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they have left behind. c-span's "the presidents" is now available as a hardcover or e-book today at c-span.org/thepresidents or wherever books are sold. announcer: a live look now from iowa city, iowa where democratic presidential candidate senator cory booker will be interviewed on a podcast called political party live. we will have the interview for you when it gets underway, as part of our road to the white house coverage here on c-span. begin,e wait for it to from washington journal, a discussion on efforts to block marijuana legislation around the country. p.m. eastern on "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. luke we're back with niforatos smart approaches to marijuana, and he is here to commercialization

and normalization of marijuana. how are you doing? guest: good morning, jesse. how are you today? host: i am good. explain to us what your group is and who is involved. guest: our organization is called smart approaches to a.m., and we were by -- as well asd patrick kennedy of the kennedy family. they were very concerned after colorado, where i am from, and washington legalized marijuana at the ballot, and they sell this as the inception of the new big tobacco, but this marijuana industry was going to grow internal much more addictive products, they were going to of issuess, do a lot that were self-serving and cause a lot of harm to the public.

unfortunately, about five years and, we are seeing that this industry has turned into big tobacco and is now invested in by the tobacco. our organization is focused on the science side of the science side of this. we want science to leave the day. we do not want to bring back reefer madness. that is what we have some of the leading researchers on marijuana on our scientific advisory board, from harvard, princeton, the university of colorado, all doing this today to find out what the harms are of marijuana. our organization wants to reduce marijuana use. we see this as something that is harmful in society, but we also want to prevent the commercialization of this drug, because what happens in this country when we allow a legal dr ug is we've build huge businesses around this. when you think about big tobacco and pharmaceutical companies, those industries, you look at the opioid epidemic, we have hundreds of thousands of people dying as a result of our commercial drug industry.

we are at marijuana, asking the public data you want another commercial truck industry layered onto the drug industries that we already have?so we are working the federal level, to write public policies that focus on public health first, and that the state level, we were with policymakers as well as the public to push back against any pushes to legalize. let me be very clear. a lot of people think this is a question between should we legalize marijuana or should we throw anybody in prison? we call that the false dichotomy. we project that dichotomy. there are lots of options to reform marijuana laws and many pushes forganization pure it we do not think anybody should go to jail if they have a joint in their pocket. we are pushing for the criminalization, which makes it more like a traffic ticket versus going to jail on your first marijuana offense if you are possessing it. we do not want to legalize production and sale of marijuana, because then you get big tobacco 2.0.

that is where we draw the line there. on the medical front, we push research, we signed a bill to have more medical research done. we want to go through the scientific process. weis very key that understand, and we have done a lot of polling across the country. most americans do not think that somebody should go to jail for having a joint, but none of them want a pot shot in the neighborhood, and nobody wants gummi zan kennedy is laced with very high potency marijuana the country.ross so we are looking at states like colorado and seeing the results are not going so well, but they think there is no other options, is a thirdt is there option on the table. you do not have to legalize this all the way. host: ok. in ont to get callers this conversation. if you support legalizing

marijuana, we were you to call (202) 748-8000. if you oppose legalizing marijuana, what you call (202) 748-8001. and keep in mind, we are always reading on social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. now, luke, your organization has lived through colorado's move toward legalization. how has the legalization of marijuana affected colorado specifically? guest: yeah, so our organization is based in d.c., but i am actually from colorado, and i am actually raising my two-year-old daughter in the state with my lovely wife, who i think are watching today, so hi, everybody. the experience in colorado has not been a good one. you look at every promise that was made when we legalized it as a state your day told us this was the official justice. formarijuana arrest rate african americans is twice that of white in our state your we

still see arrest rate disparities. it is not solve the social justice issues in the state. you look at schools, that legal marijuana would bring all this money to schools. u.s. governor john hickenlooper, who is running for president, he will tell you, and i'm quoting, "the money from marijuana is a drop in the bucket." we are not getting the marijuana tax revenue. the highest percentage in the budget of any state that legalize marijuana is .7 .8% of their budget. we are talking about a small amount. more people are dying on the sincein colorado legalization. we had a 151% increase of marijuana-impaired driving deaths, because marijuana impairs your driving ability. youth. colorado is the number one state for first-time marijuana use for two years in a row. that is according to the national surveys on drug use and health, the foremost credible survey on this subject.

you look at every indicator, and it is not going well in colorado. i will finally say this about my state. i love my state. it is beautiful. but we now have three different foreign countries' cartels that have set up shot in our state since legalization. so it is not preventing this underground market from happening. you look at the policy on its merit, and it is a failed policy. we have to look at better options, which is why our organization is advocating for options like alternative to incarceration, more research, but not allowing this brand-new industry, which, by the way, the pot industry in colorado is making a ton of money. our state may not become a but the pot industry is making billions of dollars. they were able to successfully lobby for a whole laundry list of self-serving regulations. the biggest one they got was an exemption from the colorado clean indoor air act. yes, the colorado clean indoor air act. they can now smoke pot in our

restaurants, hotels, and lounges in the state of colorado. they just signed that into law. we are talking about a big tobacco like industry that i just do not think the rest of the country once you have. theresa, who was calling from harvard, massachusetts, join the conversation. good morning. caller: good morning. hi, luke. this is t theresa. one of the comments i want to make us here in massachusetts, which everyone knows is legal here, 80% of our sales -- so it is very easy for young -- especially to obtain marijuana, and it is very cheap, and many of our schools, out of on the, they are driving roads. they think it is no problem at all. how do we get the message out to the rest of the country that has not legalize marijuana yet that it is very dangerous to young verye, that it is

harmful to the brain, they absolutely should not drive. stateuld get it in our but especially outside of our state, we see a lot of negative harm to kids. host: go ahead and respond, luke. guest: th theresa, thank you for your question. i have been in massachusetts a lot for the past few months, and i echo your concern. science and public health or being put on the back burner on this topic. people leaving this topic are marijuana issue professionals. these companies have billion-dollar ad budgets, and they are able to put up billboards in all of these states saying marijuana is no big deal, no worse than alcohol, comparing it to other things that it is harmless, and toortunately, the message our youth and the general public is marijuana is no big deal. and the science tells the opposite of that. the atlantic journal, which is

the foremost institutional marijuana impact on the brain, they found the new marijuana today, which is 99% potency come over the marijuana of the one-stop days, which is 3% -- potency, versus the marijuana of the woodstock days, which is 3% potency -- if you look at the absolutely impairs your driving ability. impairment on the road is rapidly rising in everes every state that it i legalized. it is invested in by marlborough and philip morris. they are advertising these two kids. all laced withs, very high potency thc, so kids are getting into that. i share your concern. i think science and public health need to leave this discussion for policy, not profit, the only ones who will are wallt of money street investors and silicon valley investors, not the rest

of us. host: luke, in how many states as marijuana legal, and how many states have it been decriminalized, and in how many states is it fully illegal? guest: so only about nine states in the country have legalized marijuana for recreational use. all of them at the ballot, so that people have voted on that. in terms of decriminalization, i think about a dozen states in the country have decriminalized they come up in other words made it like a traffic ticket but kept production and sale illegal. most states in a country do not have legal marijuana. legalization of marijuana for commercial sale and production is still a very much small, minority of this country. over the last three years, only two states have legalized marijuana. so i think we're starting to see this momentum go the other direction, because it has been a bad few years for the marijuana industry. host: let's go to sharon, who is calling from minnesota. sharon, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse.

thanks for taking my call. i have three comments here, one, the last caller, she wanted to know about the young ones in the message, do not get in the car and drug and drive. we want to get the message that alcohol has been gotten. really? next comment. you say you want to listen to the science? coming from typical a conservative, because you do not listen to science in any other aspect. number three, i want to know who is, it is law enforcement against prohibition, and there are many of them out there. i want to make one other statement. ago, i was diagnosed with an eye disease. i live in minnesota. i do not get marijuana. and wasven this disease

legally blind, however, i would have been completely blind 25 years ago had i not continue to smoke marijuana. and i am going to continue to smoke marijuana. thanks. host: go ahead and respond, luke. we are actually nonpartisan organization, and like i said, we were founded by a former obama administration senatorand former patrick kennedy, a democrat and a member of the kennedy family. this is a totally nonpartisan issue we work with the naacp, hispanic caucus, the black caucus, we work with folks on every part of the spectrum, politically speaking. we work with them all, because at the end of the day, public health and the impact to our community is not a partisan issue, that is a human issue. we are all on the same side of this. i respect your opinion, and i think if you found something that helps you, i want you to

get what you need that helps you, but what you are referring to is really more of a medical component of this drug, which we should look at, research, and i want to see the science validate that to give you a highly-regulated and good prescription drug to give you what you need, but that conversation is separate from the conversation of legalizing marijuana for rent regional use, which is i think what the country is looking at. important to distinguish this drug from recreational legalization. that is important. host: let's go to heidi, who is calling from california. caller: good morning. i voted for prop 64 here in los angeles, and i have just been so upset by what has become of our state here since then. one of the reasons i am going to focus on is the homeless issue. luke just said that cannabis can cause psychosis. it can also cause adult

schizophrenia. increases the risk for adult schizophrenia, and schizophrenia increases the risk for homelessness, then can't we say that cannabis increases the risk for homelessness? host: go ahead and respond, luke. guest: thank you for your comments. we have seen homelessness increase in most of the states that have legalized marijuana. my mom actually works for colorado coalition of the homeless, the largest nonprofit taking care of the home is in this state, and they are overwhelmed. absolutely we are seeing a homeless issue i do not know if we can draw the line directly between marijuana and homelessness, but we do know in the states that have legalized marijuana, they are seeing a significant rise. we have to look at it. it is another one of the failed promises of the industry that you legalized marijuana and you will basically pave your streets

and gold with all of the tax money. it is just not happening. a lot of the services, social services in these cities are not keeping up with it. host: we were talking earlier about lobbying. are you keeping track of the money going from the marijuana industry to politicians, to lobby to get these new laws passed and get these regulations? and what are you finding out? guest: we sure are. that is a great question. if you go to our website, learn .org, we have a whole map of the united states. you can click on your state and see how much the industry has given to your representative, who gave it, and when. we are trying to empower the public with this information so they can track the representatives and hold them accountable to the people that they are taking money from. we are seeing the industry is pouring unprecedented amount of money. it is on the hill, in d.c., a lot of money being put into this push to try to get access to the

financial system,. this push to try to legalize marijuana. . of the topired some lobbying firms on k street to push their initiative forward. we are a small nonprofit. we are trying to keep up. we cannot keep up with big k street firms, but even if we did, they are buying up most of them now. we are seeing a big power-play. a lot of that is the influence of altria. altria has now made a $4 billion investment in the marijuana industry. they have also made a $14 billion investment in juul, which is the vaping technology that all of the kids are getting into today, so they are doing a significant amount of lobbying around us today, because they see marijuana at the new frontier for big tobacco. we are kind of the david in the david and goliath scenario, but we are trying to empower people with the data and the information so that they can speak up and be heard by the representatives. host: let's go to sandra, who is

calling from eastpointe, michigan. sandra, good morning. caller: yes, hi, the thing that gets me so upset is that alcohol abuse is worse than anything than worse than pot, worse opioids, and it is always healthy people like you who, you have no idea what people go through, like the woman i called about her eye problem with her eyes. the backlashids, from opioids, people who are terrible,from chronic, painful diseases that nothing can be done about, you know, they are being taken off of their pain medication. people are committing suicide, because they have no quality of because their doctors are scared to give them their pain medication anymore, and it is always people who abuse drugs or abuse these things that make it hard for

people who really suffer, because people with chronic pain are now made to suffer because of these people who abuse drugs. so that is all i have to say. thank you. host: go ahead, luke. , sandra, ira, yes think you speak to an important issue that is facing americans across this country right now. we are in the midst of an opioid epidemic. not just an opioid epidemic, but sabet, says we addiction midst of an epidemic, tobacco, drugs, alcohol are proliferating are society right now. a lot of people are hurting, and i hear that in your voice, and i care. absolutely, you are right, alcohol abuse -- alcohol is killing more than 100,000 americans every year. i do not think people know that. alcohol is responsible for a

major body count in this country. so our regulatory system around alcohol and tobacco is not going well. we do not have it figured out at this point. so did think about layering on another drug on top of tobacco and out when we are already i thinko many lives defies comprehensio. the journal of american medicine just did a research study that found that in places where the older you would epidemic are the worst, those are actually the is legal. marijuana in other words, they are saying there appears to be an exacerbation of the opioid epidemic in places where opioi marijuana is legal. worse.t want to make it i appreciate you sharing that, i really care, and i want to come up with the right solutions from a public health perspective to help us out. host: let's go to paul, who is calling from derry, new

hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to thank luke for the efforts. i was about to go outside and do some work, and i was just drawn to the program. the woman from minnesota who called earlier who somehow stops at the idea that a conservative can actually practice good science, when in fact most of the progress of science is completely permeated with confirmation bias. that is a completely different story entirely. we spent millions of not billions of dollars in trying to get rid of cigarette smoking and to educate people as to what the adverse health effects are, to great success, i would say. by the same token, i have actually read scientific articles that suggests marijuana which is the exact same as the smoke, is retained in the lungs for a long period of time. consequently, you are exposing yourself to the same thing we

have spent billions of dollars trying to get rid of in terms of the public health hazard. i want to get a comment of that, if you have heard that before or if there is any work being done. thank you. guest: thank you, paul. i have actually spoken with a number of people who happen tobaccoes on the anti-to back t site for many years, and they are saying with this push of now legalize marijuana, all of the gains we got against tobacco are being rolled back. it was all for nothing. unfortunately, there is so much misinformation being put out right now. people do not think secondhand marijuana smoke is the same thing as secondhand tobacco smoke, and it is. the american lung association tells us it is just as carthage and against tobacco smoke is. science must prevail. we must listen to our public health professionals and our scientists.

the thing with any public health issue, we have got to let science rule the day. absolutely on the tobacco front, it is very much like this, and these tobacco companies that we spent a long time putting under wraps and get them out of our political innerworkings in d.c. especially, they are now rising again and getting a renewed life and new profit margin is because they are all in on this hot industry. should beo legalize characterized as for-profit. it is not about the little people. it is very important that we wake up to that now before we let big tobacco 2.0 happen all over again. i was not around for big tobacco's rise over the last hundred years and the millions of lives we lost to figured out it was damaging, but i want us to stop this before it gets out of hand. host: let's talk to woody, who was calling from michigan. woody, good morning. caller: good morning. marijuana has been around for about 10,000 years, and if you

have not done the research now -- the government did some research. panama canalthe military investigation into the effects of marijuana. i believe it was 1921 to 1929. and the laguardia commission, the effects of marijuana, 1939 to 1944. and then the shafer commission on the effects of marijuana, 1971 and 1972. they got results, they found out there was no major harm with so they kind of did not let the public know about it. you know, the johns hopkins school of medicine in the american journal of medicine, internal medicine, and the rand corporation old it studies, and that marijuana helps people reduce the amount of opioids they are using.

is theot the problem, it solution. guest: if it was the solution for the opioid epidemic, i would be elated, because i think we do need a solution to the opioid epidemic. unfortunately, there is no easy button you can hit, and marijuana certainly is not the easy button. the research we are seeing, i was not around for these commissions. i would have to look into these commissions you are talking about. but allah know if the american society for medicine, the society, the journal of addiction medicine, journal of society, lancet journal society, all of the major research institutions, public health associations and medical help associations also marijuana is a harmful and addictive substance, and they oppose the legalization. the fda has already approved a couple of marijuana-based medications for the public that

you can get a prescription for, and we support the process through the fda. i think it is important that we theot complete, again,, medical aspect of marijuana with the recreational aspects. there is no reason why we should legalize and commercialize another drug if we think that maybe it has medical value. those medical values should be looked at on their own merits, by science, not by a for-profit industry. host: let's talk to michael, who was calling from coral springs, florida. michael, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for having me on. i have always been a big libertarian. when it comes to smoking marijuana, i would rather see that isbuy something regulated, inspected, and healthy, rather than going to a criminal and buying a bag of poison. but just what we are going through right now with the opioid bank, it seems to me that when people get involved with a particular drug, they lose their

own sense of responsibility. people could just smoke marijuana and it does not work out and then they stop smoking it. but look at what happened with opioid abuse. people abuse the drugs that they legally take, and then they are suing. they are suing everybody. they are suing the companies that make it, they are suing the stores that sell it, they are suing the doctors that prescribe it, they are asking the government for a percentage of government expenditures to be spent on them. i don't -- i am worry that in 20 years from now, those people who are consuming medical marijuana at will, wherever they want, whenever they want, will lose that sense of self responsibility and blame the rest of society for whatever ills they get. ills will not fall on everybody, and it might only be a minority of people. i do not think it will be the majority. i think people who smoke at night, like having a cocktail or

things like that, but when we throw our senses out the window like when it comes to opioids -- in line host: go ahead and respond to that, lukehost:. guest: i want to comment on the libertarian side of this. from the libertarian perspective, i get it. people think what people are going to do in her own home, what business is that of mine? unfortunately, if that were the case, if that were that simple, i would agree, but anytime you this is forand marijuana or any drug, it impacts the society and other people. a perfect example, if you use marijuana in your own home and you get out of drive and you crash and kill someone or their child, which we have seen happen, that is not a libertarian issue, that is a societal issue. drugs have been proven over the last two centuries to not be a libertarian kind of individual rights issue, they have been proven to be a societal issue, which is why our country overwhelming supported .nd adopted th act

that is an important side of that. at the same time, then you have to throw people into prison, and we should look at alternative incarceration. important.t is the other aspect, the self responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry, a lot of people think, and i'm sure maybe more people will call in and say well, you must be funded by big pharma, because you want to keep opioids out there and not marijuana. we do not take any money from big pharma. the formula is actually in the marijuana industry. but the company who brought oxycontin and healthy opioid epidemic, unfortunately, in the wrong way, he is now the ceo of a marijuana company. is the industry is involved in this. -- the pharmaceutical industry is involved with this. if we legalize this, and 50 years, it will be the same thing as abuses with the marijuana industry. to formally want people

a action lawsuits to get this industry under wraps? i do not think so. i think it is very important to look at these cases, these files going on in oklahoma, for example, in the therapeutics and purdue pharma and look at that and say do we want to replicate that model in 50 years with another drug industry? host: we would like to say luke niforatos of smart approaches to marijuana for being with us today. luke, thank you for your announcer: now, democratic presidential candidate senator cory booker joins the political party live part cast -- podcast and another in their series of their interviews for presidential candidates. >> if you could chat with a presidential candidate about an issue that is near and dear to your heart, what would you guys talk about? what would you bring up? >> we were talking about this on the way here.

bill that heas a introduced in april that is called the algorithmic accountability act. it is focused on giving the federal trades commission the power to hold companies accountable to the ways that bias shows up in their code. and their algorithms they build either internally for their operations or for the people they serve. this is a huge thing that chante and i spend a lot of time on paired we have a background in tech, but the ways that when you have a coder, a developer, writing the code for an program, for a whatever is there predetermined assumptions, whatever their unconscious biases are that they are not aware of will show up in that code. we talk about the inclusion in health care and health care services, -- >> can you give us an example of that? can you make it plain for the

people like me who are not coders? >> absolutely. one of the things we talk about, i don't know if any of you guys have heard about the controversy around the google face recognition software that happened? faces aske recognizing faces. putwhen a black face was into the algorithm, it identified it as a guerrilla -- gorilla. that is a result of the unconscious bias that was put in by whatever coder was programming faces. they only thought to program it for light skin or white faces. when it got to a dark face, it thought it was an animal. that is a problem here you can imagine how that would show up in technology in a lot of ways. the other thing chante was talking about that i have done work on is trans inclusion in health care services and the idea if you build your templates in a doctor's office as only , thatmale and female

marker is actually linked to to what they were assigned at birth, anybody who has anything outside of that i was assigned mail at birth and i identify as male does not have any template. there is no system for that. it is hard to provide the right kind of health care services for folks that are outside of that simple binary, which we know there are huge populations of people that do not fit that model. there option is either too risky care, or tog health just opt out and not get health care at all. either of those is an unfavorable proposition. those are the kinds of things that i think i would love to hear any presidential candidate weigh in on. >> to circle back to the first thing you said, here is a really interesting thing to think about. have you heard about autonomous vehicles? leah thomas movement?

it is making its way here. chicago is one of the smart placeson the list of that will have autonomous opportunity. here's the issue. if you are not coding for the diversity of the population that is living in that city, if it comes to something like they cannot see dark faces, and there is a car driving without a person in it, they could hit that person. they can kill them. who is responsible for that? that is what we wanted to hear and we want to find opportunities to talk with the political candidates. we hope you will do this on your podcast. >> the algorithmic accountability act. chante: that's the one. >> say that 10 times fast. chante: the emerging technology is the infrastructure of the industrial revolution. it will impact us just like politics, education, just like health care. if you are not aware of it, i

implore you to do your research now. there is not a citizen in this country that this will not impact. >> before we get out of here and take our intermission and here's some really awesome music, i have to ask, to change subjects completely, you can tell us what you are either reading right now, what you are watching on netflix, or hulu, or what you are jamming out to on itunes or spotify? hit us with that. >> liz oh. lizzo. >> ditto. >> we love that. thank you so much for joining us. we really appreciate it. >> it has been a pleasure. thank you. [applause] >> we are going to take about a 5-10 minute intermission. remember when you come back, we will reap -- we will be

recording live on c-span and other media outlets. at ae keep the volume down minimum which is what you did the last time. if you are in front of the cameras, stay seated. thank you so much. we will reconvene shortly. announcer: we have been looking at a live picture from the graduate hotel in iowa city, iowa where we are waiting for democratic presidential candidate senator cory booker who will be interviewed on a podcast. we will come back when the interview begins. in the meantime, a discussion on former members of congress who work as lobbyists.

or previous year? >> this is members of the 1/15 congress. those who left congress as of january night -- anyway 2019. and we found that of the two dozen that went on to go on to lobbying firms. only two of them so far as of may 2019 have actually registered as lobbyists

officially. host: are they required to register as lobbyists? what is the law and how it is it -- how is it enforced? 1990 five lobbying disclosure act requires that those engaging in lobbying where they made contacts with government officials and spent more than 20% of their time on lobbying for client must register under the lobbying disclosure act. however, we are seeing a lot of ex-members not registering, despite going to lobbying firms. there is a couple ways they might get around that. they might say they don't spend 20% of their time officially lobbying, or they are not making contacts with government officials. that is what we call a shadow lobbying, where you engage in activities normally consider lobbying, but you are not registered to lobby. host: is there a government --