shows between the ages of 18 and 26, even a small amount of alcohol increases rapidly the probability of a young person between those ages being involved in some sort of fatality, a traffic fatality. st. petersburg, florida, on the line. good evening. caller: my main concern is if you get arrested for drunk driving and you have to get the breathalyzer for your car, i know alcohol affects different people differently. i wonder why there is not a breathalyzer available to the public to let yourself know exactly what your blood alcohol level is. if i was curious and found out i was illegal, i would definitely call a cab. i do not want to lose my license. there is no way of me knowing that for sure. >> you would like it has a factory-available option, for lack of a better term?

caller: not necessarily that you needed to start your car, but that would be nice. just something reliable the government puts out there that is trustworthy. there is different stuff you use. it would be nice to have a meter that monitors and you know you are impaired and you say, i will not drive. >> let's go to delaware. maria, where are you calling for yak -- from? go ahead. caller: as a mother of a son who was served alcohol in a local tavern here, and attempted to walk across the highway and was killed, i would like to see the laws making available to the bars, and over serving adults of age.

i look in delaware and there are no laws. they've protect the residence for adults and underage children. there is no liability there. that would be better than lowering a few points in the percentage. >> we are looking at the issue of recommendations on changing drunk driving laws across the country, in particular, the changing of the blood alcohol level from .08 to .05. on twitter -- brian says --

paul is next in louisiana. hello. caller: the question was asked a few callers ago. they made their recommendations. they are incomplete. do you have any to test x-acto statistics? how many alcohol-related incidents are in that range and how many stops do they have now between .05 and .08? we do not have any proof good or bad otherwise. is it really too late? the numbers show people are driving at 108 and killing people? if they did, they will find people are involved in alcohol- related incidents.

>> you can take a look at the website. but go to paul in nantucket, massachusetts. caller: i am a waiter. a lot of rich people take the cap. -- cab. i had to prove i was not over the limit of alcohol. it was put at .15. my effort here is to understand, ok, they are trying to solve something on paper.

they tried to have zero deaths, which they can never really a tribute to anyone, what is in their system, but ideally, it is the vehicle and the actual concentration of the person driving, causing a lot of these deaths. >> to be clear, you said you blew over .15. caller: i blew .13, point to lower -- .0 to lower -- 0.02 you still needed proof. him driving to hear and more. right now, it is impaired driving, everyone throws out the word buzzed driving. there should be different consequences. there should not be drunk driving solutions in the courts because these people happen to be having something in their system.

it is not necessarily budgeting -- it is not necessarily attributing them to not being able to handle the vehicle. a lot of the times, especially when police officers are trying to get more control over society, all this will do is increase that. say you had a drink, you are doomed. >> what do they pull you over for? if i can ask you? were you at a traffic stop? a plan thing? did they notice behavior on your part? caller: it was just, i was driving by. there were two police offers their -- officers there who tailed me and i tried to boogie. i got back in my car and handle the consequences. >> thank you for calling in. we want to get to as many calls as we can. we want to bring you a conversation we had earlier today with the sheriff of milwaukee county about how they are handing things in the milwaukee area.

>> joining us tonight is david clark, who has been on the police force since 1978, sheriff since 2002. how bad is the drunk driving program in milwaukee? >> it is problematic nationwide. it kills over 10,000 people a year. every state is struggling with it in some way, shape, or form. we have had 610 arrests so far in 2013, through may, and, to give you an example, at this time last year, we only had 315. we merely doubled the limit. doubling a lot of people we arrested for impaired driving. >> what do you think is behind the numbers? >> in wisconsin, we have a couple of things working against us. wisconsin the only state in the nation that does not criminalize the first offense of drunk

driving. in your first offense, you get arrested, but you get a ticket. you pay a fine and that is the end of it. 49 states, it is a criminal misdemeanor. to drive impaired or to drive drunk. what we are having a problem with in the state of wisconsin, and every state is unique, the problem we are having is with repeat offenders. in 2010, with more stringent laws going into effect for repeat drunk drivers, we arrested 970 people for the second or more offense drunk driving. eight offense, nine offense, the same driver arrested 8, 9, 10 times. the sentencing policies are pretty lenient when it comes to drunk driving. >> based on the numbers, what was your reaction in the suggestion, the alcohol level

lower from .08 to .05. there are two things i try to go into a problem. are we working smart and are we going to the right thing?for the ntsb to talk about the prohibited alcohol content to .05, it took a lot of states to come with that. i am basing what we do on my opinions and analysis of what the data shows. the average prohibited alcohol content is .16, nearly twice the limit. the average driver we are

arresting is nowhere near the .08. most people are drawn to the extent they are basically driving blind. it is easy to notice that when a citizen is behind and i call 911 and say, i think i am following and impaired drunk driver. one of my deputies comes up on someone on the freeway, they are weaving all over the road, they speed up and slow down, it is very obvious. from what i understand of the research at .05, people can basically function. we are talking about a social drinker, at least with the article i read, a woman of average size, one drink probably liquor, would put them at about somewhere in the area of .05, for an average sized man, two drinks would put them at about what we are trying to

do here in wisconsin, people drink responsibly. what they are suggesting is criminalizing an entirely new class of people we have been telling all along, have one or two or you will be fined, because that is what the research shows, now we will tell them you are a criminal. i find it problematic because it does not hit the sweet spot of where we need to be, at least in wisconsin. if the person who goes out and ifgh in villages or over-- the person goes out and weigh in villages or over indulges in consuming alcohol and gets behind the wheel, in order to find somebody at 8.05, what the ntsb would be asking law enforcement to do, and i know i have not asked for this, and i would like to speak for my fellow in -- fellow law enforcement, i did not ask for this tool. what ntsb would be asking law

enforcement to do is to basically set up sobriety checkpoints and without any reasonable suspicion, ask them to submit a breath sample into our handheld breathalyzers to give a sample to see if and how much alcohol they consume. that is the only way you will find somebody at a .05. i find that problematic from a civil liberties perspective, but also because it is not where the heart of the problem is as it relates to drunk driving. >> your reaction and the reaction of your colleagues, is it emblematic of how the proposal is being viewed by other police departments across the country? >> this has been recently proposed. there will be a conference coming up and i'm sure this will be on the agenda. i wonder if the ntsb is doing an analysis on this. you are going to arrest people, a social drinker or a responsible consumer of alcohol who may be driving, additional court costs, incarceration fees,

tying up law enforcement officers, for a person who, according to the research, one or two drinks. i will not speak for my fellow law enforcement executives, but i believe many of them would find this problematic because, with our arrests, if the average is .16, nearly twice the legal limit, we are not stopping anybody who is at a .06 or 504. .04.6, .05 or that is rare because they do not exhibit the type of behavior somebody does who has really over consumed. >> an update from milwaukee area thank you for joining us this evening. >> you are very welcome. >> we continue with our conversation. the drunk driving law is changed.

we stay in wisconsin. mike is a substance abuse counselor. caller: how are you? >> fine, thanks. caller: i did not get to hear the sheriff speak. doing an assessment in the state of wisconsin for the last six years, one of the things we live by our experience. it suggests it is safe. some of the numbers not reported is 315 millions americans travel 3 trillion miles annually in 200 me -- 200 million vehicles. 65% of the drivers. 17% of the passengers. 18% are non-occupants of the vehicle. 300,000 compared -- impaired driving. 1200 million episodes annually. the number is very small. the national highway of transportation safety, just because i'll call is a factor,

it is not necessarily a cause. -- alcohol is a factor, it is not necessarily a cause. look at all circumstances of the case, and not just lump people together at say they are criminals. i have yet to deal with somebody who is criminal in my program assessor. most of the people, other scars, other cars, they are invested in the community. they are good, solid citizens. they just socialize at bars and happen to drink. guys how many times do you see a repeat offender? -- >> how many times do you see a repeat offender? caller: 30%. you are only -- only a first time offender once. there is a difference between repeating the offense and getting caught multiple times. you do it one time and nothing happens and do it another time and nothing happens.

the last number was 87 episodes of impaired driving before or you're happens. caught. >> thank you for sharing your experience. let's get a couple more calls. clyde is in utah. caller: i would like to get on his coattails because i think he has great ideas. a lot of statistics. -- my opinion is this. if we truly want to stop it, i am coming from the other side of the coin. i am a felony and dui offender. i did not hurt anybody, never killed anybody, never had accidents. i was breathalyzers. my life has been changed drastically because now i am a criminal. i cannot work for the state, i cannot work for any federal government, i cannot have a handgun, i cannot hunt, etc. >> how many offenses?

caller: three in 10 years. i am not sure if it is nationwide. it is similar, in other states. >> thank you for checking in with us this evening. let's go to cape may, new jersey. steve, go ahead. caller: how are you doing? my name is steve and i am calling from cape may. in this day and age, we should have contractions in the newer cars or even the older cars, especially for repeat offenders, to where they can get into their car and they have to blow into a contraption and the car just will not start if they are under the influence. >> a number of states do recommend. i am combing through to see new jersey. they do have mandatory, some of that mandatory equipment on some level in new jersey. let's get at least one more call. nicole in fort lauderdale. she is a bar worker in

florida. caller: i am a server in a restaurant. i also teach a course to servers called safe alcohol that talks about laws and the responsibility of the server being personally responsible if we serve someone to the point of intoxication. the thing about lowering the level to .05 is that puts great responsibility on us as servers and bartenders that if we serve someone who has had one or two drinks and then we have to cut them off, they could still be over the legal limit, and if they do go out and hurt someone, that could come back to us. honestly, serving one or two drinks i feel is not excessive.

we, as servers, should not be held responsible or criminalized for that if a third party gets hurt. we could be sued. >> imagine a course you went through. what is your responsibility now? you serve somebody two or three drinks. what are you supposed to do? caller: basically, if we are serving someone to the point where we feel they are moving into intoxication, we are supposed to stop the service immediately -- >> i think i lost you there. let's get a couple more here. gerald is in michigan. go ahead. caller: good evening.

to chime in. several of the points have already been stated. the officer in wisconsin had a lot of wonderful things to say on how they would go about actually trying to enforce this. and also, my own personal belief, i am a person that drank at one time in my life, but i don't -- but i no longer drink. the monetary value to the system, there has been quite a machine that has been created on drunken and driving. if there is one life that is because of any alcohol-related incident, that is too many. one more view here

from make in new albany indiana and is a our worker. you get the last word. what is your experience and what do want to comment on? caller: i had to roll my dvr back several times because madam chairwoman, her numbers were not adding up as far as the 10,000 deaths due to impaired driving and the nevers she gave .08.en .05 and she said they only test 50% of the cases and that number was 500 to 800. to get 100%, that only makes 1000 -- 1600 and they are trying to cut it from 10,000 to 5000 and the number does not add up. 9000 oreither go to 8600. it is futile if that is the goal they want to go to. to agree with a lot of the other callers, it's an individual

tolerance issue. they look at it case-by-case, which they should? if you get pulled over at a routine check what -- ,> do you feel like nicole felt would you feel more pressure if they changed it to .05, more responsibility to the people you're serving, not it -- not letting them go above that level? caller: i am a musical entertainer that plays primarily in bars and restaurants. it does affect the economic bottom line as far as bar sales go. there will be a lot of establishments that might be and making it that won't there goes a lot of jobs, a lot of tax revenue. and my primary argument with the manager person is that her numbers did not add up or make sense.

>> thank you for your call. thanks for all your calls. if you missed the meeting with the ntsb recommended these changes, that is available in our video archive. we have been asking about changing the legal blood alcohol 0.05%.t from 0.08% to of our viewers, here is where statistics stand -- again, you can cast your vote on our facebook page. heading like to the brookings institution for a look at the politics of legalizing marijuana, and we will discuss the findings of a public opinion survey on marijuana. colorado and washington became the first two states to legalize

the drug last year, and according to a few studies, legalization now has the support of about half the country. this is hosted by the brookings institution and the washington office of latin america.

>> once again, we are live at the brookings institution for a

look at the politics of legalizing marijuana. according to a new study, legalization has support of about half the country. very quickly, some news from the ap -- rhode island's governor is joining the democratic party. the former republican senator left the gop in 2000 and was selected as the nation's only independent governor in 2010. two democratic sources say he plans to change his party registration ahead of his bid for a second term. >> good afternoon, everybody.

all of you in this room know that last november, the states of colorado and washington legalize marijuana in the teeth of u.s. federal prohibition, something that no jurisdiction in the modern world has done -- out right legalization of not only consumption but distribution, sales, and so on. those two states are not likely to be the last. there are bills in the legislature to legalize in rhode island, massachusetts, pennsylvania, and maine, that i know of. ballot initiatives are possible or likely in 2014 and 2016 in states that may include california, oregon, maine, alaska. we are just seeing the beginning of something, but what? states began decriminalizing and allowing the use of medical marijuana back in the 1970's, so there's nothing new about that, but something very different

seems to have happened lately. as if this iceberg suddenly surfaced above the water, this legalization and a new kind of momentum. what is going on? how durable will it prove to be? what are the implications, not just for drug policy, but for american politics more generally in this very new territory we are entering. i would like to welcome you all to discuss that -- here to discuss that and thank you for it. this event is part of a series that brookings and our partner organization, the washington office on latin america, are conducting. we thank peter lewis among our supporters for helping to make this possible. for working with us closely. i especially thank our panelists, who as you are about to hear have done a remarkable job. i hope all of you have picked on thepy of their paper

new politics of marijuana legalization. it is a gold mine of information. are very e.j. distinguished scholars of public opinion, and that helps, but it also helps that they have access more information than anyone has had on this issue before. they crossed tabs in ways that no one has ever even conceived of. you will get the fruits of their research in just a moment. a word about each of them -- you can read bios on your own, so i will keep the short. phil is a senior fellow here at the holder of the chair in brookings governance studies programs. he is a participant in six presidential campaigns. i'm trying to work out how you get to six.

smithgoing to say, was it or was it rosenfeld? [laughter] he is the author of eight books. alsodionne, to his left, well known to you as the syndicated columnist for the "washington post," well known to us at brookings as a senior fellow here and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture at georgetown university -- a great title, by the way. i would like to have that on my business card. about 10 each talk for minutes each on different aspects of their findings. two, enters just really could not be better. commenters. has 15 years'g experience in polling and public

research and the methodology thereof. she has worked with many elected officials, many advocacy groups. directly on point for us, she has done extensive polling and research for advocates in drug policy reform including, among many other things, she led the research supporting washington's successful initiative 502, which is the initiative that passed in november. she has also been active on the issue in other states. she has a work in california, oregon, alaska, south dakota, arizona -- the list goes on. she has expertise in women in politics, lgbt writes, religion and politics. she is a great person to talk to about social issues. i also want to make sure to thank her publicly for access to a gold mine of data, which she and her colleagues have theirped in the course of research over the last two years. i think our panelists will agree that they have benefited greatly from access to that work. last but hardly least is my

favorite rising star in the world of political commentary, a man to watch if there ever was one. a reformed lawyer -- no one is perfect. he is a senior elections analyst for real clear politics. he is someone i have always watched for -- because he does his own thinking, his own research, and looks at the statistics every morning to see what is really going on. he is the author of the 2012 book "a loss majority: why the future of government is up for grabs and who will take it," and he is the co-author of the 2014 .lmanac of american politics for those of you who are online and following on twitter or who want to tweak a question, we are taking questions by twitter today -- or who want to tweet a question. -- hashtag iss

#mjlegalization. >> it is a pleasure to be part of this panel, i must say. each of us have 10 minutes, and i have seven points to make in my opening remarks, so i will be brisk. academics 50 minutes for a lecture, i would share with you my analysis of how the change in sentiment about the legalization of marijuana tracks with cultural history over the past few .ecades you have, i think, a rise in the early 1960's through much of the 1970's. a decline in support -- a dramatic decline in support starting in the late 1970's and running through much of the reagan years. stabilization. a gradual rise during the

clinton years. stabilization during much of george w. bush's term, and then a take off like a rocket in roughly the past eight years or so. pro-legalization sentiment is up 20 points in just over a decade, by rising social liberalism among adults. according to research, you have a narrow pro-legalization majority for the first time in history, and that broadly tracks with other surveys are saying. so that is my first point. support forurge in legalization. point two, this upsurge is broadly based. in recent years, support for legalization has risen in every sub-group we examined. men and women, blacks, whites, hispanics, republicans, , democrats,

conservatives, moderates, liberals, and among every level of education. 3, this shift is not driven by moral conviction, unlike many other social issues. yet, the share of americans who view marijuana use as immoral has fallen from 50% to 32% in just seven years. on the other hand, the share who view it as moral has barely budged and now stands at only 12%. so what is this missing half of the population? they do not see it as a moral issue at all, and that seems to me as close to the heart of the matter of the shift. if they do not see it as a moral issue at all, what do they see when they look at it as a practical issue? well, that brings me to my

fourth point -- public perception of basic facts have tonged in ways that compare ground for a shift toward pro- legalization sentiment. first of all, marijuana is no longer considered worse than alcohol along the dimensions that most americans bring to that judgment. second, and perhaps even more important, there has been a sharp decline in the percentage of americans who see marijuana as a gateway drug to things that are harder and even more dangerous. that percentage now stands at only 38% compared to 58% who do not see marijuana as a gateway drug. here is the other aspect of the shift towards the practical

option -- as far as we can see, a main poll in the tent of the pro-legalization shift -- a main pro-in the tent of the legalization shift is the difficulty and consequences of enforcement. it is much like the shifting sentiments during the 1920's and early 1930's about prohibition. how am i doing? great? 72% of americans now believe that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. this consensus includes a majority of every population subgroup we examined. here was a striking finding -- even when respondents are told that marijuana use is still prohibited under federal law, theof respondents say that

federal government should not enforce its own law in states that have legalized the use of marijuana. again, this anti-enforcement sentiment is extremely broad- .ased among the subgroups we examined, there is no group a majority of which supports federal enforcement against the states. ournt six, in analysis, this issue is not fully analogous to other social issues which tend to try to compare it to. unlike abortion, there has been a strong shift towards one side of the debate that is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. the new entrants into the pool of adults in the american population for purposes of survey research, anyway, it is

on balance about twice as likely to be in favor of legalization as are those who are exiting the .ool of adults through death but unlike same-sex marriage, many of those who favor legalization are none the less uneasy about their position. there is a fair amount of ambivalence. there's not a lot of enthusiasm. i suppose on some college campuses, you could find a lot of enthusiasm, but in the population on a whole -- in the population as a whole, there is a kind of ambivalence and resignation to the fact that the effort to enforce marijuana laws has been so costly, so it is not worth it anymore. aventh and finally, there is theme unknown, the extent of which is hard to assess.

it is possible -- i _ the word possible -- that asthma when the wordi underscore age,ible -- as millennials their views will shift toward the conservative, as their boomer parents did, paving the way for a conservative tide. >> thank you. i want to begin very quickly by taking jonathan, and there is will find whou enjoys working more with him

then jonathan. if there's anything wrong in the papers, it is not their fault. , who gaveke and anna us one of her specialty briefings -- i told her it was so much fun, i want to work for congress just to get regular phone briefings. mike was extraordinarily helpful. room looks a this lot younger than most brookings rooms suggests one of two things -- either lots of insurance have started arriving in washington, or our analysis in the paper is correct, and maybe both are true. when you look at this trend toward legalization, there are two important facts -- one, you can see if you have the paper on the chart on page two, where the movement even in the last few years since 2010 in favor of

legalization crosses all groups and is marked among older respondents, it is important among middle age respondents, and there is even an increase over 65.se but the other aspect to this, which makes it so interesting to speculate about what the future on this issue is is an interesting clumping by age. it has some things in common with the movement towards support for gay marriage, but also, there is a difference. on the one hand, what it has in common is there is a large gap between those under 30 and those over 65. if you look at the first chart on page 12, you will see that the numbers are almost exactly reversed.

64, people over 65 oppose legalization. whatwould suggest underscores how bill ended, which is that we are unlikely to return to a time when there is strong opposition to the legalization of marijuana just by virtue of generational change, but the clump in the middle is -- opinion is much more closely divided. -olds, there64-year has been a shift in the group towards support of legalization, but that makes it somewhat different from gay marriage, and i will come back to that where i will just say that where opinion is an almost rate line by age, support just regularly rises --

were opinion is almost a straight line by age. it must be fun to poll on this issue because it is not like all other issues we are dealing with. one of the things that struck bill and me when we were going through the data is that this is not -- does not have quite the partisan or ideological flavoring that so many other issues have. there is partisanship and ideology here, not surprisingly democrats and liberals are more likely to favor legalization and republicans or conservatives, and if you put them together in a smaller group, liberal democrats are very strongly pro- legalization. conservative republicans are strongly against. but what is striking is that there are very large minorities in each of these groups -- liberal and conservative, republican, democrat -- who descend on the dominant view. up to 37% of both conservatives and republicans favor

legalization. and 25% ofcrats liberals oppose it. the relatively small partisan gap in comparison with other issues can partly be explained by the fact that republicans are not nearly as likely as democrats to say they have used marijuana. 43% of republicans reported past as did 47% of democrats. perhaps this gives us some idea of how we can reach a budget deal on capitol hill. reported use among whites and blacks is identical, but much lower among hispanics. there is agreement across partisan lines, and this goes to one of the central points that bill highlighted, that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. you will see this on one of the

charts. this view is held by 72% of all americans, 70% of democrats, 71% -- 78% ofry, 70% of of democrats.71% it is also striking that even among opponents of legalization, there is great skepticism about the value of enforcing laws against marijuana and significant support for giving states that legitimize it leeway to carry out their experiment. it turns out that there are a lot of conservatives who not only mao slogans about states' rights but actually believe them -- who not only mouth slogans about statements that actually believe them. their skepticism about government efficacy begins their support for strong enforcement.

if thedirect question federal government should or should not enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have decided to allow its use, 57% of republicans and 52% of conservatives said that the federal government should not enforce its own prohibition. bear in mind, these are groups that are opposed to the legalization of marijuana. the gap among republicans between the proportion supporting legalization in the proportion who nonetheless want the federal government to stand down in the face of legalization's efforts is 20 points. for conservatives, that gap is 15 points. it is also in a way nice to know that democrats and liberals are somewhat consistent on this as well -- there's no states' rights gap for democrats and liberals. the proportion of democrats who

oppose legalization is 39%. and those who favor federal anti-marijuana -- enforcement of marijuana laws in the state -- in the face of state action is 35%. this could have some very important consequences in the debate over what the federal government should do. democrats and liberals will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are sympathetic to legalization, but a lot of republicans and conservatives will not want the federal government to enforce these laws because they are .ympathetic to states' rights there is a way in which the issue is a classic social issue. among religious groups, only two show clear opposition to the legalization of marijuana --

evangelical protestants, 59% opposed and hispanic catholics, 55% oppose. there were not enough evangelical hispanics in the group. if there were, one assumes they, too, would be opposed. the other groups would be flipped. religiously unaffiliated were overwhelmingly in favor of 76%.ization by a margin of a similar and stronger pattern emerges based on attendance. those who attend once a week or .ore, 53% oppose legalization again, this is a classic social issue in certain ways. white evangelicals in particular, it is a moral issue. 32% overall say smoking but 55% ofs immoral,

white evangelicals believe this. there is interesting evidence would -- in the discussion on the parental gap. it appears from the data, there is no gap between parents and non-parents, but there is a difference between married parents and unmarried parents. might elaborate on that for us a little bit. just so we can move on to the discussion, i want to close this think ine trend i favor of legalization is unlikely to be reversed radically, but there is a lot to play for on this issue. a great deal depends because of ambivalence on this about how these marijuana legalization experiments work. forink what we could see is

a proponent to legalization, their fear should be prohibition in reverse. prohibition lost public support because of the unintended consequences. what people who support legalization will have to do is make sure that there are not on toward -- unintended consequences. a lot of times in this referendum, people have supported legalization for reasons somewhat ancillary to legalization. they feel that it is a waste of public resources or that it is spotty and unfair or that it could be taxed and provide a use of public revenue. continuehese trends will depend a lot on the kinds of regulations that are imposed and if they are successful. and very much on how the federal government decides to deal with these states on this question.

on all this hangs whether strong support for marijuana legalization among young mericans indoors -- endures, and i have the capacity of many of you in this room to create a new majority on behalf of a cause that was once supported by only a few -- if they have the capacity of many of you in this room to created a majority on behalf of a cause that was once supported by only if you. >> i urge you all to read the paper. it tells of the summary, there was a richness and surprises all through it. with gay marriage, if in a gay people especially gay couples, you probably support it. with marijuana, it is not who you know. it is what you do. if you smoke or use marijuana, you probably favor legalizing, but knowing people who smoke or use marijuana does not have an impact on it. all kinds of interesting things like that. here's a question about the future -- you obviously do not know the answe to get your

sense of it, if i'm reading this paper right, you are saying the consensus has already shifted far enough so there is no going back to a sustainable, top-down, one-size-fits-all policy of prohibition. is that a correct reading? >> i thought you were asking them. >> i will ask these two and bring the two of you in. is the consensus shattered to a point where we can no longer have a national policy of prohibition of marijuana? or does that depend on these outcomes? -- iwould respond this way think it is much more likely, at least for the next decade or so, that we are going to proceed on a state-by-state basis and that the congress of the united states would be loath to touch with any status quo

of pole poll -- length you care to designate. i think it will be some states is close tojority permanent. there are others where that is not true, and we may very well be a patchwork nation on this issue for the next generation. conclude, the idea of a dramatic change in the legal status of marijuana at the no anal level, i think, is conclusion that flows from this data. >> i do not think we are quite at a tipping point in the way i do think we are at a tipping point on gay marriage that what you see in national surveys are very close splits nationwide.

i think there will be a lot of interest on the part of a lot of members of congress to try to avoid this issue for a while, while it works its way through. >> wonderful. your experience with this issue is so granular. how does it sound to you? >> i had to go paperless, and i did not charge my ipad, so if it dies, i will just have to wing it. thank you for having me on the panel. but he is really fun to be part of the discussion after doing so much work on it over the past few years -- it is really fun to be part of the discussion. i want to basically expand upon a few of the things that you talked about. in the context of trying to understand why attitude toward legalization may be different toward -- an attitude toward gay

marriage or abortion. the first is personal experience. in a very transactional way, it is true that if you do a regression model on support for or notation, if whether you have used marijuana is a predictor of whether or not you support legalization. it really is that granular in terms of personal experience. what is interesting about why it matters for attitudinal change is that personal experience is hard to change. you cannot change some of his personal experience. so those people are not particularly personable if they have a personal experience. changes in -- we call it general replacement -- generational replacement.

if you have a cousin who smokes pot all day and never got off the couch and never got a job and then started doing other sorts of drugs, you will never convince the person that it is not addictive, even if it is not physically addictive, and you will not convince them that it is not a gateway drug, even though there is not a ton of evidence that it is a gateway drug. even though the landscape has shifted, it is hard to convince anybody who's had that kind of personal experience. on the other hand, if somebody themselves smoked pot in college, is a productive member of society, and knows somebody who goes home after work and smokes it and goes to work fine the next day, they do not have a personal experience that suggests it has all these negative consequences. in many ways, that issue shapes whether or not you think it is moral. you can understand the lack of a parental gap in the same way. in the research we have done, we have not seen much of a gap in parental attitudes about this.

for people who have kids under the age of 18. when you talk to kids, it is because they are realistic about their kids' access to alcohol, and alcohol is illegal for kids under the age of 21. if kids want it, they have almost unlimited access to alcohol, and they currently have unlimited access to marijuana. many parents do not think legalization will change that. many think it might make things better. trying to have a regulatory system in place that potentially puts some drug dealers out of business potentially makes it less available or more expensive to people under the age of 21. sums -- some parents say they would rather be higher than drive drunk. or if their kids do something, they would rather do that than alcohol because it is more dangerous than truck driving. at any rate, the personal experience from a consultant to try to run campaigns, it is hard to think about influencing people's views on that issue. on the other hand, what we did

find in our work and was part of our strategy in washington was that there are some people who are movable on the issue. that is what makes it different than abortion -- well, certainly abortion. it is very hard to convince someone who thinks that a fetus is a life or a living baby, whatever the language is -- you cannot say that it is not. that is just in the core values and beliefs that someone has. similarly, for someone who believes a woman has the right to choose what they do with i their own body, it is hard to say that they do not. we spent all kinds of time trying to change people's views in the context of surveys and the campaigns that were being run and had not been able to do it. what is happening is general -- generational replacement and coming outre people the change personal experience. this is where marijuana is a little different.

it is to issues you both raise about the kind of arguments used for legalization, which is that the system is broken, it is not a good use for law enforcement resources, and it could be a source for potential revenue. i think that because there is the model of medical marijuana in some states, that is actually -- and you can see that states that have medical marijuana, these attitudes on legalization are a little bit different. people are more likely to support legalization. i would want to know that while it is true, knowing somebody who smokes does not predict support, knowing someone who uses medical marijuana does. you can see somebody actually get the benefits and it does not destroy their life, and civilization does not collapse. but it is a personal experience with someone using medical marijuana. those kinds of arguments tend to blue-collar, lower and come individuals.

we tried to see who was moving in response to ads, and we tracked over the course of campaign what was happening, and the movement is substantial. 5, 10, 15 points. it is really hard to move people on anything. this country is so polarized and politically. my view is that part of why we moved people was a lot of common sense. people actually do not think prohibition is working. people are still smoking as much as they want to and when ever they want to and wherever they want to for the most part, and they generally think it is true that probably law-enforcement resources could be used for violent crime or for taking down gangs that are selling as opposed to dealing with individual or personal use or personal possession. but the other piece of it, which i think is fascinating, is that there are socially conservative arguments. i would urge you to look at the advertising in washington state. the first ad is a woman pouring

coffee in a coffee shop saying that it is not that she likes it, acknowledging the moral ambiguity or that people do not think it is inherently a good thing the way marriage equality ,s or a woman's right to choose and she is a middle-aged woman, and she says that it is not that she likes it, but the system is not working and goes on to talk about law enforcement and revenue. in the case of washington, we also have law enforcement as our spokespeople. prosecutors and state's attorneys, those sorts of alligators who also talked about how it is not a good use of law enforcement resources -- those sorts of validators. if you watch that, you might think we were trying to crack down on marijuana instead of legalizing it. 63% of people over 65 oppose legalization in your statistics.

44% supported it in washington. it is a lower number in colorado. over 65. in essence, it is inherently a conservative argument that we can control this and regulate this and stop crime and save money and make it harder for kids to get it. it is essentially a conservative argument around legalization that is that powerful and persuasive to people. again, some people have had it -- have seen it happen in real life, and that is where the medical marijuana argument is so helpful. there was a woman who was a middle-aged suburban housewife who said that the light got turned back on in the park and they are taking the garbage out of parts because of the revenue from medical marijuana. there's all kinds of questions about revenue, but how much you can realistically raised and how you tax it, but regardless, that argument was powerful because

she had personal experience with the medical marijuana revenue. where we go from here -- i agree that the national conversation matters a law -- lot. while it is true that people often disregard federal interference, it is the case that if there were federal efforts -- you could easily see this going the wrong way at the federal government depending on how heavy-handed or how it is handled, but it could have a chilling effect, but on the other hand, if the federal government sort of basically just ignores it, which seems to be what is happening right now, then potentially the systems get put in place. does not make much difference. the sky is not all, some revenue, -- the sky does not fall, some revenue, and we see the kinds of things you were talking about. i also think how these things

are implemented makes a big difference. how the ballot language is written and the statute language matters a lot about cultivation and how you actually collect revenue. all of that is an unknown. there are some models from the medical marijuana dispenser is and some important lessons learned from that, and a lot of that has been incorporated, but we still do not know. i will tell you when we did the research in california that when we did focus groups and surveys in and around l.a. county where you have a lot of the medical marijuana dispensaries, a lot of stories about that going awry, you have very little impact on public opinion about legalization. this is justngs -- in terms of public opinion, you -- there are lots of people who support regulation who do not want a tightly--- who

support legalization who do not want a tightly regulated system. careful in ae political sense from the left, and the other piece is we do not know what will happen on the right. one of the things that is interesting and makes the issue different from there to quality and abortion is that there really is not opposition -- directly funded opposition. there is no mormon church terrible ballot initiatives, and there was very little spending. there was some spending in colorado and there was no spending in washington against it. it is hard to see where that money comes from, honestly, unless there is someone who has a personal interest in it, but there is a lot of organized opposition to it, but that could change. that could evolve. i think that the future is very uncertain. while i agree that i do not see public opinion reversing itself

in part because of personal experience and the experiences of the state and what that ends .p doing to the electorate i certainly think that the voters in washington and colorado saw the benefits of a regulated system, but that said, issues so wehese do not really know what the impact will be. >> fantastic. here is your unfair question. for the next five, 10 years, are we talking about a series of hard-fought battles or a shift in opinion which basically just leads to a wave of adoption of legalization almost regardless of what legal reasons -- legalization supporters do? >> i think it depends on how it is pursued. if it is pursued legislatively, it is a hard-fought battle. if they pursue it through ballot

measures, we think the washington and colorado electorates' or model like the 2014 electorate, and both passed. you do not have a lot of pain opposition. i'm not suggesting by any stretch that passing these initiatives is easy. it takes a lot of money and professional campaign and research done right. that being said -- >> you have been researching this. >> lots of research. without paid opposition, it is the legislative fight where you have legislators worry about getting reelected. >> do you want to take a guess on the next couple of legalization states? >> no, i would not. >> nice try, though. i was especially eager to have you here because you are new to the drug policy and marijuana debate. what is happening is not just about marijuana, right? it is part of a cultural story

about politics. talk about that, if you would. >> i want to start out thinking .rookings for having me it is probably a bush league move for me to admit that i'm a but i'm a in alwe, little bit in awe. in toind of talks -- ties what a lot of people have talked about today. forces havelization framed the debate in terms of essentially conservative arguments in some respects. the question is -- we hear about the age cohort data, with regard to marijuana legalization and with marriage equality, and the question is -- is this some sort of shift? our younger voters more liberal? in a sense, you have more liberal positions being embraced, and you say yes, but i think that is a little bit too simple.

there are other issues kind of associated with social liberalism or libertarianism -- attitudes on pornography, prostitution, abortion, and a few other issues that really have not moved that much of the past few years. i think what we really see has to do with what i think is one of the most important factors of american politics that people do not like to talk about, and it is class. theoriese of my meta about america, and someday i will write a book about it unless someone already has, that we define vice as something that lower class people do, and to change that, the pro- legalization people have framed these debates in terms of middle american values. in other words, gay marriage is as american as apple pie today. younger voters who are exposed to the arguments with in this frame are accepting it because

it is within the american tradition. whereas things like pornography, prostitution, and abortion have not been framed as well in that particular way. this is longstanding. you can go back to arguments over prohibition. alcohol would keep those immigrants in line. people like my great great grandfather somehow -- who managed to drink himself to death at the age of 40. i'm not sure how he did that. premarital sex had a very strong class aspect. so you go back and you ask why was marijuana, which seems to many of us to be such a harmless drug, essentially compared to alcohol, why was it illegal in the first place? the answer is it was brought to america by mexican-american farmworkers largely. it was perceived as being used

by african americans, and it got treated as a street drug. you can look at letters -- there is a wonderful and horrific letter from law enforcement officer in louisiana to herbert 1920's, saying that this stuff is more dangerous than cocaine and opium from his first hand experience. these were the reports that were coming back. this was the way that it was framed to the silent generation and the greatest generation. there were a whole slew of similar -- marijuana -- "marijuana: we'd with roots from hal" was an actual movie -- "marijuana: weed with roots from hell." when you got down to the baby boomers, a to was a much closer split. the reason is what we have been

talking about. and pounded it in college. some of them continue to use it in their later life. peoplehave been around who are high on drugs, it immediately apparent that the last thing they are going to do is go out and beat someone up. with someoner be who is high on drugs than drunk -- >> marijuana. >> what did i say? marijuana. youooked at the data, -- if look at the data, there are some wonderful charts in this pamphlet. you will see that the class angle is inverted. it is people with low incomes that are more likely to think it is a gateway drug, that are more likely to think it should not be legalized. it is even more striking when

you consider that people in the very lowest brackets, probably including a lot of college students, are partly skewing that of ford -- upward. the same thing with homosexuality. to someone born in the 1920's or 1930's, it was unthinkable. literally did not even know what homosexuality meant, talking to my grandparents. what is going on during that time? the face of the gay rights unionnt is throwing down laborers and churches, it is gay pride parades, and you see this pick up start in 1996, and i do not think that it is accidental that that is when ellen degenerate's comes out of the degeneres hen ellen comes out of the closet. that paved the way for "will and

grace." it puts it strongly in the american tradition of families. we start seeing -- a part of what happens, if you look before people in media depicting homosexuality as an almost dirty, sexual event. things like "deliverance," "pulp fiction." when you start talking about family" it "modern is about as normal as you could imagine. compare this with some other issues. are stillnd polygamy

in single digits in most polls. adultery is bad because it is bad. polygamy is not something you think of your next-door neighbor doing. it is people in cults and weird places in utah. it is the face of the polygamy movement. i have always thought that if three or four hollywood couples came out as pro-polygamy, you would probably see that number jumped up to 30% pretty quickly because the face of it changes. the way we think of it changes. if the argument became about family and so forth, the thinking of it changes. pornography -- this is a shock, but attitudes toward pornography have not changed over the past 12 years. 40% thought it was moral in 2001. -- 30% thought it was moral in 2001. 31% thought it was immoral in 2013. still not something that is rarely discussed in polite conversation. an age we get up to

where people are married, the adultery factor plays into it, but it is not mainstream yet. prostitution is still something that you go to the bad part of town to engage in. and abortion is something that just -- it happens. it is not something you see a lot of celebrities admitting to. it is not something that is celebrated. most americans see it as something that is a necessary evil. morality ofut the abortion, those numbers are flipped. to me, it is not about a liberal or libertarian cultural shift. of the cultural shift. is a weed, all about the "weeds," today, it is

all about the plucky housewives in the suburban jungle. the real lesson is that it has to be framed in terms of law enforcement and family and money. things that appeal to the great american middle class. >> that is a brilliant observation. e.j. dionne has a habit of framing it unfair headlines out of panel discussions, and i think yours would be "panelists as pot smoking is a bourgeois family value." [laughter] once an issue crosses over to the right side of the tracks, does that mean it is all over for prohibiting that thing? >> i think it is mostly all over. unless something comes up to push it back. even on alcohol -- i will just be real for you -- we are still a patchwork nation. there are a lot of dry counties

in the south. oklahoma did not legalize liquor by the drink until 1996. you actually had to bring your bottle of booze to the bar and wrote your name on it, and a two is one up on the shelf. he showed he has no need to feel awe. that was a great discussion. and then researchers will suddenly be -- will wonder why people suddenly switched from c- roots fromch "weeds: hell." useng time ago, marijuana was associated with latinos and african-americans and therefore distained by large parts of white middle-class america, which right now, it has crossed over, and they do not think the

data shows that marijuana ofalization is quite as much a class issue now as i would suggest. , there is notbers a lot of difference between income and education. there's a bit of a gap, but not as the enormous class cap, so that i think the interesting -- but not as large as the class gap. so that i think the interesting -- there are two things in our paper, which is people want to legalize marijuana probably under the tutelage of very smart political consultants. we are very smart to begin with efforts to legalize medical marijuana because there is an enormous difference in attitudes toward medical marijuana versus marijuana for recreational use.

one way to put it is medical marijuana referenda are gateways to legalization referendum, and that does appears to be the case, but that goes back to -- do these experiments work? there was a referendum in l.a. last week in connection with the mayoral election, which, as i understand it, was to put limits on medical marijuana dispensaries. again, how the experiments work i think is going to make an enormous difference. >> i actually think you were making a different point, which is not that there are class differences right now, but that on theas an issue mainstream middle-class. >> i agree, and i think that is right. in terms of the numbers now, i do not see a great class split on this issue. >> it is not that it has turned

upside down and the split has gone away. >> i actually have many more questions than answers in this field. i have actually a question for and a question about be in your wheel houses. i would first note that when you go back to prohibition, there was a medical exception written in. that was a very important safety valve. and a religious exemption. >> a lot of the illegal sale of sacramento wine. sacramental wine. [laughter] >> on many social issues, women are more tolerant or liberal. in yourbe interested interpretation on that. of aeian lin

just e-mail me this morning the ucla matriculating freshman data. going all the way back to the late 19 assists -- late 1960's. >> the question here is should marijuana be legalized. >> should marijuana be legalized. 26% of matriculating freshman said yes in 1968. 51% said yes in 1977. one decade after that it was down to 17%. >> the '80s? >> 89. 89 within a year. -- nadir. needier i am sure it is significantly higher now.

given your broad cultural views, how is one to interpret these among people of similar ages and backgrounds. these are matriculating college freshmen. what is going on in your hunch? >> no problem. i do not know that i have a gender explanation for this, but men no more likely to smoke marijuana than women. once a control for the gender differences, it disappears. >> does that not just push it back a step? >> i do not have any hypotheses as to why men are more likely to do drugs, alcohol, everything than women. be alcoholics. i am sure that somebody from the psychology department or biology department could come in why, but just in terms of the political consequence of it, it

is also the case that i andy's initiative fights that women tend to be lower information voters and tend to gather information late. the most vulnerable voters are low information voters. when you talk to women about revenue and the system being broken, tagging it to health care, use tend to see more movement among women and they start to look more like men. information has an impact. >> just to underscore the point from the survey, they cited a 54% of men but only 42% of women said they had ever tried marijuana. a big deal difference in the numbers. >> what do you think accounts for this yo-yo among the numbers? cold in relatively texas where we were at the time, i was sitting in a football stadium with all of the middle school students from the

northeast school district. nancy reagan is on a football field at the football field and we are all shouting at the top of our longest -- just say no, just a note. it was effective. and it was a part of a general argument that was meant to counter the counter cultural depiction of marijuana. we were taught all of the same things. that this is a gateway drug. that this is a drug that is addictive. i think that that made an impact on high-school students going to college. they are using the drug now. the people today are supportive of marijuana. again, that kind of goes to the experience. you get to college and see the friends smoking up, glaze over. maybe that fiction was not entirely fair. if anything there is a class argument that is inverted today.

there is a slightly distinct shift. if anything has gone to the point where upper class people are more supportive than lower class. not a huge distinction, but it is striking how much i expect that has changed. if you had done this with income cohorts in the 1950's it would have been down at the bottom. >> you could argue that the last time you had a swing back in opinion among college freshmen toward prohibition it was because the wrong kind of people were doing it and we were worried about it, but now you have people thinking the right kind of people are smoking marijuana. >> i think that that was true in the '80s, though. i think that those numbers were great and interesting questions. i am assured had to do with the point and not sure that it explains those numbers. >> can i make one more point about class? you have to be careful when it

comes to race. african-americans have a very different experience in the sense that you have the impact of the way it is in force and racial injustice around sentencing and enforcement. average americans tend to be against legalization because of the crime in their communities and what happens to the young men. you can see that want to talk about how you have a set of drug policies that are enforced differently with different consequences, you have a very vocal grassroots set of african- american activists on this issue, but i think that there is a wrinkle on it that is different as it impacts the class argument. this, aould see more of very smart opponent of legalization is making the argument that it is easy for wealthy white people in the upper class to talk about legalizing marijuana because they can handle it, but they will not be responsible for the

places in society that cannot handle it. we have got a lot of amazing people in the audience. i will be asking for two or three at a time and we will try to get to as many as possible. starting in the far back corner, a gentleman in the red tie and dark suit. please, by the way, everyone keep your questions short. we have got a lot of folks here. >> thank you. i am john with the national council of a alcohol and drug dependence. i'm curious, as we look at this as a political issue we have to deal with the facts of the issue as well. the fact of that is that the treatment centers across america, alcohol is the number one drug being treated and no. 2 is marijuana. i am curious why that continues

to be bantered about as that marijuana is not addictive. because it is. it appears. >> thank you. let's take another one from the back. same row, white shirt. >> in the u.s. correspondent from the austrian press. small question, are really talking about marijuana, or did you also test opinions on hemp and cannabis? are these the same sort of people that have the same sort of attitude towards these two? sort of same the different drugs. question, if you think the u.s. will continue with this state-by-state piecemeal organization, what do you make of the experience in the netherlands, one of the european countries where it is legal under certain conditions, who have actually introduced a more severe regulations because they have seen a huge influx of

people who only come to the netherlands simply to get high and behave in not particularly pleasant ways. >> one more from the back. how about the gentleman in a blue shirt here? >> i would like to ask and in in particularanna how it is possible to frame persuasion for parents, similar to the other question about actual addiction. i was a parent of young children in the 1980's and it was clear that a lot of parents my age and younger were willing to support the just say no campaign because they were afraid that something really bad would happen to their kids. howyou frame an argument, do proponents frame that argument to persuade parents? >> ghraib set of questions.

on the first one we do not have addiction experts here. it is not that kind of panel. it is an interesting question as to why it is perceived as fairly benign. does that -- is that what the polling shows? >> the main way that we tested it was relative to alcohol and there is this perception that it is safer than alcohol, both in being less addictive and that you are not impaired in the same way when you are high from marijuana as you are when you are impaired by alcohol. people say that no one dies from being too high but you can certainly die from being too drunk. there is that, relative to alcohol. i am not a scientist and have not done the research on the addiction. my understanding is that no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse marijuana. they are suggesting that it is not the same as nicotine and narcotics. maybe someone in the audience can be more clear about it.

no one is suggesting that you cannot abuse it, i think, including legal substances. make it isthat you very important, the big take away of the paper, very few people are viewing marijuana as a positive, good, or benign good thing. they see prohibition as a lesser of evils. >> greater of evils. >> right, legalization as the lesser of evils. >> first of all, just to be clear, at least in my own remarks i was careful to report on public sentiment. i do not recall import -- reporting my own on the other question. the question that i was reporting on was not the addiction question, it was marijuana as gateway to harder drugs. there the sentiments are pretty clear. but we make no representations about the relationship between

public opinion on this question and underlying medical data. that would be well beyond my competence. >> this is why results will matter. >> but that was only a piece of the question. >> go ahead. >> i cannot remember the other. the table.a lot on >> i do not think that we in this fable -- in this paper can make claims as to addiction or whatever. the paper does not take stand on the issue whatsoever. we are trying to look at why the debate seems to have gone the way it has gone. we do not have any data on the gentleman's question about the fine distinctions between hemp, canada's, and the like. i am not sure that the public makes the distinction. anna would know better than i. >> not talking from actual data,

but in focus groups about whether it is addictive or if people think it is, it is that comparison to other kinds of drugs that people react to. i think that is what drives the comparison to other things in public opinion. can i talk about kids? >> please. >> this is an important question, one of the bigger vulnerabilities around legalization, the impact on kids. there is an actual impact itself, though parents tend to be realistic, and do nothing that legalization will change access, in fact it might make it harder for kids to get access. the other piece that is harder to answer is that for parents, for people who think it is a gateway drug, they think it is a signal you're sending to kids that it is ok to do drugs.

drugs that people perceive as much more harmful than marijuana. important for us to answer that question. the heavy emphasis on the kinds of penalties associated with selling to kids under the age of 21 or 18. just like alcohol. the kinds of regulations in place around the background checks, try to create a system that is reassuring around what it can do to prevent younger people from smoking, because obviously the current system does not prevent younger people from smoking. obviously it is about putting pieces in place with reassurance about it not being a sort of -- not a free-for-all to just do drugs but rather a way to regulate access. anwhat i will volunteer as

answer to the question from the austrian gentleman about what you do about what if washington and colorado become the suppliers for the country because you cannot control the flow outside of their borders? that is the number one thing i think the federal government will be looking at in evaluating the medical marijuana legalization in those states, number two will be accessed by children. it will be a disaster for proponents of legalization if they cannot control that. that is why i and many cases it is legalization proponents advocating reforms like medical marijuana in california. they want to see a magic -- a regulatory system in place so that they do not throw the baby out with the bath water. another round of questions, we have plenty more. let's start with the front this time. there is a microphone coming. >> rick blake, strategic health resources, representing pharmaceutical firms interested

in using cannabis for therapeutic uses. first of all, there are over 900 strains of cannabis. what are we talking about when we talk about medical marijuana? we actually do not know because of the d a regulations in terms of these clinical trials. we actually do not know we are doing. >> reassuring. >> [laughter] but this is in terms of medical uses. there is a lot of anecdotal ofdence for the application it in hiv patients. i am just saying that given that this is a public policy forum, do you see the shift in the landscape of political opinion in terms of changing some of the impacts on how we conduct our clinical trials and the growth that we could use in terms of

clinical trials in this nation because we are missing the boat, or at least we think so, in terms of the therapeutic uses of cannabis? >> thank you. the lady behind you have a question. >> alicia, associated press. can you address the california models, the first to address medical marijuana, some describe it as more dispensaries and starbucks, which is astounding for most of us, and now we are stepping back to limit it to 135 dispensaries in los angeles. the supreme court ruled last but that states or cities can limit or zoned out dispensaries. they voted down proposition 19 and seemed to be taking that step back as washington and colorado took steps forward. >> thank you, let's get one from this gentleman in the front with the yellow and brown tie. my name is angela stevenson.

with the consortium of science associations. you mentioned nancy reagan. do you think that in society we have reached a point where it is too late for another nancy reagan? can there be another moral movement? >> great question. impact on clinical trials, has anyone tested opinion on a research for medical marijuana? >> the vast majority in this country seem to support people having access to it. it would not surprise me that we would question whether or not you would be doing research. i would assume that the majority support that as well. the obama administration said basically at the beginning that they would not go after medical marijuana. i am not suggesting the obama administration was going to let nih do clinical trials, but certainly they were taking a

step back relative to previous administrations. from the public opinion perspective i have to believe they would support during that research. >> i was going to say the same. the difference returned views on legalization for recreational purposes is so large that i expect there would be support. on the -- could there be a step back. you know, alcohol is the subject on which opinion in america has really gone up and down and up and down over a long time and it would not surprise me if we had that pattern to some degree on marijuana, which is to say that the movement for prohibition sort of went way back in our history, at times as suggested to a movement against immigrants because the irish were said to drink a lot, german immigrants were said to drink a lot.

it actually divided the upper class in interesting way. ridgway's. we passed it, it failed, so it was repealed, but we have had a return to semi-prohibition when we raised the drinking age all over the country. you know, there is now a movement among some folks in college town is to try to push it back on the grounds that 18- 21 year olds are drinking anyway and you are turning them into criminals. it would not shock me if there was some evidence on this. even though we say in our paper that we do not think it will add as much as it has in a recent class -- ebb as much as it has in the recent past. >> i think that that analysis helps to frame the history of the california model. will be found,ll

number one, continuing ambivalence about marijuana. very few people think that it is a positive good. people can see pluses and minuses. but second, this is driven by very practical considerations about enforcement, the cost of enforcement, and the unintended consequences of enforcement regimes. it does not surprise me at all to learn that there can also be unforeseen consequences of palmeiro legalization that for the same set of practical reasons might incline people doublingback without all the way back. >> i would guess that what you will see in california is continued public movement toward favoring a general regime of legalization coupled with a

regulatory movement to further restrict that. both of those things can happen at once and i suspect it will. >> i think you should be careful, if you promise to indicate an attitudinal -- attitudinal shift. hoax on the left and right, people involved in the current production do not like the line will greet have we saw this reform before the the for legalization, and was not very well hundred ha. as you know it is incredibly expensive to run initiative campaigns in california and running a funded campaign is basically a pre combat -- a precondition for running these campaigns. third, 2010 could not have been a worse year for democrats.

i want to be sure that we do not look at that reaction as a move away from legalization reaction. >> looking at the chance to go backwards, the nancy reagan example, the one example i can think of is tobacco. i actually think of that is tied up for class. you watch "madmen." a course that would want to make them legal, everyone is smoking. in my generation very few of our friends grew up smoking because we had public health campaigns that seemed validated by life experiences, grandparents dying of emphysema. you have to go practically stand in the street to smoke a cigarette. that is tied up for class. majorre were to be a surge against marijuana, it would probably have to be that we legalize and we find out it causes a lot of cancer.

we find out that it is addictive. i used the words not addictive. i think it is have it forming, which is an important distinction. and you know, something along those lines. we have seen a huge surge of people driving stoned. these externalities', you might see a push back on legalization. inlet's see if we can get three or four more questions. a gentleman with a yellow tie who has been patient, a gentleman under the television who has been patient. >> thank you for your comment. i was just going to talk about tobacco and relating to the discussion to the public health issue. the question is with your research are any of you familiar with asking the public -- is legalization of marijuana and public health concern? i am curious if you have brought that up in -- brought

that up in any of your research. >> i am curious to rescue. [laughter] >> -- ask you. [laughter] >> i cannot speak on that right now. >> what if we ask super nice? [laughter] >> if you more? gentleman in the back, i will get to you whether you want it or not. >> i am from the crow justice policy foundation. is there any data, is this strictly limited to marijuana or do americans view prohibition in general -- are there americans that think we should move more to the european model, like portugal in 2001? >> great question. gentleman back there, i am coming to you because i always sit in the low visibility seats and hate never getting called. i am looking at a gentleman. raise your hand again? there you are. thank you. necktie, blue shirt. >> i am from the council on

atmospheric affairs. you talk a bit, briefly, about support amongst hispanic respondents in this new poll. what possible explanation would you have for that? >> excellent question. has anyone told marijuana as a public health problem perce? one friend that way, what do you get? >> i do not think so. at least, i have not. but when we asked people in an open-ended context about the significant concerns, i do not hear the public health concern. i hear the safety concern. people operating heavy equipment, performing operations or flying airplanes while they are high. kids getting the wrong message. those of the kinds of things people mentioned. i am going to speculate that because people think the prohibition does not work and anyone who wants to smoke is smoking they do not see the legalization as creating a new

special held -- special public health concern, but if there is one there anyway, that could be widespread. >> and issue the services possibly quickly if there are problems with legalization. what about drugs generally? do they move in different or similar tavis to marijuana? >> i did not look. guessad to guess, i would that it is different. there was a big cocaine seen in my law school, which was strange, but most of us do not have a lot of contact with cocaine in college, or heroin. those are still considered street drugs. if you do have this experience with people on them, the kind of live up to their reputation as bad news. i would be surprised. >> i look at this for a private for brookings a few months ago. what is interesting about marijuana is the people are carving out this marijuana exception. not much change on heavy or hard drugs, part of what is happening is the perceived different this.

moving more towards alcohol or even the tobacco category. the others are not. hispanics? >> what i was going to say is to you have a thought. i am very glad you have that question because it jumped out at me as an excellent question and i could not find in the data that we had a good answer to that question. you may want to go back to find more data to figure that out. >> let them answer first. the guess i would query premise of the question just a little bit. theuld direct you to appendix chart 1 on page 12. ask the question flatley, do you think the use of

marijuana should be made legal whites, 52-hispanic 45. hispanics, 51-47. no statistical difference. african-americans are a bit more pro-legalization, but there is not a hispanic exception there. and then if you ask factual questions -- let's look at chart #2 on page 13, does marijuana lead to the use of hard drugs? 38% ofgain, you have whites and 39% of hispanics saying yes. 58% of whites and 59% of hispanics saying though. no difference whatsoever. once again, african-americans are a little bit different, but

not startlingly so. as a matter of fact you will probably still be inside the margin of error. >> in fairness to the gentleman, he was responding to something i said, which is that among religious groups hispanic catholics were one of two groups to show a majority that perhaps the difference is not as big, it just happens to be a majority, but they did jump out compared to the other religious groups. i think that is where his question came from. you are correct to underscore that maybe the fact that it is a majority is not that important because the other numbers are not that different, but they did seem to stand out from the other groups. that is why i wanted to turn to anna. >> i have not done specific research on hispanics but we know that lots of social issues will find generation playing a huge role. whether it is gay marriage or abortion. i would not be surprised if

those differences exist amongst hispanics, but it is a different generational issue than the overall age issue. the personal experience someone has to was not born here was the country they grew up in. i do not know enough about mexico, el salvador, all of these countries of origin for hispanic immigrants here, but whenever that experience was probably influences their view on this as much as anything else. they look like everyone else on just about every single issue, there is no huge difference. some of those numbers may be driven why it -- driven by someone is first-generation or was born into the country. >> one of my takeaways, i urge you to read and dive into this, the filters we are used to using in washington to evaluate issue polarities our partisanship, ideology, and ethnicity, which turned out to be significantly less important on this issue,

which is much more crosscutting on pragmatism. i urge you all to read the paper. a marvelous piece of work. we have only scratched the surface. thank you all for coming. thank you too low love for funding this. our panelists, i neglected to mention that sean came all the way from columbus, ohio. >> [whispering] >> peter lewis, i apologize. thank you all very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> as always, you can see all of .ur coverage at c-span.org te tonight, the new york city police commissioner talks to campbell brown about the thwarted attack attempts since 9/11. here is a part of that. >> we have a lot of iconic targets. we have a lot of events where large numbers of people come together.

we are concerned, certainly, about the event in boston. we have had these types of disaffected, radicalized young men tried to attack us here in the city. most recently two individuals were arrested in miami for scouting out targets in new york city. it received very little press, but it happened. they were arrested this year. --had a man arrested for arrested and convicted for attempting to blow up the federal reserve bank. he thought he was detonating 1,000 pounds of and throw when it was in fact an fbi sting. he was just convicted in february. this sort of constant stream of individuals try to come here and kill us. when you say -- what do you worry about? >> we worry about the whole spectrum. we have to worry about the

unthinkable. a nuclear event happening in new york. we have worked with the federal government. we have a program called securing the cities with 150 other jurisdictions in the area of we have signed up with to provide a sort of radiological protection rang around new york city. so, we are not able to say -- hey, we are worried about only that thing. it is a whole array of threats out there and we do not see any diminishment of the threat. we see it as being relatively constant and having not changed since the aftermath of 9/11. the 2013iscussion from new york ideas festival. you can see the entire event tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. in a few moments, comments from general ray odierno.

one of the topics, automatic spending cuts called sequestration that went into effect earlier this year. corps commandant also touched on spending cuts here in washington today. here is what he had to say. >> as a service chief i have the reality of the budget. sequestration is real. the bill was signed on march 2. i take it as a reality. i am not in the nile. it is real. we are working on a marine corps right now that will pay our bills. now, if congress down the road telex to change this, the american people decide we need a better way to do business than this sequestration, which by the way i think it's a terrible way to do business, it certainly does have an effect. so, if they change, that is great, but for right now i have

been working on a plan that we have been working on for about 90 days about how we pay our bills. the key is for us as a nation right now, how much is enough? how much do we have to have deployed because we have global responsibilities? the last one i want to make is that we do have responsibilities as a superpower. you argue with me and say that there are other superpowers out there, but this is not a frightful statement, i think that the united states is, if not the sole superpower, certainly the most significant superpower around the world. more things right and wrong. actually work pretty hard to provide decent stability. some of you may take issue and argue with that, but i think it bedew. >> you can see all of what the

general said in an hour overnight programming tonight on c-span 2, or any time at c- span.org. now, remarks from u.s. army chief of staff general odierno. talking about the effect of automatic defense cuts on military operations.

>> welcome to everyone. broken to the atlantic council. and we launched our commander speaker series more than six years ago with the supreme allied commander who went by jim jones, who is now, of course, the chairman of our international security center, responsible for this series. the idea was to provide a public platform and chance for interaction with some of the most impressive individuals you will ever get to know. individuals who have served their country, often at great personal sacrifice, wisely, bravely, and consistently. throughout his successful career, general ray odierno has personified the type of leadership we hope to spotlight. thank you, sir, for your service and joining us today.

just this month you said we are facing the most uncertain security environment you have seen in your 37 year career. you called for a globally responsive, mutual being engaged missionsy to do many that many speeds in many environments, but at the same time you mention that we might --entering a readiness whole hole in the next several years. that youand hoping would not be facing a hollow army that you face when you joined the service. powerful themes, and certainly this a ray of unpredictable challenges and shocks to readiness are just two of the many things that we can explore in of what i am sure will be a fascinating conversation.

first with larry, a veteran of the pentagon himself, now director of the center on international security, and through his moderation with our knowledgeable audience. you briefly,oduce i would also like to thank the chief executive of saab north america for his support of this important forum to engage with u.s. and allied military leaders. we have recently posted general martin dempsey, the general of the joint chiefs of staff, general james amos, marine corps commandant when the feld, the voice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and most recently general michael hossage of the air combat command. general odierno is a graduate of west point and has commanded units at every echelon, from

platoon to theater, would do the. iraq and the united states. we got to know each other in what i believe was known as kirkuk in iraqi kurdistan in 2003. only a slightly different setting for where we are today. only the second american military officer to command at the division corps and army level at his same time in iraq. words, he knows his profession from all sides. he was assigned to the 18th airborne in north carolina, where he commanded two batteries. from october of 2001 to june of 2004 he commanded the fourth infantry division, leading the division during operation iraqi

freedom. from december 2006 to february 2008 he served as a commanding general for the multinational corps as the operational commander for the surge of forces. i think military historians will be looking at that for many years to come. later he served as the commanding general of the math -- multinational force in iraq and subsequent u.s. forces in iraq from september 2008 to september 2010. most recently he commanded the united states joint forces command. he also served as chairman to the joint chiefs of staff where he was a primary military advisor to colin powell and condoleezza rice. ofs of jobs, lots responsibility. we're honored to have you here today. let me turn it over to you, barry. >> thank you, fred. thank you, general, for taking time out of your extraordinarily

busy schedule this year. in 2001, another momentous year when we were both working on the defense department strategic review. i think you are about to do that again from a somewhat different position, coming out with a strategy for the united states military to navigate these uncertain times. at the center we spent quite a bit of time looking at long range global trends. insort of long-range strategic challenges and strategic things that come and surprise us and change the way that we look at things, like the arab awakening and those types of things. you are spending quite a bit of time sort of mapping the army of the future in this year. where did you see the longer- term strategic strategies mature posturing to deal with in the future? >> one of the true challenges we have as we look at the future, as i look upon history i have been very good at predicting the

future, but it takes a lot of hard study and discussion to figure out the difficult issues. there are a couple of things that i think are important. over the last three or four me it is the impact of instantaneous global communications and the impact it is happening not -- having not only on communications, but the world itself, the interaction of people and passing of communication. i call it the speed of twitter, enabling groups to come together quickly. not necessarily nation states, but non-state actors coming together very quickly. i think that presents some very significant challenges to us. quickly you can see uprisings and other things that occur in a very short time period. i know you have recognized this as the urbanization of populations around the world, which i think will continue to have significant impact on what

the future might hold. there are a couple of pieces that i think are important. as warfare is changing, warfare constantly evolves. frankly one of the challenges we have today and will continue to the international world, international law, and other bodies are yet to recognize this evolving conflict as i personally watched it play out. where will recall the nature of war now is very different from what it was 30 years ago, 20 years ago. we have to make sure that we understand that as we move forward. it is unpredictable, the uncertainty of where your next problem arias. let me take a look at the middle east. let me look at syria. in the last few days hezbollah has come up and said -- we are in fact supporting the syrian

government. a non-state actor was verbally saying we will not support this government. what does that mean? that causes internal conflict in lebanon. what about organizations with a public voice who are not held to any accountability in terms of international law because they are not a nation state. for me that is the problem as we go forward and that is what becomes more difficult to predict. you have more groups like this coming forward. as they do, it will make it more difficult for us to understand the trouble. that is one of the reasons why i have said several times over the last few months as i have testified that this is the most uncertain time. it is because of those kinds of attacks, it is something we just do not know. everything is related to each other.

lebron non, turkey, saudi arabia, russia, china, the united states, there are so many nations involved. you never know what the impact will be as this occurs. north korea is another one. an unstable government with a very young leader who if you look at historical patterns for provocation that occurs in north korea, what makes it different is that this is a very young individual. we do not yet know what he wants to achieve. the decisions that he makes impact japan, korea, vietnam, china. what are the impacts? that is what makes this so uncertain. those are the kinds of things that worry me. the impact of the fact of how much attention you can get to your problem or issue through

instantaneous communications around the world. >> i see. in light of what you just said, what is the one international scenario that worries you the most that is plausible? >> there are a couple of things. i would give you two or three. conflict underlying we're seeing in the middle east. we are watching a play out in syria. he had hezbollah supporting a syrian government, who supports over with suny concern this, supporting the opposition. you could argue that this is happening not just their but in bahrain, iraq. what does this mean for this underlying tension in the middle east? it concerns me significantly over time. how does this give resolved? does this continue to move forward? the other is -- as we watch

pakistan and kenya, they have elected a new prime minister and president. what does that mean? prime minister? president? i should apologize. what does that mean for the future? it is both the internal stability of pakistan and the impact on the region. what impact will that have? of course, the relationship with india and afghanistan. a significant amount of weapons of mass destruction, those things combined are concerning. and then i mentioned north korea and china. not as something -- i think it is about us achieving a balance in the pacific. as they continue to develop economically as a country, how do we develop that in such a way that does not lead to conflict. >> this is amazing, we have covered almost every major

international issue in the first five minutes, but i do want to address also iran. unitedainly hope the states continues to apply the pressure and that iran concedes and ultimately become to a deal so that they cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities. arguably this is potentially the most haunting national security challenge that the president will face in his second term. certainly a might be. what if those efforts do not succeed, even though we hope that they do. what will be required if iran, like north korea over time, were successful in either an avowed nuclear weapons capability or a not as transparent or

not as start sense that people have -- what with the role of persian gulfn the military posture? how would that change the army's approach? i think that would be a different world. >> besides iran developing nuclear weapon, if they develop that capability, our role is very significant in terms of what we do regarding research and development and how we protect ourselves. it is one of the key things for us, not just the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. the term i am using is the fact that we do not want weapons of mass destruction flowing into the hands of organizations that might use that as threats to other nations states or to gain more say in the international community.

we have toact that use a combination of ,apabilities, investment looking at how it increases -- if it increases -- in the future. will there be an arms race in our -- middlet east? our role in that could be a question. >> i think that you raised an issue that i have been thinking about credit, sort of our military posture broader capabilities for dealing with nuclear weapons in failed or failing states.

we have a couple of unfortunate scenarios that could happen. today, as you mentioned a couple of them already, north korea and pakistan. if iran gets a nuclear weapon in the next five years, definitely a possibility. it is one of those things that is asymmetric, not in the defense establishment comfort zone. it is ugly and it takes capacity that we do not have enough of. it takes technology for detecting nuclear materials the we have not yet developed. the scale of some of these scenarios could be such that it would be the entire u.s. army if the worst case happens. do you think it's becoming quadrennial defense review might take this as a more serious -- >> i think it will recognize it as something that could be a potential problem that we have to be capable of looking at. i would say that we have to come

up with innovative new approaches. we cannot put 500,000 people on the ground, 250,000 people on the ground. there has to be some level of ground capability there. we also have to use technology to form strong relationships with allies to help us. you know, i would not see us going into the middle east unilaterally to do that if that occurred, for example. we would certainly want help from other nations as well. asis something that i think, we move forward, we have to watch carefully. smalleroing some training events this year the special operations forces dealing specifically with this issue on the capabilities that they have, that we have, and how they mix that together in order for us to have the best

solution. we have some discussions going on about this and we are working hard to develop some of will recall the techniques and procedures on the operational level. we also happen to have been put on what that means for the strategic level policy decisions as we develop capability in this area. i think these are all important questions as remove forward. there does appear to be a pattern where nations of nuclear weapons and then they think they can do certain things and we have to be careful and watch full of those nations. >> i was one more question based on the interesting point that you raised and i will move on. if this scenario continues to develop with the sense of half a dozen or so nuclear weapons as reported in the north for an i know you're trying on ato engage china

military to military level in the summit next week. we have some hopes for strengthening our relationship. with this scenario be something that the military would want to talk to the chinese about? >> i think that is part of what we are talking about. it does not need to be unilateral. maybe it is a cooperative effort by several nations to make sure that these are safeguarded. they could be a threat to any country. that is the kind of way we have to think about it. we also have to develop capabilities that make us able to do something unilaterally as deemed within the best interests of our nation. >> thank you very much. now we will go to questions. if you could wait for the microphone and identify yourself? >> thank you. sydney friedberg.

one of the issues you have hit , maybe i ams particularly obtuse -- reporters can be -- but i have a good concept for hot air land battle knowbut i still do not what strategic land power means in the context of this in particular. maybe because you're still ?orking on it in particular >> the first is the importance of the human dimension, a human domain in future conflict. we tend to attack things with technology.

and they do it by a variety of things. they do it by ground forces, air or sea. we believe it goes back to the human dimension of human demand and conflict. that the strategic future needs to come up with methods to influence that, but there are a couple of other methods that go along with that. one of them is cyber. what is the interaction between human domain dimension conflict and cyber-warfare? how do they interact? conduct these in the future? that is new and something that is needed. we are trying to look forward here.

that is what we have stuff for in this office. frank oliver, "congressional quarterly." i do not see a path past sequester in 2014. do you give us -- can you give us a sense of what it looks like for the army to get to $52 billion in savings and the >> that's a very complex restaurant. i will try to answer as simply as i can. there were three therems in the beginning.

are 15 continuing resolutions. we have a continuing resolution this year. that can match up with what we had. that, it was a so, weon of sequester. ended up with the $20 billion shortfall in operations and maintenance money this year. we have enabled now to get that back down to about 12 billion or so based on new legislation that that leaves us with an $8 billion shortfall. we are now taking a significant risk in training and sustaining

our equipment, sustaining our which will take us out to 14 no matter what happens. this is not part about dark relations -- about our calculations for the 2014 budget. if you take this out to sequestration, it will go along with sequestration. we are doubling down on 13. we are on this road that will .ontinue to eat at us the problem i have as a service andf is you balance strength. you balance your investment. and then there is the compensation piece, which is strength. that is what drives our budget. in the army 45% of our budget is people. i cannot take people out fast enough to meet

sequestration numbers. amount -- sayn the only portion is $13 billion of sequestration. next year, i can get $2 billion out of people. once you find that 2 billion, it takes you more to take people out than it does to keep them because of the benefits and everything else. i have to take it all out of modernization readiness. here we go down this path of having gone into the right amount of regulations and then we go 5, 6, 7, 8 years down the road. we are headed down this that that is very dangerous in my mind. what i said in my testimony is to the process, so then i can ,o it using and strength modernization, and readiness in and eat the way that enables us to be balanced.

that does not mean i agree with the amount of sequestration cuts. 17, i can them past do them properly. just in think that is the army. the army has the biggest problem. >> yes, in the back. >> i'm the retired director of army programs. i appreciate your candid comments. people have said, lives on land. does not live in the ocean. as we look at the army programs going forward, the soldiers , but the armyorm is only talking about three -- gop veep.cb, how do we get past the

considering -- the continuing modernization of our soldier platform? mywhat you have told me is strategic message not going very well because our modernization program is centered around our soldiers. the soldiers have the capabilities to make them not only the best soldiers, but the best squad. that goes with the protection and the ability to face -- that is the fundamental units. that is number one. second is getting the information to the lowest level of the theater. that is the information network, which surpasses both intelligence and operational capabilities down to the lowest level because we believe in this environment, sometimes squads and platoons make extreme decisions.

you want to make them -- you want them to have the best information so they can make the best decision. and third, mobile. you have to have the squads the mobile. there are seven reasons why we need it. it allows us to put the i.t. capability into these platforms, which we cannot do into the existing platform, the humvee for example. they do not have the room or the power in order to have this capability. the other thing is about mobility and survivability. because of what we have learned -- i have to give back an equal amount of ability to be mobile and survivable. and that gets to the ground combat vehicle, the bradley, the

joint like tactical vehicle the army uses. >> great. ambassador hunter in the back. .> tank you very much robert hunter, former ambassador to nato. talking about sequestration and the like, as chief of staff, where you are a force provider and the risk manager, without trying to anticipate the outcome of the q dr, something is going to have to give. your chief perspective, how do you see a shift in overall investment capabilities to give you the best shot at having an army that will be able to do those things that are called upon in a world that you may not be able to predict right now? ?ow will you make those choices

>> one of the comments i make a stun the scenario you outlined is it is impossible for us to be revolutionary. we have to be evolutionary going forward. wings are going to change. let us of all. if you try to be revolutionary, we will get it wrong. or are a lot of things we can do as the army evolves. part of that is as we evolve the size of the army. what are the capabilities you want in the army? but we know that the army is going to get small. for the first 400 billion dollar personnel.ill go to if you implement sequestration, we will go down even further. we still have to have the strong capabilities to respond. i look at characteristics like

agility, flexibility, adaptability. how do we gain that was kind of ticked abilities. -- thise huge strategic is our ability. our ability to move forces quickly anywhere in the world. we have got to maintain those capabilities. we have to maintain those packages that allows us to deliver people quickly and in small increments based on whatever situation we might see. command control and intelligence better than anybody else. we have to exploit our ability to develop command and control and intelligence to push forward as fast as possible. third, logistics. we do the best job of strategic logistics than anyone in the world. that allows us to sustain long-

term operations, whether it be a battalion or a company or seven course or word. we have the ability to do that. we have the ability to exploit those key advantages. the final one, the most in order one, is -- the most important one, is leader development. the thing that we have to focus on is developing our leaders. we need to continue to have a noncommissioned officer corps and an officer corps that enables us to deal with complex issues. we are refocusing that. i am going to announce in the next 30 days or so our new leader development program. we have all of these capabilities over time. one thing i worry about is, everybody's declaration there is going to be no more ground wars. that would make the army to small.

i think we have to be very careful. we have proven that has not been nothing on the horizon yet. i know there is a lot of people out there that do not have to deploy around forces again. i'm in that camp. i hope we never have to employ ground forces again. but you have to have the right number of ground or sues to protect this nation. that is kind of my view on that. >> let me follow up on one have. you have had -- you said several times today that working with partners is very important. them about the european ground presence, i think, is relevant. we have our permanently stationed units there. you have a new concept. can you talk about that, how does that fit?

our basee tend to which is our long-standing allies in europe well dealing with new threats in the middle east and asia? , i think it is important that we work with our friends and partners in europe. there are a couple of ways of we are taking an additional 12,000 soldiers out of europe. we think be set that we have now, which will leave two brigades forward and some logistics and support capability forward will allow us to have about the right amounts, will allow us to continue to work with our nato allies. there are two other things. we now have the joint multinational training center. we are now using that as a platform to train with our nato allies and other partners. we are making that more of a

multinational capability. we want to invest in that so we can do the joint training. i can bring forces from the united states over there to train with them and continue to make sure we build these really important relationships. s that areexercise very high level. relief exercises. or you can do higher and operations if necessary. the department of defense has committed that we will have a brigade as part of the nato that will come a from a brigade in the united states. though we have less people in forward stations, i like this set better because it will enable us to do even more with our partners and a lot of nato ist places. a willing to conduct operations outside of the european continent. they have become importance partners with us.

theymportant thing is, are significantly reducing their capabilities while we are reducing hours. we have to make sure we stay in sync. we might become unbalanced as nato, and we want to maintain within nato as a group as we move forward. >> thank you. yes? >> hi, general. doug with new american foundation. good to see you again. you talked about cuts in our european partners. do you think the american defense establishment writ large has wrapped its mind around the fact that our traditional european allies do not have the capacity we are used to seeing from them, even within the last 10 years?

the british cannot sustain what they did in basra, for example. have we as a defense intellectual establishment grasped how significant the detriment is in the capacity of our traditional allies? >> it's a great point. i'm not sure how much we are understanding. i have a very close relationship -- bob is with many of these partners. as the british army continues to reduce and size, we have had several conversations about how we keep them integrated. they are depending on us. we have to make sure we understand that. the french have actually not reduced significantly yet, but they are having discussions about that now. the italians are strong partners of us. they are reducing the size of

their ground forces as well. the ability to rely on our allies, we have to make sure we understand what the capabilities are. just to make sure everybody knows the investment in europe is not going up. it is going down. this is one of the values of jmtc. we have to be very mindful. south korea has a problem. -- because of the population, they do not have enough people to support the size army they have now, because the demographic has changed so much. that is problematic as well. that is something we have to look into with our interests around the world.

>> inc. you, general. i will not ask you to make too much bad news for your big boss, you mentioned ciber and safeguards a while ago. there was a piece the other day about --er and its rations penetrations specifically. can you give us a comfort level with what protocols are at dod in general and what discussions you a had with your counterpart in beijing? also about the troopers, can you give us a sense, having commanded the troopers for a hile about the troopers? thank you. i have not had any discussions with my counterpart. the issue here is several fold. it's about the capabilities that we have at the dod that will

continue to progress. do youue is more how want to use the id's capabilities -- dod's capabilities in protecting our infrastructure? we have some specific laws that are not necessarily a dod issue. he have to come to grips with that. i think there is legislation pending. i think to me the first step is understanding how do we want to use our defense department capabilities to defend our infrastructure against potential cyber threats or are there other ways we can do this.

this has been going on for a very long time. starting to we are get closer to legislation. i think that is really the problem. we have to come to grips with that as we move forward and it's a very important issue. it's an issue for the american people. it gets to people concerned about what are we doing on the internet tom what are we doing all ofect ourselves? these are very complex and complicated issues. in order to deal with that problem, we have to resolve this. -- it's af suicides perplexing problem. we have thrown an incredible amount of assets at this problem. but there is no rhyme or reason, there is no golden trail we can follow that solves the problem of suicides.

what we do know is there is a which isrm solution. what i mean by that. as you improve the physical capability of our soldiers, the mental capability of our soldiers, the emotional capability of our soldiers, they are able to deal with very complex situations that we put them in. suicide, i believe, is a national problem. when you get in the military, it gets highlighted because you have added stresses. a few things. finances, personal relationships, how you're doing and your job. then you throw on top of that the added concern of having been in combat once, twice, three times. it's about us building resilience with our soldiers and

our families. catch up ande to building resiliency, we have to make sure there are systems in place to identify individuals we believe are susceptible to suicide and allow them to come so theyor identify them can get the proper help. we need to increase the number of behavioral health specialist. we are recruiting them now. we have not been able to fill all of the positions. so, we have to continually work that. it's a very holistic approach we have to take. it's still very concerning. i get a report on every suicide in the army. i got another one today. so, you know, it's a very concerning problem for us, but we are doing everything we can to work on this. thanks for asking the question. >> i'm hopeful -- are you

hopeful in that regard that we will be on top of this, but on top of that question, there is the longer-term tale of the families and the children that have been burdened a lot -- is a bit ofuicide an academic and i do not know why it is. it will not and when we come out of afghanistan. it will continue. we cannot say, ok, we do not have to worry about it anymore. we have to deal with the more ferociously to make sure we handoffs between the army and the veterans affairs, because as they transition, it is important

that a transition appropriately so people can continue to assist them. this is something we will be dealing with for quite some time. and in terms of family members, we track that, as well. the suicides. also have to continue to track that. >> yes. if you could talk about -- >> could you come to the microphone? >> i was wondering if you could talk about how the army is capturing lessons learned. >> that is a very good question. we have an organization which is combining lessons learned, and they are responsible for

collecting all of the lessons learned, tactical operations lessons learned, and they are doing that with iraq, afghanistan, across all the lines, and the one thing i have asked them to do is the strategic level. which gets into the higher level. what have we learned in operating in these environments, and what do we have to do at the highest levels to make sure that we are coordinating our enter agency activity. based on this, if you look at our doctrine as we have now republished it, you will find joint, intergovernmental, multinational. that is what we have learned over the last six to seven years of doing this. my concern is we have build stronger relationships over the last years between the civil military communities. we have done that because we have had to in iraq and afghanistan.

how do we sustain that so when we get to the next problem, we have established this capability? so i want to make sure we do not go back to our course, that we stayed together, so one of the things i am doing is we're going to continue to put leaders and interagency departments around washington. are going to do this with the state department, the treasury, the fbi, others, so we continue to build the relationships that never been established. we will continue to invite people from other agencies to attend them, so we can have integration as we continue to learn because i do not want to have to reinvent this again. it is too valuable. one of the real lessons i have learnt is that there is a limited to military power. you can only do so much. you absolutely have to have the interagency, intergovernmental

that allows you to use military power if necessary but allows you to use the of the tools that are out there, and it is for the senior leaders to think in those terms whenever we deal with new problems. it is essential to success, in my mind. relatedal, this is a issue. you mentioned jointness. bit ago. from a i know you have had some discussions with your british counterparts earlier this year. removing some -- of our bureaucratic obstacles. i am wondering if you can give us a sense of what we took away from that. joint forces command, the

last commander of the joint forces, we closed it down, and the reason we did best is we felt it was no longer necessary. it was necessary in the beginning because we were so new at try to integrate our joint concepts, and we think now because of what we have done over the past 12 years, we are far enough along that we do not need that demand anymore. just stood of theirs. the reason they did that is they believe they are now where they -- because of their reductions, they now need to have this to initially move forward. i think it is the right decision for where they are at, but for us, because we tested down, that does not mean we are walking away from joint operations.

everything we do has to be joined. -- joint. we have to utilize all of the capabilities of the services as we go forward. i think a new aspect, which we just talked about, what is new is the interagency istinational, and so that the new peace that we have learned that we absolutely have to integrate, as well. this was to identify the interagency peace to this. we certainly have to make sure that as we continue to move forward with our joint capabilities, intertwined with that is the interagency peace with this as we go forward. >> steve. >> i am steve. i am here at the a atlantic council. i wanted to ask a question about the defense industry.

strictly speaking, i suppose, right, service chiefs is not in that chain of command, which that one program, getting it done, and that makes my curiosity about how this service chief thinks about industry relative to what you are charged with doing. although i have no formal responsibility, i have a lot of influence and ability to have impact on what we want to do with our defense industry partners. the secretary of the army has been very clear that he once me to play a role in that area. although i have no authority, there is influence in that area. for me, it is a very important one. that we havencerns is do we continue to dwindle

with what i consider an already small defense industry, more than we had in the past. larger not so much the defense contractors. it is the smaller ones that do so much in terms of developing niche technologies. goodo we keep them going as we mentioned earlier, because of sequestration over the next three or four years, taking more money out of the research and the government and acquisition programs. that will impact all of the defense industry. i how do i sustain that until get money back in the program in 2018, 19, 20, when i become more balanced again? that is a great concern that we keep this going. wouldow, the army, i argue, we have had some problems over the last 10 years. some of it is we have tried to

develop new systems where we did not quite have the right technology. or our requirements were not quite matching what was capable of being done, and that is why i think the uniformed service has to play a role in this, developing what we need and then deciding how well is that matching with the technology that is out there now or how long it matches with technology of the future, where what are the technologies we should be investing in in the long term, and the other piece is you have to determine where industry, maybe not the defense industry, is growing capability faster, and how do we take advantage of that, and information technology is one of those areas, where they are growing at a much faster pace. they are investing a lot of money. that? we leverage it is about us having systems where we can integrate technology very rapidly. we buy a system and update it every couple of years, and then

it gets cheaper. more technology. better capability, and we are starting to see that with a lot of the information technology issues that we are developing, so i think those are the kinds of things we need to recognize. where do we need to put our dollars? and then what do we need from the defense industry, how do we take advantage? that is what we are going to have to do. wonderful. here in the front row. >> thank you, general. toant to take you back something you said earlier in response to the question about the one issue that really keeps you up at night, and you gave a list of them, which included the scenario involving pakistan.

two scenarios come to mind. of thethe implosion country following economic and political unrest, and the other is the potential for the initiation of nuclear conflict between india and pakistan, pakistanrly with developing nuclear weapons. with both of these scenarios, exactly what role can the united states play? and what role can the army play? we have the capacity, would it be better for us to focus on building confidence between countries in the region and between us and the region? >> a couple of things. first, i would always say that we prefer the latter, so our desire is to always build confidence, build capabilities, develop relationships between countries, and us assisting in doing that. i have seen a lot of cases where begin that. can

military to military relationships can begin to establish confidence or at least a bit of trust between nations. that is always our first priority. if you talk to any of the commanders today, they will tell you about phase zero, which you just talked about, and if they go out of phase zero, they have failed. their job is to ensure that we stay out of conflict, so that is always our first priority. those are the things i worry about. if that fails first, it is not the that is not our first priority, but if that fails, what do we have to do? one of the things i recognize as an army, really pushing this concept of regionalized forces, that supports phase zero. how do we align our forces for the commanders to utilize the army to influence, to build capacity, to influence peaceful solutions, to build confidence,

to build trust between nations? to me, that is a very and. mission, so we have now organized ourselves so that each one of our commanders, whether it be in south asia or southeast asia, the middle east, where they can utilize the army in order to build this trust. it is easier to begin sometimes with military to military relationships. always had to be able to fight wars, but that is the last resort. that is not the first answer. >> we have time for one more question. a question in the front row. >> thank you. roger will be atlantic council. you mentioned several things that gave you concerned, and he mentioned nonproliferation. there is also a possible scenario if things start going back the others might feel compelled to take military action, with perhaps some

drastic consequences. what is your view on that? any third-party action has a significant impact on the united states, because what my concern is, first of all, we have lots of civilians and soldiers and sailors, marines in the middle east. there could be some retaliation if this occurs, so, obviously, that is a concern. and then what is the reaction to this? thisdoes it mean to fragility that we see in the middle east as a whole, for example, and does it move it forward? does it draw a further line between the sunni-she a conflict -- shia conflict? it could have an impact about what is the reaction against israel, and being one of our

allies, what does that mean for us? so for me, that is difficult if that occurs. it will take a lot of work by us to mitigate the responses to that and to ensure that we are able to keep that fragility in place. it is very concerning. cannot thinkral, i of a conversation we have had your that has been as important and interesting and comprehensive as this discussion we have had here this morning. thank you for your time. thank you for your leadership of this institution that protect our nation, and thank you for your own service to our nation. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we also heard about spending cuts from the marine corps. here are a couple of minutes of his remarks, where he spoke at

the brookings institution earlier today. [no audio] >> right now, as a service chiefs, the reality of the budget. sequestration is real. ladies and gentlemen, the bill was signed on march 2. reality. as i am not in denial with sequestration. it is real, and we are looking at a marine corps right now that will pay our bills, my section of sequestration. down the road, if we change this, if the american people decide, ok, we need a better way to do business and the sequestration, which, by the way, i think is a terrible way

to do business, but it certainly has an effect, so if they change, then that is great, but for right now, i have worked on a plan, and we have been working on it for about 90 days on how we will pay our bills, and i know precisely how we will do it. the key is as a nation, how much is enough, and how much do we need to have deployed because we have got global responsibilities? the last point i would like to make is we do have responsibilities as a superpower. now, you could argue with me and say there are other superpowers out there, and, actually, this is not a prideful statement, i think the united states is if not the sole superpower is certainly the most significant superpower around the world. right than wengs do things wrong. we actually work pretty hard to try to provide peace and stability.

some of you may take issue with that and argue with that, but i think we do. [no auido] >> that was the marine corps at thedant james amos brookings institute earlier today. you can see all of his remarks on c-span or online at c- span.org. our prime-timeat schedule. a conversation with the new york city police commissioner on the terrorist plot since 9/11. on c-span3, it is american

history tv, as the visits cities in the american southwest, including santa fe, and albuquerque. at poverty in the u.s. and in recent study that found that the majority of the american poor live in the suburbs, not cities. from "washington journal," -- back with a co- author of a report on confronting suburban poverty. the new york times called it cul-de-sac poverty. how do you define suburbia, suburban? this is about two-thirds of the nation's population. we think that the statistical definition that the census bureau and office of management and budget put out. this has a regions,

population of 100,000 or more. plus, there are those that are in the statistical area. the suburban grid, more than double the rate in the city, 29%. in 2000, it grew significantly in 85 out of 95 areas, and in 2010, one-third of the suburban poor lived in distressed neighborhoods. at least one out of five are poor. how do you define poverty? >> it was about 22,000 some dollars. for: what does that mean poverty? are you measuring what they have access to prove guest: this is a gross income measure. this is what we have had in

place for decades. the benefit is we can look back in terms of the poverty level, but there are a lot of limitations to this measure, because it is the same used across guidelines. if you are in the bay area or alabama or chicago or boston, it is the same line. host: it does not take into consideration cost of living. guest: it is pretax income, so it does not take into account what you might be paying in taxes or the benefits you may be receiving through the tax code or other government programs, so it is just a gross income measure. because the what are the reasons you are seeing a rise in poverty? guest: it is because some are moving into these communities, or it could be because they are slipping down the economic

ladder, and this is really a combination of those two factors. suburbslation in the growing. population is growing faster. it is also becoming more diverse. bypassing cities altogether. this might be because they are following where affordable housing is or where jobs are. jobs have continued to shift out were in a major metropolitan seen low-we have income residents follow, as well. >> is this a public policy decision that was made on the state level to put more housing options " putting them out in the suburbs rather than in the city? guest: we have portable subsidies. inhave seen an increase vouchers in suburban communities.

suburbs. in the but housing can also be just affordable housing, in general. how it has aged over time and become more affordable. we have also seen the impact of the foreclosure crisis. about three-quarters happens in the suburban communities, so that has an impact, as well. host: and unemployment? guest: the most recent is widespread unemployment. we saw suburbs bearing the brunt of this. there was the collapse of the housing market and the populationt rate and ine rose at a faster rate the downturn in suburban communities, so this was a regionwide recession that we saw having an impact on suburbs

more. about schools? you have some numbers. the percentage change in low- income students attending schools in the city and attending schools in the suburbs. guest: we have seen that those students are actually growing at a faster pace in keeping with the overall trends than about s? in urban communities, and often what we found in our research is that schools tend to be on the front lines, particularly in suburbs where they may be stretched thinner. they may not have the services as readily available, but cities have built up over time. they are often looking for help, struggling with limited resources and a growing population in finding ways to create wraparound services that help students and their families. host: the implications of this, of suburban poverty affecting infrastructure, as well. what did you find about transit? >> transit is less present.

among residents that may have access to a bus or a train, the often access and much smaller share of the jobs within a commute. it can be very difficult to connect to impoliteness using transit, let alone the other support services needed. host: so are there less jobs? they are having trouble accessing them, because of transit issues? >> as i mentioned earlier, most of the areas have seen jobs decentralized or become more suburban. the challenge is often jobs are growing in a region where the population is not. they are growing in different parts of the suburbs. there could be bigger mismatches, even as they both become more suburban, so it is not a matter anymore of getting from the city -- the city to the suburbs or vice versa. to one suburbting

from another suburb. host: the rapid rise of suburban poverty, according to your report. in 1970. they're red is the suburbs. the black is the cities. around 2000 is when there starts to be more pour in suburbs versus the cities. why? what happened? guest: we have seen the low- income population grow at a faster rate than in cities since the 1980's, but it is something that has picked up pace. we now have more poor people in the suburbs. this is well before the great recession. this exacerbated the trend. record levels in terms of the people living below the federal poverty line. that pushed forward in these trends. this is already on pace to shift. host: why was this happening?

as they suburbanized, they became more diverse. where jobs are. and then the economy. we have had two downturns of the last decade, but beyond the cycle, the economic cycle, we also had structural changes taking place. some of the jobs are those paying lower wages. seen these shifts of overtime, we have seen this ripple through the population. does go you have written in the report that the amount of federal money spent to fight poverty, $82 billion, based on geography, and there are 80 programs across 10 different agencies that deal with it. is this money well spent? are anti-poverty programs, going from trying to improve neighborhoods or deliver services for low-income families, or the vouchers, as we

mentioned before. the issue with these programs, they have been built up over decades. fragmented.y there is often not a lot of ordination. and there are many that have the distressed communities in mind. these continue to struggle. but often, these programs do not adapt well, so it creates additional challenges or barriers. host: here is a look inside this report. how the money is spent. the 81 different programs, the different agencies. if you're interested in this, go to the brookings websites or the website. you can get inside these numbers and see the federal programs that are being spent on fighting poverty. to the tune of $82 billion overall, and that is on a yearly basis?

guest: that is right. host: so talk a bit more about state involvement in this. these are federal programs, but what happens at the state level? guest: obviously, $82 billion is a significant investment, and it often shapes of state and local dollars flow, as well. often, it is the states that are the ones administering the programs. so we start with the federal look at this because they help dictate the way that these dollars flow. there are steps the states can things followake better for cities and states. guest: confronting suburban poverty. again, that website. we have a tweet. what percentage of the poor are immigrants, and what percentage

relocated from cities? does go to the first question, what we have seen in our largest metro areas is the population was about 17% of the growth in the core population in the suburbs, so the bulk of the growth was native-born residents. in terms of those moving from the city, that is a difficult number to trace. we get a snapshot each year through the senses. we do know in some regions, that plays a bigger role. some have we developed more in urban areas. housing prices have gone up. they are looking to find affordable housing. that plays a role in certain markets. host: from erie, pa., our caller. hello, laura. what you said earlier

about single female-headed households. receiving benefits. much higher for people who do not have high-school diplomas. and further up, as you get more educated, those people will not be trapped in poverty and will not be needing government assistance, and i am wondering if this young lady in her studies show is exactly how many were in not married households in the suburban areas? i think poverty across the board needs to be addressed with regard to marriage. marriage dropped the probability of being in poverty by 80 plus% according to the heritage foundation. the census bureau says that. people coming from two-parent households, the children are less likely to be involved in criminal behavior. they are less likely to have drug and alcohol abuse or to drop out of school. we are looking to piece all of

this together and encourage marriage in the tax code and the fatherhood initiative is. i know president obama was saying something about responsibility during one of these graduation speeches, and he does a great job as a role model, so i think we need to address this. getting people out of poverty to begin with. host: ok. best " in terms of household type, among the corfam lies and suburbs, there is a slightly higher share that are married households, but we do see single-parent households making up a larger share. non-family, residence, as well. we have seen the shares that are sorried decline over time, there are definitely a number of elements. this is something to think about, young children living in poverty.

host: a tweet. people have been moving from cities to suburbs, no surprise here. this sayays, what does other than that people are getting poorer? how does this lift people out of that situation? guest: promising strategy is that we have seen across the country. focusing on this idea that regardless of where you live, a city or suburbs, how do you make the connections, how do you have people work their way out of poverty in terms of education and training, also in terms of better jobs, being able to get above the poverty line. and in the policy areas that really need to be tackled to work better for city and other residents alike. host: what was said about having two parents, and policy,

having two parents in the household. guest: that is right. in a two-parent household, having children in poverty declined quite significantly. in terms of the initiatives that can help, i think there are a number of elements in the tax code that try to support marriage. even at tax credits, supporting families, the earned income tax credit, they have put in place marriage penalty relief, said they are not penalized for the household, and still able to access things for your children and your family. also, it is about getting people to finish high school, put off childbirth until after they have a high school degree, until they creatingrriage, and

job opportunities to allow them to do that is a really important point. host: marie. hi. caller: i think what we are doing in the united states is class warfare. right now, it seems to me that the people but have the money, the people who have the power, they just do not want to really help people. right now, the democrats have it. and we cannot depend on the government. that is not our system. our system is a free enterprise. host: elizabeth. guest: in terms of the government, the government cannot do it on its own. the resources and the pool of money to be able to tackle a scale of this problem, however, they are part of the system that we have built over decades. it is important to break down the barriers to help communities access of bonds that we do have, but more than anything, we do need cross sector partnerships that link up philanthropic

sources with businesses and the private sector interests to be able to create these kinds of connections that we are talking about that not only help lower income families get that need when they find themselves living in poverty, but what is the path out of poverty? that is forging connections across sectors and jurisdictional lines to be able to access employment and education opportunities. the: on twitter, tracking death of the middle class. guest: we have seen the middle class decline in terms of size, and we have seen household income fall, even before the great recession. there is rising inequality in the country. increasingng concentrations of poverty, once again, though we make progress against it in the 1990's. there are factors at play that i think underscore the need to get

solutions or policy area by policy areas solutions that really start thinking more comprehensively about the range of challenges facing families today. aquasco an independent caller. hi, chris. caller: i just want to say that me and my wife both have three children. i am really glad you have this subject on c-span. we have been living here for approximately three months. you were talking about the housing choice voucher. in those areas, most of the families that are trying to take our children and our families from the city to the suburbs is because of drug and alcohol abuse. andan also be educated everything else, but that does not mean that we can go out and find ouri have been waiting fore

choice voucher. it's gone to be a three-year wait. we have tried every avenue we can think of. we have three children, like i said. the housing choice vouchers and the programs that you guys say are in place are not really a place, because they don't promise action soon enough so we can build our families up higher. host: produce a living falls is a suburb of louis, maine. it chose to move from the city to that area? caller: i have always been in the suburbs. i choose not to live in the cities because i think the role the city plays, especially if you have a low income, you move into the city areas that have more drug and alcohol abuse. i choose not to put my children in a situation like that read