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>> jack riley is on your screen. screen, a retired drug enforcement administrator special agent and author. the egg page you say you are compelled to write this book because of the "glorification of el chapo and the drug crisis." what the mean by that? -- do you mean by that? guest: good morning. i was troubled about all the time so many heroic dea agents and policeman and prosecutors spent to bring el chapo to justice. if they go along the border of central and south america, in some cases he is revered as a robin hood figure. the attention he was getting, even in this country, was really getting my attention. if you connect that to his

responsibility for much of the opioid problem we have today in this country specifically when you're talking about deportation of heroin and other more deadly form of fentanyl, el chapo is front and center on that. host: did you see that continue through his trial and his conviction last week? guest: i somewhat did, but i have to tell you -- first of all, let me make it clear. i knew the evidence, i knew the prosecutors and i knew the agents. i knew he was going to get convicted. when i took away from the trial that was somewhat positive was the american people got a glimpse into just how nasty and vicious and cunning these major drug cartel leaders are. i think chapo, other than osama bin laden, i think he is the number one bad guy of our generation. responsible for thousands of deaths. it standszation as

today is still responsible for killing people. host: when did you first hear the name el chapo? guest: 1991. i was attached to a special operations division and we began looking at mexican methamphetamine traffickers, which chapo had a piece of. what got my attention was his ability in terms of logistics. he is a mass murderer of grand proportions, no doubt about it. he is also one heck of a corporate ceo. the did research on the u.s. market to make sure his organization could supply the demand. fruition atcome to the end when the opioid crisis spread. in the early 1990's, in particular we were concentrating still on columbia with the cartels. we were beginning to piece

together the evolution of the mexican cartels. up until that point the cartels in mexico were really not cartels. we referred to them as the federation. they were loosely tied smugglers, not necessarily narcotics traffickers. they would smuggle anything they could to the border for profit. chile peppers, blue jeans, you name it. chapo honed his teeth in his early days as a marijuana smuggler. attended to the logistics of the border -- attuned to the logistics of the border. host: the passage reads, "crime families new violence through unwanted attention to the illicit activity, but guzman never shied away from that attention and had no scruples about killing innocent people to achieve his goals. he built terror into his business plan." top about how he saw that when you worked around the country from chicago and el paso.

guest: absolutely. when i was the boss for dea in 2006 or 2007, juarez was a battlefield. some said it was more dangerous than baghdad or kabul where we were embroiled in military operations. hundreds of people were killed. it was all because chapo was at war with the remnants of two other cartels struggling to control a corridor into the united states. basis and it'sy seared in my mind the deaths that occurred on the streets of juarez. the threat that posed along the border. moving on to chicago a number of years later, of loss of their in boxx up there-

up there,oxss for the first time we saw it was smoked and snorted. that's an important distinction. we so different user groups become addicted and get involved in it. it's an evolution he recognized long before many others. when you are addicted to prescription drugs, either through that prescriptions from a physician or pharmacist, or you acquire it on the street or steal it out of your grandmother's medicine cabinet, at some point it becomes too expensive. but you're still addicted to opioids. what happens and happened for many people in the city and the affluent suburbs is you take the long road down to using heroin. i saw that take hold in chicago. the other thing chapo did was he

formed a toxic alliance with the nearly hundred thousand documents treat gang members in the chicago area who really were his unwitting salesman. they did not realize they were working for him but they were putting the heroine and the drugs on the street. they were those responsible for the spike in violence and homicides and shootings as they begin to protect their area. chapo was pulling the strings from his mountain hideout. for me, i just cannot stand by and do nothing. it started in the early 1990's. my push to make sure we kept an eye on him. i knew what he was capable of. i was afraid if we did not do something what he would become. 2007 was a tough year. i was in el paso. i had naively given an interview to a local newspaper. i said i am here on behalf of

the american people and we are going to go after chapo and do whatever damage we can and hopefully we will apprehend him. itevidently took notice of and shortly after that some of our mexican counterparts contacted us and said they had developed information that chapo put a hit on me. he wanted my head cut off for $100,000, which is pretty cheap. me, even untilor last week, it was almost an obsession. my personal font to make sure -- hunt to make sure he got justice in united states. host: jack riley, former acting deputy administrator of the dea is with us until the top of the hour. we invite you to join in on this conversation. phone lines are of a different. eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. noun or pacific time zones,

(202) 748-8001 -- mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. if you have been impacted by the opioid crisis that is a big part of this book and the work that jack riley has done, (202) 748-8002 is the number. mr. riley, you were about to get there with the story about the pricing your head. can you talk about heidi began this book, the night on the road home from las cruces from el paso? guest: that is why i am so proud of the dea agents that have come before me now and will come after me. it is somewhat of a dangerous job. you kind of get known to the to the fact-- numb that bad guys would like to see you hurt. that was a strange time in 2007. you could not blow it off. shortly after we got the

information he may have put a hit on me -- you can never really verify these things -- i was on my way home late one night. we lived in las cruces, about 40 miles of interstate 10 outside of el paso. as i was getting on the road i noticed a couple of cars city in a closed down fast food restaurant. it was late at night and they driver.ked driver to my first thought was they look like undercover cops waiting for a call or doing their job. as soon as i got on the ramp, their lights came on and away we went. that led me on about a 40-mile high-speed just trying to get away from them. ended up in a schoolyard playground south of las cruces where i thought of that yard i was in real trouble. at the last minute they pulled off and drove away.

i don't know if it was intended to scare me or if they were carjackers. coincidental to what had occurred before. it made me concerned not just for my safety, my family's safety, but for our employees. not just the agents but the civilians who are just as important to our operation, many of whom live front of the border. we even had some that commuted across the border everyday. it changed my mind about how we really have to attack these organizations, but we have to put safety first. host: the book "drug warrior", jack riley with us until 95 this morning. mike is in laguna woods, california. go ahead. caller: good morning, gentlemen. it strikes me that drug prohibition is a foolish replay

of alcohol prohibition, causing all the same social problems. high crime. 's ofpowers the el chapo the world and provides them with billions of dollars. now --been for decades four decades now we have been pursuing this war on drugs. one of the other things that occurred to me recently was that contrary, atdly war with america's founding principles. can i have your comment please? guest: yes, thank you. i will say one thing for me. when i hear the term "war on drugs," it drives me crazy. that the notes a beginning and an end. i don't know that they will be an end to addiction and people misusing drugs, and certainly people that profit from it. i tend to have changed my mind

over the years. i would have told you as a young agent, blood on the streets of chicago, we can arrest our way out of this. i am telling you right now we cannot. i think it is important to have a robust law enforcement presence, both domestically and foreign. foreign is really important because we do a lot more than just narcotic and oarsmen overseas. you talk about the rule of law, institution-building and places that lack that and can affect the security of the united states. i want to make sure you understand that i think we have to rethink a lot of things we are doing in the whole context of the whole drug issue. the wayour education, we are doing it now needs to be really refocused on the most at risk groups. a lot off gets me when people think the only thing we do for education is send a jolly local policeman to a third-rate

school. that is somewhat important, that we need to work on our at risk groups, especially with the opioid considerations now that come from both illegal and legal sources. so we attack the people, we get to the people that are most at risk, young adults, high school age, college kids, young professionals. people who are finding themselves in the grips of addiction. we need to follow up with universal treatment for those and want it, that need it, maybe it is not available or can't afford it. i am not talking about repeat offenders, violent offenders. those problems he to be taken care of with an our correctional institutions. some of the best drug treatment programs are in prisons, which is alarming. but ihinking differently don't think regardless of what we do on legalization, and as i

told congress many times, i am a cop. i don't write the law. i took an oath to enforce the law. that is up to the governing bodies to change that, but i don't think it would eliminate the black market. we are beginning to see that with domestic marijuana sales. host: not jack riley's first time on c-span. testified as the acting deputy administrator of the dea before congress. you can go back to our archives and watch that testimony at c-span.org. thomas is on the line for those who have been impacted by opioids from greenfield, massachusetts. caller: how are you today? guest: good. caller: i'm a little nervous so give me a minute. i personally have been impacted by the opioid crisis. on a personal level. it got me -- he got to my soul.

-- it got to my soul. i only use heroin for a small amount of time because of prescriptions. medoctors overprescribed because of my tonsils being taken out. i knew a friend that happened to be selling heroin. he told me it would take the pain away. i did note i knew it, want to take it anymore but my body needed it. my mind needed it. that i had the family and friends i did because i found recovery and i have been in recovery today for three years. i have a great relationship with my daughter, my parents. hadt my life back because i great people in my life pulled me back from that addiction. host: thank you for sharing your

story. guest: first of all, congratulations. i think what you have been through is a living hell and the way you have emerged really gets my attention. the massachusetts-new hampshire area, the east coast has really been almost for me ground zero for the opioid problems. there are some really innovative programs going on in that part of the country. i can think of several in new hampshire where we are really starting to see community effort except this as an illness and not a crime and make sure we use all of our resources we can to get people back you want to come back. my hat is off to you, sir. you did great. host: your book is about el chapo, that how much blame to you place for the crisis in this country on overprescribing doctors, on pharmaceutical

companies, on pill mills? guest: i was talking to somebody from the american medical association. he said for years physicians going through their medical training were given maybe eight to 10 hours of pain management instruction throughout the whole training. if you look at a veterinarian school, they received 40 to 80 hours on how to treat animals with pain. i think there is an issue clearly with the medical profession. i know they have done a lot in the last several years to try to provide training for physicians to use alternatives to opioid-based drugs. i think that has to continue. you bring up an important thing and it's kind of a pet people of mine. i think the cozy relationship that congress sometimes has with big pharma, the big pharmaceutical companies, is

really something witty to examine. far too often it dea the great work of the agents and investigators will look at these large companies and in my opinion i wanted them to be prosecuted criminally and send them to jail, like the drug dealers i believe they are. but far too often we had to settle for civil fines. when you're suing a $1 billion corporation and you win a civil fine of $100 million, that's like taking a truckload of narco dollars from chapo. effect.ery little it is built into the bottom line and it is the cost of doing business. ceos whok one of those knowingly and repeatedly violates regulations and we prosecuted criminally, i can guarantee you a billionaire ceo will not do too well playing kickball in the prison yard real felons. if we send a message across the

industry that we are serious about it. i think it is something we have to work on. i think we have to work on education and treatment and bring it into the realm of this is part of society's fabric and we have an obligation to help those who want help. host: bob, good morning. caller: good morning. mr. riley, let me see if you are familiar with this. they ran ayears ago the pillry on -- about mills in west virginia. the dea was right on top of them to stop. 15 millionelling pills in a county had a 7100 population. dea whenama told the

they were fixing to bust them, barack obama shut the dea down and he done it because he was getting kicked back money from -- drug drum dealers dealers. he was a conspirator. do was involved letting drugs kill 70,000 people in this country a year. to shut it down. host: mr. riley? isn't anything you know about? guest: i know about the investigation. wehink there is a larger one took care of in south florida where he had pain management clinics. they would move from spot to spot to spot. we had people from all over the country traveling down there to get opioids and returning home and selling them. s in pharmaciesll

that are doing this are every bit -- let me make this clear -- every bit as guilty as the guy with the pistol and announce of heroine standing on the corner. we have to do a better job legislatively to make sure we have got the ability to go after them and shut them down quickly. that wehe criticisms took was we did not move quick enough. we can only move within the constraints of the law. i think that is something we should look into. host: i want to come back to el chapo's story. a passage from your book. "few people knew how much information we have collected about el chapo over the years. we knew so much about him, his habits, his inner circle, his taste for food and entertainment. burriotos and corn did him in." guest: for the first 15 years,

he was kind of an old-school trafficker and stayed off the radar. ineloa, butremote se then he started making mistakes. he would come down to the more highly populated resort areas, cabo san lucas in particular, and he began thinking he was invincible. he had a security apparatus that was probably as good as many mid-level city police departments in terms of visibility to collect information and move around. towards the end he did have a women and certainly other entertainment. he made some mistakes. i think what is important about that part of the book and what we did was we really targeted the people around him. in terms of the way they

communicated. his doctors, his lawyers, his girlfriend. all those things really important for us to build a pattern of life on this guy so we have a better chance of zeroing in and working with our mexican counterparts to try to hook him up. we were able to do that twice. host: what happened after the first time? hest: after the first time did what he has been doing for 20 years. to use all of his money and influence and corruption and rode a motorcycle right out. that was the worst day of my life. host: hatted you find out? -- how did you find out? guest: he had been out for about an hour and a half. my sun called me and he said, dad, chapo is out. there is no way. i turned on the cable news and there it was. obviously we started -- i called

our command center. they called the chief of hadation and the mexicans not even notified our guys in mexico for several hours, which i was not happy about. i think they thought they could apprehend him or they were trying to figure out what to do for damage control. several months before that, i had traveled to mexico city for a meeting. i had an opportunity to speak to the head of the federal police. about too much before he escaped, we were hearing some chatter and information he might be tunneling out. i took the opportunity to tell the head of the federal police at the meeting. he looked at me like i was from mars. how dare i tell them how to do his job? several months later out the tunnel he went. i found it strange that kept them in the same ce the wholel time he was incarcerated on the first floorl. if you put two and two together of chapo's history, it was not a

good move on their part. host: are you concerned he will escape again? guest: not in this country. he is where he prolong. -- belongs. i'm sure there will be callers that will say what is the thing to sineloa, and we can talk about that. point is we were not only able to capture him once, the build trusting relationships with some of our mexican counterparts which was a tough thing to do and took years and years to do. and to extradite him, have been face justice in the united states and hopefully get a life sentence and then go to a place where he is going to have the rest of his life to think about it, i think it is worse for him then taking a bullet from one of his rivals. what he is about to endure. for me personally, i like where he is sitting.

host: brought in, massachusetts. brian, good morning. caller: good morning, mr. riley. there is so much i would love to say. i was first going to mention going back to the 1800s and the dutch american robber barons and the lpn moores -- opium wars in china in the 1800s and many people profited from it and how it will never stop. just like prostitution. the other thing i wanted to mention was the pendulum swings one way. the guy from alabama blaming obama and the tennessee drug dealer and how much they were trying to help people with chronic pain. i familiar with a person with chronic pain. it makes me think of when we were in afghanistan and the pakistani guy had to carry water to the well was addicted to heroin and how heroin is

different from any other drug as far as addiction and the stigma attached. it is delicate physical choice this person may. i need a drink today, i need to store that cocaine today. -- snort that cocaine today. there is no choice. if you're in chronic pain and you take an opioid for more than a week or two, your mind chemically changes to need the drug. that is of no doing of any person, any class, any color. i wondered if you could speak to that. paolo escobar seemed like a robin hood, loved by his people. what else was i going to mention? host: mr. riley? guest: i think you got a good point, i really do.

that is why for me that heroin problem and now fentanyl which is just alarming, 40 to 50 times stronger, a synthetic heroin so there is no growing season. they can be produced 24/7. it is also produced in china and mexico. i do agree with the caller. this is the worst addicted drug i have ever seen, and i have everybody justke ruin and decimate communities. the important thing is that understand it is now in every corner of our country. for city,t matter large, small, rural or urban, it's a problem. we as a country of to stand up and take responsibility at all levels because it is everyone's problem. it only law enforcement's, is policy makers, doctors, educators, coaches, creatures.

-- preachers. inryone has to take a role educating everyone about this and doing what we can do is communities to help the people that are unfortunately caught in it. host: patrick in south carolina good morning. caller: yes. i want to ask you about these olivers of chapo, like stone, sean hannity's movie penn and these movie stars. younger people look at them and think they are hanging around with chapo, its ok. he's a good guy. can you talk about that? guest: definitely. i think that is an important part about how we found ourselves or we are. for years i used to say hollywood can make great movies but they don't need to show

people snorting coke and shooting heroin. it sends a very conflicted message, almost as if it is being glamorized. i do agree. there is a part in the book penn andbuddy sean how that meeting with chapo put many good hard-working mexican law enforcement and to some extent u.s. agents who were helping them in peril, in jeopardy. i was very vocal at the time. i thought they should be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. claimed, and evidently the powers above me believed he was there as a journalist and therefore should be protected. i don't understand. what i was worried about is what the caller is talking about.

it was not really him. it was the message he sent by being allowed to do that and writing what i consider to be a worthless article in rolling stone. it said nothing new. his interview of chapo was such a softball. trio of asked him, is a you murdered 10,000 people and are murdering people today? you torture them a cutter has often put their bodies and acid and you kidnap young girls for your own pleasure. these are the types of people these guys are. even to connect that with legitimacy, i think it is a real mistake. host: joseph in new jersey, good morning. caller: i had a question for mr. riley. i like his take on the legalization of marijuana. this drug is considered illegal as far as the federal government is concerned, yet you have individual states passing their own laws legalizing the consumption of marijuana.

yet the government nor the dea does anything about it. host: mr. riley? guest: that's a great question. let me clarify something. misunderstood dea has nothing to do for it is legal or not legal. status of the other agencies based on science and what they look at in terms of helping being a medical assistant. all we do is enforce the regulations congress imposes on us. i do agree with you. i'm a firm believer that the cartels are involved in marijuana. at 1.i think it was a number one cash crop. as these states begin to russell with their own version of marijuana, i think they are under the false delusion it will generate long-term tax benefits for the states.

in reality, they are just trying to see the overall effect. maybe they were able to collect a billion dollars in taxes, for what they are seeing in social services, emergency room admissions, loss of productivity, car accidents in colorado are becoming more and more of people driving impaired. than the other side of it. the edibles, the oils taken, the thc extracted and is extremely potent. all of these things are byproducts of our decision at the state level to make these laws and make marijuana available. i think it is a slippery slope. that if it ispe going to be done, it is done with proper regulations and services required to keep it consistent with the law.

for me, federally, we have criteria. we still go after marijuana traffickers. don't think we don't. has always been a misconception that the dea guys are looking for guys in the basement with a bong. we go after the major organizations involved. the states, i think, we'll have to struggle with their decisions for some time to come. host: 15 or 20 minutes left with jack riley this morning. if you're in the eastern or social time (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. if you have impacted by the opioid crisis, (202) 748-8002. the book is "drug warrior," jack riley about's hunt for el chapo. his 30 years fighting drug

cartels. i want to ask you your thoughts on what president trump had to say less week when he declared the national emergency on the border. his comments about how illegal drugs or boot into this country. [video] president trump: but big majority of the big drugs don't go through ports of entry. they can't go through ports of entry. you have people, some very capable people. the border patrol, law enforcement looking. you can't take human traffic, women and girls. be can't take them through ports of entry. you can't have them tied up in the backseat of a car or truck or a van. they opened the door and look. for it can't see three women with tape over the mouth or whose hands are tied. they go through areas where you have no wall. everybody knows that. nancy knows it, chuck knows it. they all know it. it is all a big lie, a big con game.

you don't have to be very smart to know you put up a barrier, to people come in and that's it. they can do anything unless they walk left or right and they find an area where there is no barrier and they come into the united states. welcome. ?ost: esther riley -- mr. riley guest: i'm not a politician. i'm just a 30-year dea agent who spent time on the border. unfortunately the statistics show the majority of the drugs, heroin, fentanyl -- fentanyl, marijuana come through existing checkpoints. it just does not in my opinion make business sense for the large cartels to move the volume of drugs through isolated areas. i do think the wall will have an effect on the illegal alien

migration. i'm hoping the president does this, that if we enhance our technology and manpower at checkpoints, i think we can make a difference. the only have to look three weeks ago. at one of our checkpoints the --gest fentanyl caesar occur seizure occurred and it was in a compartment in the floor of a truck. had we not been able to x-ray it we probably would not have been able to catch it. a guy like guzman put this together. if we are only searching up to 35% or 40% of the vehicle traffic, and there are thousands of trucks and cars they go in and out of the country every day. if they are only searching that percentage and your businessman, there's a pretty good chance of i sent 10 cars 3 were vehicles through in one day, i might get six or seven through. 300 to gete to bat .

into the baseball hall of fame. once you clear the checkpoints, you have access to major highways which is handy can take the stuff down the road. i'm not saying drugs come through on walled areas -- un walled areas, but from all the informant we have talked to, all the corroborating defendants and from legal wiretaps where we are listening to bad guys talk to bad guys and telling us what they're doing, there is not a lot of evidence that drugs come through unwalled areas. caller: i lived in south texas for about 13 years in the corpus christi area in spent time along the border. brownsville to del rio. the violence, not all of it is reported other. these guys will blow you away for the slightest reason.

they are not playing. why we are talking about allowing these folks to come across the border, they are here now, but to allow more to moving we arein and out, inviting a cancer into this country that needs to be stopped. a fortunately or unfortunately have known a lot of folks over the years. most are dead so i can name some names. a friend of mine was leasing their clients -- airplanes. when they crashed, they would turn around and buy the middle east them. these guys are working here now on connections from canada to miami. that is what it is about, the dollar. how much they can get. guest: i think he is exactly right. that is why i think on the immigration issue, yeah, much of the border already has walls and barriers.

i think there are ways to do it but i don't want to dismiss enhancing the checkpoints with technology and manpower. i think he has a very good point along the border. one of the things i was worried about the short time i was the boss in el paso was spillover violence. things that really scared me were a number of cartel people who happen to be on our side of stopped byand where a lonely deputy sheriff in the middle of nowhere everybody just going to write a speeding ticket. lowered the hold, you are dealing -- low and behold, you are dealing with these guys. that is the fear we have across the border. i do think law enforcement in general in many isolated areas has got a tough job. host: nicolas from pikeville, maryland. caller: i wanted to speak about over prescription of drugs.

i understand it is the policy makers that have scaled back the ability of doctors to prescribe various certain quantities of these pain medications. i suppose if the patient needs more, they will have to go back to the pharmacy or the doctor for a prescription. i think this model could be used for many other drugs. i believe the tremendous over prescription of drugs -- a lot of pharmaceuticals are wasted. nce the patient is given the prescription and it is filled, he cannot return any unused medications to the pharmacy. there is a tremendous waste. perhaps the model we're seeing in the pain medications can be withinross the board

reason and save a tremendous amount of money. riley?r. guest: that's a good question. one of the things dea has done over the last several years is the national take back where we provide -- i think it was some 2000 outlets in one day two or three times a year people can return unused prescriptions anonymously. then we destroy them. well, iften thought, 50 oxycontin because you have your wisdom teeth pulled and you only use four, what happens to the rest of them? our fear is the end up on the street. the other issue is there ought to be a mechanism within the medical profession to immediately turn those in.

i think that is not a bad idea. it occurs everyday. my father passed away of a pretty that cancer. he fought it for a while. when he died we went into clean out his house. how thetounded narcotics he had been prescribed over a couple of years that was still sitting in his medicine cabinet. i think that is a big issue. companies -- the pharmacy companies are getting involved in taking back unwanted prescriptions. we have to be careful with it because we don't to flush it down the toilet or dump it in the garbage because they can do some damage to the environment. that is why i think these takeback programs have been so successful and we have to continue. on thectually -- ashley life is affected by the pope your crisis. caller: i live in an area that has been highly impacted.

the area has been devastated by this crisis. what i have noticed -- i became addicted and what i found was how hard it was to get into treatment. when i went the first time they would not let me into rehab is it did not have enough of a history of encounters of trying to clean up. i see that. there is not really an interest in treatment. there seems to be more of an interest in pushing this message that this is a crisis, this is a crisis. they are using this crisis as an it as a wayushing to get people on board with changing our privacy rights in regards to health information. i have seen reports where if it wasn't for the functional --

fentanyl, the opioid medication, it has decreased significantly in the past few years. host: mr. riley? guest: i think the whole treatment apparatus in this country really needs a tough look and needs an infusion of federal money to be dispersed. from what i have been able to see, and again i'm just a cop, i have been able to see in areas i have been impressed with what they have done is the local attention by communities or states for treatment programs that are tailored for their cities. whether it'd be urban or rural. the government to do a great job of funding some of that. treatment now is an issue, although there are some private equity companies beginning to buck of to make a blo providing good treatment.

i have a friend who helps them set up clinics in hard-hit places. it has made a difference where they have done it. this also goes back to the issue between how do we provide patients with the medicine they need but don't over -provide. i think they need to do more. i think what is important is you are beginning to see patients or family members of patients who are on chronic pain management question the amount of narcotics being prescribed. by think that is a real good thing and i hope it continues. host: staying on the line for those who have been impacted by opioids. caller: hi. about a year ago i was in a bad car accident. my legs were crushed.

from the hospital i got a seven-day supply of opioids. i'm not sure what kind now. dr. i gotrom the hand another seven day supply. i had to take those pills and ahead to break them in half because i could not get no more. after 14 days of breaking up those pills i was only on medication for a month maybe and since then the doctors -- i could never get no more prescriptions because they said they were restricted by laws. so now it is either aspirin all a friend i'm lucky, will come by or i will go to somebody's house and maybe smoke a joint.

it is the thing about marijuana. if people were allowed to grow it and spoke in their own home home,ke it in their own you would not have problems with people going to the doctor all the time trying to lie their way into getting pills. when people really need them, the don't get them because of the laws people make that they don't even understand. host: thank you for sharing your story. think,unfortunately, i again, dea agents are cops. we are not doctors. we'll prescribed or diagnose. -- we don't prescribed or diagnose. i'm worried about a physician who is intimidated and not using good medical practice because of what he perceives as

restrictions. that is the balancing act we have to do. on the marijuana side, i think that is up to the states to try to mitigate this. caller brings up a really important component. all of these things are interrelated. until we begin to connect the dots and deal with the problem in its entirety, i don't think people make substantial changes in this country. i have said this for years. this is a marathon, not a sprint. it is a deadly game on both ends. thinkk we have to really what we do, rethink what we have been doing and put the resources where they need to be to make a difference. get to bothl try to colors quickly. lee, go ahead. the thing i am concerned about, i understand this opioid crisis, killing people, getting

her drugs, taking them back and selling them. what about the people that need the medicine? they cut us off, i am bedridden because of it. at least marijuana would help. i have not had that. i know it would help me. they cut the pills. what do we do? what is the alternative for the pain? yyy aaa you know one of the things they're doing now, some of the pharmaceutical companies are putting a lot of money into this, is looking for alternatives for pain management. frankly, for the last 50 years, they never had to. they never had to invest in that because what they were producing was making money. and getting people addicted. hope thatw there is there will be some alternative medicines available that will be addictive and we will be able to you -- to ease the patient's pain.

i just had an extensive knee surgery and when i came home i was dead set on not taking the pain medicine they gave me. i made it for about an hour. i was very careful not to go very long. i ended up getting rid of most of what they gave me. it is a slippery slope in the medical profession. they are becoming aware. i hope there is some alternatives to controlling pain. host: last call. mississippi. go ahead. caller: good morning. i want to say it is an honor to speak with someone who has served our country so diligently. successful in bringing down such a violent person. question?you have a caller: just an anecdote about living with someone who was addicted to heroin. i moved to florida a few years

, i had anwas apartment and i was looking for a roommate. i love these folks to move in with me. after they moved in, i learned they were addicted to heroin. it was really shocking to watch how they would constantly be in this position of not having enough pills because they would trade pills to other people, they would exceed their dosage. every month, it would be the same story. they would start out in a good place and have enough pills and by the last week, week .5 they would -- 1.5 weeks, they would start going through withdrawals, spent their time thinking about when to see the doctor next, it would go on and on. eventually i got rid of them because they were stealing money from me. with someone else moving me was also addicted to heroin, but she was on something called and she -- i watched

her go through withdrawals over the course of several weeks and she successfully kicked her habit and was able to move on with her life. host: thanks. first of all, thank you for your kind words. i want to clarify i did not single-handedly do anything. with honored to work ,undreds of heroic dea agents policemen, and prosecutors. it was an honor to do that. i think what you are describing is what a lot of people go through. having witnessed that, you understand the depths of what addiction can be. and how it can control people's lives and change their destiny. i think it goes back to the company dated way we have to do something. we definitely need a law-enforcement involved domestically and overseas, which is crucial. we have to look at how do we identify and get treatment and help to the people who want it.

the people who need it. and try to get to the medical profession and all the other public service people to think cohesively on how to do it. i heard the color say that she was in an auto accident. theyaw two surgeons and both prescribed things. clearly, they were not talking to each other. again, that sometimes leads to over -- overprescribing. this is a complex issue we will deal with forever. i think everybody that calls and today has got a good point about something. had,w from the job that i there is so many people out there in law-enforcement risking their lives everyday and they believe they are doing it to help people. i certainly did. and still do. host: the book is inside the hunt for el chapo.

the author, jack riley. announcer: spans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, the decision of the green new deal -- proposal. then, we talk about the state of military housing with shelly kimball of the military advisory network. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live on friday morning. join the discussion. seriesght, our profile continues with a look at the political career of charles schumer. later, u.s. and foreign