that. we cannot think of a single way it will prevent use from increasing, particularly among children. however, if congress were to go there, we would call for a legalization model based on model for the tobacco industry. he said after eight years as head of f.d.a. of fighting to try to gain control of regulating tobacco, and losing that battle, he said "my understanding of the industry's power finally forced me to see that the solution to the smoking problem rests with the bottom line. prohibiting the tobacco companies from continuing to profit from the sale of deadly addictive drug. these profits are inevitably sed to promote that same addic tive product and generate more sales. e was trying to contain a very old commercial addictive drug to an end. if we apply his model to

marijuana, we could prevent another one from starting. so what would a model look like is it? it would make public health the centerpiece for control. it would charter a tightly regulated no one profit corporation -- and by no one profit, public health becomes key. in my state in georgia, i'm sorry to tell you, we have just passed the most extreme gun rights bill in the nation, and it was lobbied for by the national rifle association. a nonprofit organization whose budget is $256 million, and that buys a lot of votes in state legislators. legislatures. so this nonprofit would have to be governed by a public health model and a public health board and a public health mission.

use the money from sales to underwrite manufacturing and distribution costs only. all other revenues to fund enforcement, research, treatment, and programs to prevent youth use. test marijuana for con tam nantz based on federal standards for research-based marijuana. ban all forms of marijuana edibles and other processed forms such as hand lotions, creams, soft drimpings, oils and waxes, which are now testing out at 75% t.h.c. or higher, and people are beginning to overdose on those higher levels of t.h.c. not die but overdose. showing up in emergency rooms. banning all -- i like mark's way of doing that. think that would be sensible. control distribution to prevent includead lessents, and

in the law to repeal legalization is it use becomes unsustainable. one more slide. allowing a corporate takeover of marijuana, no matter how it is done, will result in unnecessary increases in use, unnecessary increases in addiction, unnecessary school failures among youth, unnecessary deaths from marijuana-related driving, unnecessary rises in mental illness, and additional unnecessary public health and safety problems. now i'm done. thank you. [applause] thank you, paul. >> thank you. i hate to disagree with my good

glasser, but i am not a -- an expert on the marijuana debate. i am coming out of the gay marriage debate. all of that brings disadvantages in things of expertise. it also brings advantages in terms of seeing things with fresh eyes. i have to tell you, among the public policy debates i have explored, this is not one of the better managed. there is a lot of hysteria, a lot of hype, a lot of dogmatic certainty about what's going to happen. i think the best advice i heard is from my niece who at the time was 3 years old, who at the time said, "everybody please calm down." i think the news is pretty good. i am a -- of the militant modl, moderate outcomes are pretty easonable to expect.

there are a lot of optimistic things to take from the marijuana debate. it is extremely easy to improve on the present policy. almost anything you do is better than the present policy. eisenhower was once asked what nixon had done to contribute to the -- vice president nixon to the administration, what his accomplishments had been over the past eight years and eisenhower famously replied, "if you give me a week, i might think of something good about what we have now, but i might actually not." good news number three, getting implementation right on this is difficult. it is just difficult.

but the good news, getting the process right is very, very easy something else that makes this a bit easier, there are really only two credible interpret tiffs that you can do right now. they are both pretty well nderstood at this point. having said that, in the us its because of federal law and

treaty obligations, that is out of the question right now. that is already two models. you have heard about one is the -- nal zation, maryland criminalization in maryland. these two things are not as .ifferent -- in some respects, they become more important. he main difference between disseminization and regulating legalization, is who dribs marijuana.

legally by commerg enterprises, those are indeed two very, very different paths forward. you know, that's not the world's' yelft choice. i would argue in fact, i'm less scared of commercial zation. but i'd like to point out, you forget, when big companies market stuff, you know their address. you know who to write to, and you know who to legislate about if they start messing it up. and that's very important to have a responsible entity, and by and large, big corporations are pretty responsible when it comes to following the law. that isn't to say we like what they do all the time or we like their lobbying operations and everything else, but we know where to find them, and that is certainly not true of the marijuana underground right now. i would also remind us that the

illegal system is also pretty darn good at marketing, especially to children. children try this stuff all the time. we know that, right? in fact, not only does the illegal system market to children, it uses children to market to children. something that even an hufere busch does not -- annheuser busch does not do. what you don't have with illegal marketing, and that is regulation. here, again, in my opinion, we have models for that. i may disagree with sue on this, i would argue those actions are relatively successful in the real world given the alternative. there are two or three, depending on how you count, one is industry self-regulation, which is what the gamla institute does.

one is a hybrid. and a third is tobacco, which i think is the most interesting, the most applicable to marijuana the alcohol market. in 1999 congress struck down gambling ads on tv. since they, the industry set up its own regulatory guidelines and counls that the code of to use designed celebrities designed to appeal customers, college agent -- featuring college athletes. it is true that you don't turn on the tv or look in the newspaper and see tons and tons of ads and go out and gamble. unless they are by the

overnment. alcohol is a huge market. the idea you can repress selling this to kids or any other market, it is just not going to happen. alcohol is labeled. it is labeled by the alcohol and tobacco regulations. the industry otherwise is self-regulated by the beer institute, the distilled spirits council, the wine institute. they have guidelines. we can argue about how well that works. -- guidelines for strictly selling to adults. found more than 90% of ad

impressions were in fact meeting the 70% failure. that is certainly not perfect. we know sports sponsorships are allowed. this is maybe not a perfect world. remember that alcohol is more than one industry. marijuana comes out looking more like wine, for example, and less like beer, then i think we'd say that is actually a pretty good outcome. then we have tobacco. tobacco is directly applicable to marijuana. a drug.is canibus obviously is a drug. in 2009, which is very recent history, enough so that we don't have to talk too much about gridlocking congress with the phenomena since then, congress passed the tobacco control act, bust is is a very row ystem of regulation. it is interesting that the

products marketing to children, the tie shown us were not mainstream products under f.d.a. control. that's a loophole. but that is not the main regulatory. there are nine specific warning messages that must be equally and randomly displayed on packages. they must cover at least half the packages. no flavored cigarettes. o claims of reduced harm without prior in to f.d.a. approval. only face-to-face sales are allowed, which w a few limited exemptions. limits on color and design of packaging and advertisements. there is a lawsuit now as applied basis to that, but fts fairly narrow. the sponsorship of sporting events or entertaining events is banned. free samples are banned.

could go on and on. i sometimes said, one, you legalize -- when you legalize marijuana, there is no stopping the first amendment, there is no way you can stop these guys from advertising this stuff. well, tobacco is here to prove otherwise. all of these models exist. one of them is clearly, i think, indisputeably applicable. i think we have some pretty options for dealing with commercial zation. that isn't to say that we'll get it right. it is to say that it is serble -- certainly not certain we are going to get this wrong.

thank you for all your topics. i will invite my p a. nelists to sit up here, and we will ask questions of the panel. are our mics on? re we good here? let me first say, i learned a ton, and i am more confused now than when we started, which is always a good sign that you confronted some comprtees and facts that you hpt before.

i think we have among three if not four of the panelists that in theory, if we're going to have legalization at all, the best way forward would be a government monopoly of the product. i know alice does not agree, but i sense that's something that all three of you would agree with. we live if an era where, you know, the public can't imagine the public doing anything right. yet if i go to buy liquor in maryland, pennsylvania, or utah, or any number of other states, i have to go to an a.b.c. store, alcohol beverage control. it is a government store. only in montgomery county. that's right. that's right. montgomery county has

some loopholes because there are a few stores which the kids go to, by the way, to get their alcohol. i know this because of having kids in montgomery county. this is something we've had in america 70 or 80 years since the end of prohibition. what's wrong with, and why can't we have, marijuana sold by governments to government stores , limited in the types of products that it sells, no fruit-flavored drinks, no waxes and hand lotions with a price that's set as mark said at least at the current price, and a limit basically no market. why wouldn't that solve the problem of making sure marijuana is available for adults who want t and would restrict the inevitable increase? this? 'll start with mark.

i don't see a -- other than that, i don't see a down side of the public legalization. in your opinion, the federal government should somehow make that happen. mechanically, how do you make that happen? >> mechanically -- and i want to disagree a little with jonathan. a lot of this can't be done by depsh the as long as state of maryland could not tell employees to commit a federal felony, which is what marijuana is, so the state store option is not available.

once california legalizes it in 2016, which it almost certainly will, and we have a multibillion dollar commercial canibus industry, the prospects of rolling over that industry to retrofit a public monopoly, it seems to me, are very slim. on the other happened, if there were a bill in congress next year, if there is any state that wants to legalize can legalize, and it is actually legal, not just sort of tolerated by the federal government, but only if it has state endorsement, i can imagine canibus legalization saying, well, not what i really want, but it is better than what we got now. and i thought i could imagine people on the anti-drug saying, well, it is not what we really want but it is better than what e were going to get. that's what i propose, you can legalize, any state that wants

to legalize, under the following condition, and make that the national frame work. and not have the congress dictate what every state should do, have the congress dwick at a ime what every state may do. the problem with having canibus quasi-legal in many states is not a good option. the congress sid, well, it is a felony to handle an account for the marijuana business, but we probably won't get you if you do that. really, this is not satisfactory. i actually think we need to, if we are going to do it legally, we have to do it legally. the system would end up issuing state licenses is at best a transitional mechanism. it is not something we should be happy with. remember, everybody in that business is completely at risk of president huckabee as attorney general indicting them

for stuff they are doing now that the current justice department guidelines say they won't prosecute for. t is a crazy system. >> well, as the resident questioner of marijuana legalization, i'd like to hear your opinion. >> first we should step back and talk about our terms. are we talking about monopoly, are we talking about state stores? washington had a monopoly for liquor. we weren't a monopoly for the products in the stores. if you have private entity producing the product, they are going to be marketing those roducts. >> that's my proposal, to get way from the commercial model. you can write the vendor

estrictions. so we all know, there is no first amendment protection of marijuana right now, because it is an illegal product. there is a question whether free speech constitutional protections would apply, but as long as marijuana remains illegal, there is no first amendment protection of advertising. setting all that aside just as a policy goal, if you are talking about having government produce the marijuana that's going to be sold, then you should be looking at places where that's happening right now, like the united states which has a government monopoly on not medical marijuana, but marijuana produced for medical and scientific research. i don't think it would be difficult to say that the marijuana is going to have an mpact on the black market.

if you are looking at just the stores being the government monopoly, you are talking about government -- whether the clerk is responsible for not selling to under-aged people, if hard alcohol will be next to the wheaties in the safeway or whether it will be in a separate building so you are taking away some of the ease and accessability? all those policy choices are available in a private market scomprks they are actually the privacy policies we made in initiative 502. we forced the storse to be stand-alone stores. we gave the regulatory agency the ability to decide how many stores there should be, how how many there could be, and we wrote into the law that the

policy choices had to be adequate availability to make the market, but not promote the market. so i think when we imagine that government control over marijuana is going to achieve splg we can't achieve through writing a better law, that we are not necessarily basing that on any good data. >> let me pick up on that and go to something that my friend jonathan talked about, which is his sense that things aren't -- are happening in a beneficial way as we do the state-by-states pproach. >> i think most people would agree that the way washington has regulate sd as good a system as we have at this point. what assurances do we have that every state will be as responsible as washington?

the state to the south of you, oregon, there was a referendum on the ballot to legalize marijuana, and it would be controlled by a group that would itself be controlled by marijuana producers. what it did, what you didn't have, what the voters of oregon almost did, was build regulatory capture into the system. >> they didn't. >> they didn't, but they came close. >> but the two states that have -- if you are looking for ssurances that state legislatures and the public will always do the right thing, you are in the wrong state. you try stuff, and eventually you count on the good sense of the public to make decent choices. by don't think we actually know

which is going to be better, for example, as a regulated government monopoly. what i really wish would happen is that congress would pass a bill allowing regulatory positions to be tried. of corks congress is not about to do that. >> sue, you've -- your organization has maintained a position of being against legalization just as a matter of policy. is it your sense that the upporters of your position can -- but you've also said, if we are going to have legalization, you would run a very tightly regulated system. is it your sense that that's what the public is? that to john's point that the this knows -- wants freedom, but wants it carefully

regulated and kept out of the hands of children? is that where the public is? do you have some date going orward as jonathan does? i think there are a lot of people in this country that do ant to see legalization, but what we are seeing is the excitement in the press that has picked up on legalization. we are seeing polls that say more than half want legalization. i'm not sure those polls are asking all the right questions. i would like to ask some more. like, do you want a marijuana shop in your community where our kids can go? ility that the inevitab of marijuana legalization is not as strong as we might expect. i'll give you an example. two states that concentrated on to legalize this session have rejected legalization. maine and yesterday new hampshire. they voted down legalization after having approved a

legalization bill earlier in the session. so i don't think it is such a done deal that we suspect. it may be more of a done deal than i'm comfortable with, but i'm not so sure that it is inevitable. >> here's what i think. unless someone who doesn't like scale of full legalization is prepared to propose something short of that, if the opponents of legalization keep saying no, no, no, no, then we're what we're going to get is the alcohol model. i have to disagree with jonathan. i think all of the bells and whistles don't change the fact that the natural legal price of canibus is close to zero, and even stiff taxes on a percentage bases as they have in washington let alone the light taxes they have in colorado, but even a 40% tax of nothing is nothing. and the natural price of it going is pennies.

i don't see anything that's going to keep us from getting the super cheap canibus. >> two interjexes. tobacco is also very cheap. new york charges $6 -- new york's tax is $6 a state. i don't know why it is a given that we go to the alcohol model and not the tobacco model. 80% do not want to see an opening advertising market of marijuana, and that's true even among those who depafere legalization. there is a strong consensus against marketing. for both of those reasons i don't accept this notion that once you legalize anywhere you are suddenly going to be in a world where it is like lego marketing. >> new york city, which has the highest taxes, somewhere between a third and a half of all the cigarettes sold are smuggled, not from leningrad, but from virginia.

so a state-by-state system is going to let the lowest tax state set the price for the whole country. because canibus is much more smugglable than tobacco because it is much more combact. an ounce of canibus is $300. a pack of cigarettes weighs about an ounce, and new york state has a hard time collecting $8 a pack. the notion that we can take a natural commodity price to zero and with a patchwork of state regulations keep it toward its current $10 a gram, i think that's far-fetched. and i think when it goes to $3 a gram women see an increase in consumption, even over and above what you are getting now. i don't think you will see anything on the agenda to stop that. as enthusiastic as people are -- even the folks now voting against canibus legalization, when grover norquist tells them higher taxes are bad, the republicans in the

administration, all of whom were against legalization, when it games to vote on taxes, all voted on the lower tax because taxes are bad. which is the reason i wouldn't do it as taxes, i would do it as an auction on -- otchings on production rights. it is not a tax. it gets you to the same place. a canibus cap and trade. i don't see any reason to think that we are not currently on a track that has -- to have very cheap canibus. if it is very cheap, it almost doesn't matter how it is marketed. >> i want to hope up to the folks in the audience who have some questions. if we have a microphone, so please, this gentleman right here, we can start. state your name and affiliation if you have one. >> this is david gordon, the chronicle newsletter.

my question has to do with the idea that marijuana could be a substitute for a use of alcohol. people like me attended to assume that it is. > so suppose it turns out that -- could a commercialized industry, even a robust one with lower prices be a good think thing? as an indirect means of reducing alcohol abuse with its greater ublic health consequences.

>> that is a good point. if that turns out to be true, then legalization is a good thing. whether it is better for society is a maleable fact. for example, on the impaired driving situation, i would like to say a law that tests positive for canibus, you have a b.a.c. of zero. encourage marijuana and canibus as things to do separately, not together. it it turns out there are compliments either simultaneously or over time, if getting huh bit waited to heavy canibus use leads you to drinking, are you prepared to change your position that we should legalize canibus.

>> good morning. i have appreciated this panel this morning, but one thing that's missing is the conversation about the human cost of marijuana prohibition and the followeding in of african-american and latino entrepreneurs into the corporate tion of the new -- corporatization of the new burgeoning marijuana industry. >> i would talk about the first half of that and say it is important. one of the places i would differ of people in lot this debate, it is true that marijuana consumption is bad for children, but it is also bad for

children to have your dad in jail when they are growing up and have an arrest record. there are costs on both side. >> i don't disagree. -- e issue about engaging there is an opportunity for people to now build welt wealth in their community, to be part of this new marketplace, and it is something that within washington state we worked very hard to engage these communities in the rule-making process so they could have an impact on what the market would look like and also to provide public education on how they could actually get involved in the market. i can tell you, it was a challenge. we didonal take on it is a good job in the 1980's of demonizing anyone that would go nto this business.

there is even this level of shame and embarrassment that i'm actually going to fulfill the stereotypes that were used to perpetuate the war on drugs during the 1908's. o it has been difficult. so we are starting to make inroads. but we are saying, don't let those opportunities to pass you by. i guess from a phisiological standpoint, let's not let it turn into a government monopoly. let's let the people in the community who have been impacted most by marijuana en40'sment have an opportunity to -- enforcement have an opportunity to benefit. >> i think the best advice i could give to minority entrepreneurs and the marijuana business is stay the hell away from it. everybody thinks they are going to get rich in this business. i think the people who are running the venture funds are going to get rich. i think the investors are going

to lose their shirt. everybody assumes it is going to be a legal market with a big market and you are going to sell it at $10 a gram. at $3 a gram people putting $2 million floo setting up a store are going to go broke. i would hate to see minority business owners getting trapped nto this the way minority home owners got trapped into high mortgages. >> yes, a lot will lose their shirts, but some will make money. frankly, if we want to have a good impact on youth in communities of color, we should have their community members running the stores. we should not have the white kids from the privileged neighborhoods going into the communities and selling them the substance. we should have the neighbors running these businesses. i completely disagree that minority entrepreneurs should stay away from this business. you need to be shabe shaping this. you need to make sure it doesn't

look like tobacco and alcohol where tobacco and alcohol have i history of going in and targeting minority communities and selling product to them. you can't shape the industry unless you are in and at the table. >> i have a view. that is, if we are completely honest with ourselves, the drug problem is not why we have unequal enforcement of the laws. t is much broader than that. until we recognize it and change it, i think we are missing the mark to say it is only the drug problem. and shame on us. e need to change that. are the people who ultimately make money on this will be an hifere busch inbev who buy up all the old hippie stores and they are the ones that start advertising at the super bowl.

>> or the tobacco industry. >> the truth is, we don't know what kind of market this is going to shape up to be. again, if it is like the wine market, we are in a different world than if it is like the beer market. >> the question is, what is going to be the market? >> it looks like the gala part f the wine market or the chateau rouch part of the wine market. i guess i'm the only one that doesn't think the alcohol and tobacco companies are going to get into this. i think they have negative brand equity for potential canibus consumers, and i think involvement would damage their relationship with existing consumers. buyers.ds on regulatory this could wind up being like tea. a commodity product, not very expensive, not very glam --

glamorous and -- >> not very profitible? >> unless there are regulatory barriers to entry, hard for me to see how you can make big rofits growing this stuff. >> interesting. right here. this gentleman. i'm steve fox with the national canibus industry organization. i'm a little disappointed that there isn't corporate reputation on this panel to talk about what we are doing. also as a co-author of 64 in colorado i would quibble with the idea that colorado is sloppy. things are pretty tightly regulated, restrictions on packaging, labeling and taxes coming in and so on, and verything going very well. my question follows up on what dave asked earlier. you know marijuana is less

harmful than alcohol use. you challenge saying if it turns out the other way, would you change your mind about legalization. so the question is, why shouldn't the industry be able to advertise freely and market marijuana as a substitute for alcohol so that we can actually diminish alcohol use in the country, have people be encouraged to use marijuana instead and have a positive public health impact. >> if it were true that canibus were a substitute for alcohol, there would be an argument for having lower taxes and looser regulations on canibus. at the moment there is precisely zero evidence of that. ncia wants to start running anti-booze ads, i'm entirely on your side. my understand sg there has been discussions about us all being anti-prohibitionists together.

i expect the industry to do what makes it the most money, and i expect that not to be in the public's interest. >> i would disagree with what you said. colorado is wanting to be a tightly run market. colorado leel legalized medical marijuana in 2000, and two studies that came out last year suggest that the regulatory system is awful. so i'm going to have to follow you around when i go to congress ecause of your report. >> we might want to remember, the regulatory system in illegal states is also extremely bad, as much as so in colorado and washington. >> good morning. i don't have any particular affiliation. i would like to pose a question to the entire panel, maybe mr.

kleiman in particular. i assume we are running on the assumption that what we're trying to do is diminish the size of an illegal market. i'm wonder erg if you suggest that the government would directly regulate even throw monopoly the business, wouldn't that then create multiple incentives for their to be a black market running concurrently to the federal market ix -- market, marketing for children, for people that might want to circumvent the registration and quota regime that you suggest. so i just put that out there. >> it is a good question, which requires a slightly extensive answer. in the short run and the long run. in the short run, the regulatory system in washington has to compete with an i willist market and an unregulated market.

that puts an up or down on how tight the regulations can be. also, it seems to me, it puts a premium on law enforcement. the day before you legalize canibus, if you arrest the marijuana dealer, all you are doing is creating a niche for a new marijuana dealer. not really reducing the supply of marijuana at all. the day after you legalize, you can arrest an illegal dealer, and you can push his customers toward an illegal market. paradoxcally, the benefits of canibus law enforcement against illegal production in sale go up with legalization. they don't go up for very long. after a couple years, there woint won't be an illegal market, anymore than there is a ubstantial moonshine whiskey market. there are states with these laws, but as alison pointed out, people want the legal product. it is better, it is cheaper, it

is labeled. so unless the legal market has big advantages, the legal market is going to wipe it out. but it is going to require a little help from law enforcement to get there. once you have wiped out the illegal market, then you can be more aggressive on both taxation and regulation. i think the idea that we should ban the concentrates in the legal market at the moment would simply set up an illegal concentrated market. the one thing we have to admit, and this really goes along with sue's point, there is not very much we can do to keep something that's available to adults away from kids. we can keep the stores from selling to kids. we do a pretty good job of that with alcohol. that doesn't do too much to keep them from getting alcohol. and in fact, if minors are going to smoke canibus, which they are, i would rather have them get processed, tested, and labeled canibus diverted from the state system than strictly illegal canibus. so i would work hard to keep

them from buying directly from the state stores, and admit to the fact that the shoulder-tapping market is going to happen. > the gentleman back here. >> i'm eric sterling. i wear a lot of different marijuana-related facts. in your opinion, what are conversations families should have about marijuana use to discourage young people from using marijuana in either the current -- national discourse or in the current legalization environment? i'm on the montgomery county council -- alcohol and drug abuse advisory council. we're struggling to figure out, what should we be saying in

schools? what should families be saying ideas are no longer valid? >> sounds like a question coming to me. >> it sure does. >> i think it is important to understand that as the country accepts marijuana, first as a medicine and more recently for ecreational use in two states, that that message coming to children is it's a safe drug. gee, mom, it's medicine. why can't i use it anyway? the question about alcohol and tobacco is the same as with marijuana whether it is legal or not and any other aticketive drug. you have to be honest with your children and you have to be certain -- the research shows this -- you have to be certain that you make a protective cocoon around your children, and you set guidelines for which

there are consequences if they are broken. that's the most effective way a family can protect their children. the second most effective way is to get together with the other families -- the other parents of your child's closest friends and make a larger cocoon for those children. we don't tolerate alcohol use, we don't tolerate marijuana use. whether it is legal or not. we don't tolerate tobacco use for kids who are under age, whether it is legal or not. it is not good for you. it will hurt your brain. it will hurt your development. as long as you can get a peer group to reinforce that message with children, you have your best chance of protecting them. but make no mistake, legalizing marijuana gives the wrong message to kids, and what we're seeing is increases in marijuana use since the discussion about that began in the early 1990's. >> i just have to ask you about

that. does your web site say is that the reason the drug war failed is because we criticized it and we should all be accepting of it. that's the status quo. it's failing. i would love it if more folks would just recognize that. in ferms terms of what you say about kids, i'm not a parent, so i don't really know. positionom a different in which the zero tolerance message is -- i come from a jewish tradition where we had alcohol. very, very bad tasting alcohol, every friday night as part of a family ritual. one thing that does is familiarize me with it, to make this sort of a routine part of your life, so when the other kids are just drinking up a storm because gosh i must be grown up to do this illicit thing, we are going, gosh, that is so boring. so i am not really sold on this zero tolerance, don't discuss it

message. i think it is a failure. >> i agree with you about the idea of it being around the children, but the messages are so important. not only is zero tolerance perhaps creating this forbidden fruit dynamic, but it is not credible. if we lose credibility with our parents -- parents are the ones that children are looking up to. as long as they are kids, and they are teens, and then they proactively push forward, and i'm not looking forward to that, but if you establish that relationship and expectations, but the expectations should be, i want you to wait and here's why. i can give you the brain science. but i think what both of you are saying, we ought to not think the truth will set us freement

we ought to look at what's been effective with tobacco, but it is focusing on not just the science, but it is focusing on what teenagers care about. let's spend some money on what actually works, regardless of whether it is scientifically accurate. and have the science there, have the truth, bhu be strategic as well. >> let me just say that that your bad tasting wine on friday nights is really quite a different scenario from what kids face today with alcohol for example, where they are exposed to it by their frandse friends, by parents who allow it to happen, and allow other people's children to come to their home and serve alcohol to them, even though they are under age that's really the pressure you are fighting. it will be the same and it is the same with marijuana, and it

is the same with marijuana and any other addictive drug. have you to set standards, and you have to set guidelines. and no until you are grown up is . very good message you're new to our field. >> here's another good science. the american jewish population has alcohol prevalence near 1%. everyone who is even ethnically jewish has used alcohol and as simon said, used it very early. and the alcohol abuse in that population is very low. there are other groups with higher rates of alcohol and higher rates of alcohol abuse. i think we should be focusing on not which substances kids use but on whether they lose control of their behavior. and i think modern prevention of science is all around self-command, not around

specific risk behaviors. so if a family wants to say, no alcohol for you until you are 21, that's a reasonable guideline. i'm not sure it's the only guideline, and i'm not sure it's the best. >> we have five more minutes, and i want to get more questions in. let's do three questions, a lightning round here. keep your question very short. >> there are two things i didn't hear in this panel that could focus on the industry, the canibus industry "home grow" and market interest gation. obviously colorado and washington have different ideas on that, and i wanted to see your opinion on the pros and ons. >> price and availability are

really only part of the equation. cigarettes are much cheaper and more available to kids than marijuana, and yet fewer kids use cigarettes than marijuana. sort of related to that, a lot of the concern of the corporate take-over of marijuana seems to be disdain toward the idea of people getting rich selling marijuana. so rather than artifically inflating the price of marijuana and focusing on supply reduction, if the natural costs of marijuana is zero, let it be zero, and focus on demand reduction. there is every reason to believe based on our reduction of cigarettes, that that's a much more effective approach. >> and this gentleman right here. banks w weeks ago, how could provide banking to marijuana businesses, i was curious if you could see where that was going and if that will have impact on moving away from

the medical marijuana business. >> so we have home grown, we have the possibility that lowering the price to zero won't be a bad thing, and we've got the banking issue. you want to take those -- lease. >> the single most effective technique to make drugs less available for kids is to raise the price. all the studies show that. the more expensive the price is, the fewer kids use it. >> home grown. is that not the way to go? >> home grown would have been interesting alternative to commercial growth. i think we're past that. the problem with home grow in a

world where it is legal only in some states is that home grow can be a cover for commercial production, and i think it is very hard to get that under control. we'll see what happens. so colorado and washington gave us the contrast cases. washington does not allow home grow, colorado does, and we'll see if the home grow in colorado turns out to be a problem. if it doesn't, i certainly have no objection to it. >> laboratories of democracy. >> can i piggyback on home grow? the reason we didn't have home grow in washington is because it didn't poll well. we can home grow, we can home brew beer or wine. we preefer the convenience of a store. i don't think home grow has any impact on the market. i also think home grow has a strategy for undermining the black market misses the point is the greatest concentration of demand is in an urban market

where people live in an apartment and they aren't going to grow their own. i don't think home grow makes that much sense. >> i think it is a great idea the treasury is trying to get out of the way. i think most banks won't accept the bait, but most banks don't have to accept the bait. somebody will play. this will not be an aall cash business, and that's a good thing. >> we have that in washington. spokane is going to go forward with the guidance. and i agree with mark, one or two credits go, we take care of the problem. >> folks, thank you very much. what a great panel. show your appreciation. thank you all for coming. thank you, new america, for hosting this. thank you to the c-span audience. we really appreciate it. >> colorado is getting ready to crack down on medical rarn patients and care givers whose

doctors have given them more than a standard number of marijuana plants. starting monday the denver post reports that monday colorado's government will send letters to doctors doctors requiring them to provide more documentation on the need for extra plants. >> the chair of the republican study committee steve scalise will join us tomorrow on news makers to talk about promoting republican ideas in congress and among voters. you can watch that interview at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> c-span bringing public affairs events from washington directly to you. white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering coveragegavel-to-gavel as a public service industry. c-span created by the cable industry 35 years ago and

brought to you by your local producer.atellite watch us in hd and follow on facebook and twitter. host: we will talk u.s. and mikaila icy with dodge. how are russia's actions in crimea changed the playing field for missile defense in europe? guest: for us, we tend to think of russia as this changed country toward the end of the cold war by demonstrated acts of aggression in crimea in georgia, it shows us that we have to start thinking seriously about russia as a potential adversary, and we have to adjust our missile defense and clear weapons policies accordingly. host: some people might wonder

why we are being quick to go into a cold war set of mindset here. here's eugene robinson's column in the "the washington post" from earlier this week. "tilting at cold war windbags ." eugene robinson writes these are not the 1980's and this is not the cold war. i believe most americans realize this and some day the hawkish wing of the republican party will catch up with it. why are we talking missile efense and nukes as well?

we're talking the u.s. and what russia has on the other side. it has launched the most significant nuclear weapons and listed missile modernization since the end of the cold war. -- and ballistic missile modernization since the end of the cold war. count as one even though they can carry even more nuclear warheads. and -- other capabilities for russia here? guest: the problem is russia is violating the arms obligations under the conventional use treaty of the u.s.. missiles have arranged

to attack allies in europe. treaty it up under the and we are not violating our arms control obligations. in anpresident obama, appearance this weekend, talked about his assessment of russia. i want to play that and get your response. here's what president obama had to say. [video clip] >> russia's actions are a problem. they don't pose the number one national security threats to the united states. i am much more concerned would come to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon isng off in manhattan, which part of the reason why the united states is showing its continued international andership and has organized ability to eliminate that threat and a consistent way. host: do you think the president

has the priorities correct? we should not dismiss the danger of a nuclear weapon going off in u.s. territory. a russian threat is more immediate. it they are doing bad things right now. it is not as easy to detonate a nuclear weapon in manhattan as it was for russia to annexed crimea. that is what we should be concerned about. if our responses week, vladimir -- he stated he wants to do those things. that is what we should be concerned about. if you want to join in the conversation, questions or comments for her, you can call --

can you give us a status update on missile defense in the united states and in europe as well? in the u.s. we have 30 ground-based missile interceptors that protect us from lesshes sophisticated missile threats, like north korea or potentially iran. host: these are missiles that shoot down other missiles? guest: they are kinetic warheads that are positioned into a path of the incoming adversary missiles. why sheer force of impact they destroy the incoming missile. the president has a european-based approach. construction sites are going on in romania and poland. there will be a little that they

will be ballistic missile defense systems. -- have standard host: you used the term -- it is a multistep row graham president obama announced. -- multistep program president obama announced. guest: it's a multistep andram when we deploy more more advanced capabilities to protect our european allies. host: it is a for phased row graham. fourar along are we -- phase program. how far along are we? guest: have three phases now.

it is adaptive. saysbama administration the threat is not long-range, it -- that would be interceptors capable of shooting down long-range missiles, potentially heading for the united states. the systems are under construction, both in poland and romania. deployed additional missile defense to the mediterranean. guest: another one of these systems? -- host: another one of the systems? sea-based, it is a system. the core of the system is very similar. enemyng down the

ballistic missiles is the same. host: are these spread out all across the country or are they clustered in certain parts of the country? for the homeland defense, interceptors are in alaska and california. for sea-based ballistic missile defense, those systems are on ships. the you can move the ship to where you see the threat. japan,re ships around around north korea. the point being we can move them, depending on where the threat is and where we think they will be most useful. host: we are talking with michaela dodge from the heritage foundation. she's a policy analyst on defense and strategic policy. we are here to talk u.s. missile defense systems. jackll call -- start with

from rhode island. law -- seean see the the young lady is an expert on this issue. i know quite a bit on it myself read i thought i was equal on it -- myself. i thought i was equal on it but she knows more. what we have to factor into -- concerning the russian people, is that they are a very proud people. mostwould start the awesome packed in the history of warfare when they launched the campaign in 1941. i don't think any other nation would have cornered that off. the german army was the best. and even captured ukraine the entire i -- captured ukraine.

vladimir putin is very very popular and the russians wanted to do more. , ex kgb, iery shrewd believe he is going to operate slowly because in 1991 he said the collapse of the soviet union was a debacle. this is what i want to throw out there, they withstood the most awesome attack. if the germans succeeded in that we would've had a cold war with them. i want to hear what you have to say about all of this. host: jack bringing up some of the history here and also saying that these defense systems should have been in sooner. you.: i do agree with currently we are lagging behind. potentially not only from russia, that has a sheer quantity of ballistic missiles,

but potentially from north korea or iran. if our information is wrong we will be surprised and we will be vulnerable. with respect to russia, we are right -- you are right. we are not extremely competent but they do have sheer numbers and endurance that his admirer bull in a way. bull -- admirer able in a way. putin is popular because people miss cold war times when everything was organized, when you had a steady job and didn't have to think that much independently. you could take the failures of the system and say it was a failure of idea and not a failure of your own choice. that is a theory of mass

movements. is a veryght, it dangerous situation. is going to be very difficult to do anything about it. we are talking about the history of the military in russia and the united states. not goingt history, so far back. jack was talking about world war ii. as a history of spending on the military from 1988 to 2012. you can see on the left side of that chart is the united states military spending. the far left barbie 1998 and the being 2012, when spending was up to $692 billion. red,ar right side, in the is russians spending from 1988, when it was up to $384 billion bid it dropped very quickly in the late 80's and early 90's.

in 2012 it is up to $93.8 billion. helpful -- some helpful numbers from "the washington post." we were talking about missile interrupters. "what kind of debris is debrised?" most of the burns off into the atmosphere. not really a concern. it's more of a concern for terminal phase intercepts, the last stage when a ballistic missile is really close to its target. if there is a weapon of mass destruction, you don't want it to go off on unintended. when it comes to intercept, debris is a concern for

discrimination and tracking because there is a lot of stuff lying around that makes it more difficult to intercept. it's not really a concern from a safety concern. host: we talked about the u.s. missile defense system. how long does a system have if one of these missiles is launched from russia? how much time does it take to get to the u.s.? how much time do military officials have to react? guest: the time is very short. for the longest flight, it's half an hour. so the window is when you have to track, make calculations and decide whether you will intercept it or not. it is very short. within 10-15 minutes. depending on how fast you decide and where you will intercept, you might get a second shot at the incoming missile. just in case the first shot fails.

but you have a very short time line, which makes it very challenging. host: has that timeline trunk since cold war days? have missiles gotten faster? guest: it's about the same. waiting in st. louis, missouri on our line for democrats. good morning. morning, everyone. ask, what sheo worth foreign policy is for the u.s. to ratchet up with the russians win, strategically, the europeans should be taking the lead along with nato to counter any soviet posturing,

which is what i think they are doing now. i don't believe they have the economy or the long-term interests to create a conflict in europe. why is the heritage foundation interested in ratcheting up tensions and talking about antimissile defense when what we are talking about here is the diplomatic solution? president obama seems to have the right twist on things. i am a democrat and support president obama. it seems to me that the , have as, along with us lot more economic clout and could do things together without ratcheting up talk of antimissile defenses.

i do agree that europeans should be taking the lead. but we should be taking the lead with the u.s. the matter is too important for a nato alliance. some of the baltic states have as much as 25% of russian speaking population. utin said he does not like nato on territories that were former parts of the warsaw pact. this regard to democratic choices of the people of the country. big ideas are too big to hide. seriously.take putin so far, our policy has been very good on russia. reactive tradey and has not been proactive. it has been blasted by vladimir putin. that could send exactly the wrong signal and embolden him to or actions onures

the european theater. it's not the u.s. that is ratcheting up the aggression in russia with its anti-ballistic missile systems. thatn't have a system would help us with russian ballistic missile threats. they have too many ballistic missiles. our missile defense systems are currently designed to address less sophisticated threats from countries like north korea or iran. they are not designed to address russia. that is a problem. with ballistic missiles, russia could hold our allies in europe or the u.s. hostage. that is what we don't want. we want freedom of action to stabilize things before they come more serious or spun out of

control. because of miscalculations or projections of weakness or misinterpretations in putin's had. host: what would be the cost of deploying a missile defense capable of covering 100% of any russia launches? would bech a system impossible. you will probably never have 100% success rate. even the most sophisticated, most advanced systems to not have 100% success rates. -- dold be looking at have a bullet stick missile defense system that gives you some sort of comprehensive protection against russian ballistic missiles, you would probably have to double up space-based missile defense systems, which would be more expensive. the cost of those systems would be far less than the damage an

incoming ballistic missile would do. host: let's talk about the cost of missile defense in the u.s. in terms of its budget line in the 2015 budget. how much is the u.s. asked to spend on missile defense? aest: the president asked for $.5 billion to be spent on missile defense. host: how did that compare with previous years? guest: it might be a slight increase in terms of plastic missile defense spending. 1.5% ofill less than the overall defense budget, which is less than four percent of gdp. if you think about the damage that an incoming missile could cost to the u.s. if it hit economic centers, the costs are very negligible. defense alsossile involved in some of the programs we talked about earlier in europe.

how much are the european nations themselves spending on their own missile defense? guest: it depends nation by nation. the pols have launched a modernization program of their military. barry adjusted in buying air defense and short-range ballistic missile defense. a lot of the cost associated construction of the sites and transport and political support, those are the costs that romania and poland carried. host: you have been at the heritage foundation for four years. she is here to take your calls and comments this morning as we talked about missile defense. we will go to tim, waiting in michigan on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: how are you doing come everybody? i just had a question -- i want to ask her about the possibility

of star wars. killer satellites and space. i want to hear you expound on that. the star wars ballistic missiles program was what was known as strategic defense initiative programs. it was a comprehensive program with space-based capabilities and ground-based capabilities. that is the type of capability that we need to address more robust ballistic threats. it is because of timelines involved and relative costs to ground-based interceptors. i do think come at the end of the day, if we are going to be serious about protecting the u.s. and its allies from a ballistic missile threat, from a

comprehensive ballistic missile threat, we will have to go to .pace host: we want to get you to respond to sam's comment on our twitter page. he says, "there is no win when it comes to nukes." win here?he u.s. guest: the wind is in that nuclear weapons are not used. those requirements of the deterrence might be different than requirements for war fighting. with war fighting, you might think, 200 nuclear weapons can destroy the world 40 times over. that is true. if your goal is to never get to the point where your adversary thinks he gets a benefit of using a nuclear weapon. that is why you need defenses and credible, nuclear posture and conventional posture. you need to figure out what your

adversary values. caller: let's go to steve waiting out in new york on our line for independents. good morning. ♪ good morning. good morning. isn't it early to be talking about rocket bombs? isn't that saber rattling? don't we need to find a way for putin to gracefully back down? khrushchev had to take the missiles out of cuba. he was seen by the russian leadership as weak and got fired. who would probably face the same would probably

face the same thing. if russia compensated the square with an equal , giving partimea of russia to ukraine and free gas and oil to the ukraine forever -- host: possible diplomatic solutions as opposed to provoking russia with this discussion. your thoughts? guest: so far, our policy has been very reactive. it has not been provoking at all. i don't think there is a graceful solution for mr. putin that he would consider graceful. russian -- crimea as with respect to nuclear weapons, late.lmost too we have not been paying attention to our nuclear weapons

infrastructure since the end of the cold war. there has been very little thinking about those systems and our pressureust for the threats we face today. i'm not talking about russia, but about iran and north korea. what is the nuclear dynamic in the nuclear age after the cold war? there's a tremendous intellectual gap. that is what we need to focus on also. host: what are the u.s. agencies that are responsible for maintaining missile defense and the u.s. nuclear arsenal? guest: it's the missile defense agency. host: that $8.5 billion we talked about? guest: yes. some of the ballistic missile defense programs are within the navy and the army. the navy ships are multipurpose.

not only for missile defense -- they do other things, too. when it comes to nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads responsibility lies with the department of energy with the nuclear security administration. the air force and the navy are responsible for delivery systems and intercontinental reach ballistic missiles. the navy for the strategic summering. summering. -- strategic submarine. are within the air force area response ability. for thethem are intelligence community. we use them to get our for them to' data have better pictures. host: let's go to stephen in new york on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span.

i want to know why anybody is listening to the heritage foundation anymore. they are owned by the defense operations. they supply misinformation that got us into iraq and killed millions of people. all the heritage foundation wants is more alms, more war, more tension. arms, more war, more tension. guest: the majority of our americans.es from the majority of our funding the nations that are less than $50. we currently have over 600,000 members. we did not provide any information that would get us to iraq. our goal and defense policy is for the u.s. to be able to stabilizing presence

and leadership that it has exercised since the end of the cold war. secondhe end of the worl world war. we know what happens when we disengage. we disengaged after the end of the first world war. it led to the second world war. u.s. needs military tools and diplomatic tools to be able to choose our freedom of action and exercise leadership and to help to prevent conflict before they spin out of control. host: we will go to one more. steve is waiting in main on our line for republicans. good morning. to yourgood morning audience. why should american support actions that could plunge them into a potential conflict with russia? when the people pushing those actions are mostly the same abundance and media yes-men who

have misled the public on the issue of building seven on 9/11 and have ignored the evidence -- hold off on the building seven calls today. hast possible that russia advanced countermeasures that renders the west missile-defense useless -- renders the u.s. missile defense useless? guest: they are not built or designed to deal with russia's ballistic missile threats. they have very advanced systems. they have the course and countermeasures which are difficult for our current systems. we would have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new comprehensive missile defense system in space to address russian ballistic missile threats. we should do it because we should not be vulnerable to russia. the: as we talk about

different warheads that could be on these ballistic missiles, we talked about nuclear warheads. can you talk about the electromagnetic pulse somethinges? is that that is actually possible these days to put on a warhead? absolutely is possible. able to stick missile is one of the best means of delivery detonatehe higher you the weapon, the larger area you impact with electromagnetic pulse. within that infected area, you would have no electricity, no communications. the majority of our systems would not work because we depend so much on electricity for our way of life. you can't turn on the light without electricity or go withdraw money from atms. that is ever more reason to be serious about listed missile-defense. we know that north korea has been provided with

electromagnetic weapons which are nuclear warheads with electromagnetic pulse capabilities. we have to be able to defend ourselves because we don't know what guys and north korea or iran or russia think. jay: let's go to waiting in wisconsin on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. question. a quick previous caller did mention about the heritage foundation and their track record and so forth, is and then more or less pandering to the paranoia of people that have always favored a knee-jerk reaction to these sorts of incidents?

the solution is not building more weapons of mass destruction to protect our atm machines. that is ludicrous. i would be interested in her comments. guest: we are not talking about building more weapons of western traction -- weapons of mass destruction. they have no nuclear components whatsoever. when it comes to u.s. nuclear posture, you want to posture yourself to deter an attack. requirements of deterrence might be different than requirements of war fighting. to nuclear weapons to fight a nuclear war in which nobody wins. it might take more nuclear weapons to deter your adversaries from attacking in the first place. since we have had nuclear weapons, that has been their mission. to protect the u.s. and allies

from adversarial nuclear weapons attacks. we have to figure out what our adversaries think. we have to be postured to defend ourselves and postured to deny adversaries benefits of attacking us. host: i want to ask you a question that was posed by .eorge schultz a piece in the washington post this week. ukraine gave us their nuclear weapons in 1994 partly in exchange for reassurance of its territorial integrity by the u.s., britain and russia. now, one of those reinsurers has taken rhyme you. what are the indications for proliferation? guest: the implications will be that countries that have or are trying to obtain nuclear weapons are going to feel more strongly about not giving up their nuclear weapons.

again, that has very serious implications for our policy and posture and defenses. it is very unfortunate precedents. let's go to our line for republicans. caller: good morning. that ourel ministration is hopelessly naïve putin.derestimating a man who photographs himself someone whois suffers from a napoleonic complex and doubts his masculinity. and sees himself as a conqueror. fighting with plastic button

resets and calling global warming the greatest threat is not a deterrent to putin. -- i'mnching your fists unclenching your fists is a sign of weakness to a predator. philosophytration's -- we are headed in the wrong direction. will ultimately allow iran to get nuclear weapons and the whole middle east will eventually get nuclear weapons. host: he brings up some of these other countries. can you give us your assessment of the capabilities of middle eastern nations and north korea? korea already has

6-8 nuclear warheads. we know that they are very closely cooperating with iran. toy go to north korea observe their nuclear weapons tests. iran is trying to achieve nuclear weapons capability. they are doubling systems that would help them to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. they do not have a nuclear -- north korea has ballistic missiles that can reach hawaii and alaska. advancingrking on their ballistic missile program. the same with iran, who put a -- it made us step up our posture back in the 1960's. it was a satellite.

it was not able to stick missile. technologies are very tricky. host: we have a few minutes left . we will go to robert waiting in massachusetts on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple questions. back in the good old days, when i was in the military, missile defense was to protect our strategic missiles. i was wondering if that still remains true. i have seen that the navy has defense tog on laser shoot down incoming missiles. been developed to where it will be operational soon? weapons have not been modified. they're just sitting there. they are in need of maintenance. is that true? host: several questions there

for you. currently, yes, the navy has the ploy the laser tests in the middle east. the laser systems are not capable enough yet. they don't have the size that would fit on our platforms that we would be able to use them against longer medium-range ballistic missiles. technology doubles and we put our minds on it, we can do it. with respect or nuclear weapons, we have not been testing are nuclear weapons since 1992. program.in a stockpile we test them based on computer modeling from which we have data from the past test and we look and try to account for each

factor. they are on the shelves. we are observing them very closely. even though come in the long run relywould not be able to on computer codes because nuclear weapons are incredibly sophisticated and very difficult and finely tuned devices. we would have to be careful with how we would approach credibility of our nuclear deterrence in the future. host: you brought up the new start treaty. are they treaties in which the u.s. and russia observe each other's stockpiles and can actually assess what each other has in terms of numbers? is that happening ech? guest: there are definitions of what constitutes and accountable system. definitions,system the u.s. and russia exchange data.

they also have inspections to go to the sites. -- theblem is, you start verification regime has degraded. it doesn't allow us to have a good insight into what russians are doing with respect to their strategic modernization. not respect to us, we are modernizing. we are planning on doubling new platforms. we are not developing any nuclear weapons or warheads. there is not much to observe their. since the situation in ukraine and crimea, are those inspections continuing? guest: yes, they have continued. r in: let's go to victo texas on our line for democrats. yoller: i don't want to