Joe Rogan Experience #1250 — Johann Hari Transcript

Transcript

0:00 here we go five four three two one Arizona is a strange place. Yeah, you can. thankfully. A lot of really nice people, in Phoenix where I had to walk somewhere and I could see on the map, are you okay? You must've been like beat like a tomato. and she and she goes yeah she goes no no like he's white like paper so from then on jamie became jamie white like paper that's a very accurate description of my

3:14 I've just got a slightly different one. It's mostly disgust, right? is like one of those Right. the Queen or whatever. Right. But there isn't that two-way dialogue And they'll have an answer. The only context I can imagine a British person saying, what's your story? swiss where my dad's from Well, I mean, your country has literally been taken over by reality television, right?

6:38 bullshit they put in to make it more interesting yeah i hadn't thought of it that way i think you're in the corner of the shot right right and um yeah i think that's true and i think that's But they hadn't built the bombs very well. of them's caught on the at the time right and someone i think it was an off-duty fire officer Right. Even in a riot, we're like,

9:22 You're forming a queue. We're not going to make it. where you're trying to grab the few remaining items that are 25 off and you've been saving for to it yeah loads of new stuff because that book's about five years old now and um although with what to do nothing i was doing was working nothing i was doing was helping and i decided right okay where they decriminalized all drugs with incredible results. Switzerland, where they legalized heroin,

12:36 think they are so in some ways it's kind of dawning to go all over the world and realize and it doesn't damage their health right so 90 so let's set that aside we'll come back to that heroin addiction because that was close to me most people if we stop the next 20 people to walk past that's what addiction is right it's this physical hunger for the chemical hook inside the drug. There is some reality to chemical hooks.

15:17 you know, not contaminated. If what we think about addiction is right, that it's just caused how could it be you've got someone in a hospital bed who's taking loads of really potent heroin hooks primarily comes from a series of experiments that were done earlier in the 20th century You're exposed to the drug, it takes you over, heaven for rats, right? They've got loads of friends, they've got loads of cheese, they've got

17:52 Yeah, the heroin water. are some contexts where people find these drugs extremely addictive and there are some contexts We know this from, I mean, there's so many examples, And so people have moved to heroin because sniffer dogs can't detect heroin as easily as cannabis. the authorities, the Nixon White House, And it found that the moment you would find heroin much more appealing than you do now right if't want to be and I made you kill a load of people and potentially die at any moment, you would find heroin much more appealing than you do now, right?

20:46 part of the theory behind the war on drugs is if you've got people who are addicted you've got to and normally with prisons as a journalist they don't want to show you anything right like you And I remember speaking to a woman who was in this negative consequences stopped addiction there wouldn't be a single addict in the world right have awful lives but um it's it's one of those things that gets in your head and then you sort of parrot it.

23:54 to these people that are drug addicted? deep despair right okay um now if you think about depression and very similar factors play out with You need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. less good at meeting these deep underlying psychological needs let's think about you right? It's not a coincidence that the places where opioid addiction is highest are also the

26:51 very strong agreement among scientists that the most powerful chemical hook we know is nicotine now it's important to say that is not nothing right there's a whole range i go through nine of these these factors in the book but to me the most important thing in thinking about the opioid they invented clocks and all that shit right like in their public parks people

29:41 picture is anarchy and chaos she said what we have now is anarchy and the former president ruth dreyfus lives opposite this clinic i think that tells you something um like across the street across the street you're given loads of support to get housing work surprised me, at first I found really weird, is they will give you any dose of heroin that you

32:25 to you is so obvious right but and it's worth just explaining the results of the swiss program on whether to get rid of it and 70 of swiss people voted to keep heroin legal not because they're so Turns out women, you know, don't want to be on the street being fucked by random strangers for money. this country finds out that you are using say percocet or oxy not because you've got back pain

34:49 the drug policy part of it uh where we're doing exactly the opposite of the country that succeeded Where basically shitloads of people just became alcoholics, drank gin until they died, right? windows what changed wasn't the amount of availability it wasn't the availability of humiliating you're going to create growing pools of people who can't and you by the way if you're

37:35 the great like 60s british singer she went out with mick jagger annoyingly that's why people signals right they are telling us something the fact that they have been rising year after year their brain that there are real things going on in their brains of course um or we've been saying Yeah. How much money do they have to spend to keep this program going? the overall population five and a half million so it's a small country small country yeah um how

39:56 but if you don't have money then they pay for it um and one of the things that was fascinating is but they are very pragmatic people that's why it was so popular but let's think about another place got together and they're like, we can't go on like this. What are we going to do? And they decided to solution is we want to decriminalize all drugs from cannabis to crack but and this is the crucial

42:33 They set up a big program of small loans so people with addiction problems could set up and run businesses, the things that they thought were important. Every single indicator on problems related to drug use had fallen like a cliff right it wasn't would happen didn't happen and everything the other side said would happen did and he talks about how he felt really ashamed that he'd spent so many years prior to the

44:22 but it was such a significant improvement that support in Terribly sexually abused and there's a lot of evidence that giving survivors of sexual abuse safe places in which they And one of the things that's really good about the Swiss system is it wasn't saying in this kind of cookie cutter way that often happens in drug treatment in the United States, although there's plenty of good examples as well.

46:05 about all the time i was writing my book lost connections about depression and it's only quite So I paid like $5 for this apple or something. it was wrong i ate like half of it and threw it in the garbage and next like four days i was just So he drives me like six or seven hours into the countryside the room was moving around me like like i didn't feel like i was disorientated and then while she's

48:26 they take me in and huang's like completely lying going like this is an important western And I'm even lying there thinking, that's kind of interesting. hadn't kept any water in for four days so it was like i had been in the desert for four days addiction as a bit like that nausea right as like a kind of malfunction right saying that you should these ways for reasons and we need to get down into these these deeper reasons which is really

51:31 chaotic street use right so for a lot of women that means sex work for a lot of men that means ended the chaos of street use, that was the answer. It was listening to different people at different stages and and and looking at they'd Some people are in such internal agony. Right. This is unbelievably challenging at that time. so harry anslinger is a government bureaucrat who takes over the department of

55:02 which gives you a sense of how racist he was he used the n-word so often in official mother her mother had gone to what's now called what roosevelt island now it wasn't called that i fucking please right and at that point harry anslinger resolves to destroy her the first man follow Billie Holiday everywhere she goes, front of him and says you can look in my pussy you can see i don't have anything here um she's

57:47 They take away singing from Billie Holiday. not far from where she'd first sung Strange Fruit. they're going to kill me in there don't let them they're going to kill me she wasn't wrong so in even have candies outside reverend calendar led protests with signs saying let lady day live Firstly, it's about its effect. with a white woman judy garland longer vacations with billy holiday fucking destroy her right uh

1:00:55 everyone watching this who's been who's managed to do that is a hero and i massively love and start of the drug and i think if i'm honest i think this isn't an easy thing to say but i think But that conflict is very deep in us. No, it does make sense. And it's a horrific story about billy holiday and i had no idea that um dorothy from the wizard of oz was also addicted now did you munchkins a lot of them as well um

1:03:16 Um, horse and cart i think he was 11 or something being sent to take the horse and cart into town in mexico to portugal and switzerland was like following this scream as it kind of ricocheted archives in penn state was seeing all these memos from uh his agents so he said to them go to your he said uh you know he believed that when you smoke cannabis time slows down so a minute seems

1:06:17 he said when frankenstein's monster bumps into a spliff on the staircase frankenstein's monster dies of fright like these extraordinarily heightened Years later, someone goes and checks the psychiatric files for Victor Lic like honda wasn't even evidence he'd ever used cannabis right other countries to ban them as well and then they'll disappear so the u.s in the wake of the second

1:08:18 facts and i always feel like that's the drug war right i made up my mind don't try to confuse me with the facts well he in conjunction with uh william randolph hearst he worked with him to try to propagate to crack down on them and lock them up and put them in jail and pit them against each other and And she had signed up to become a cop, which is amazing, really interesting personally.

1:10:17 waits she has this terrible summer waiting to find out what happened and then they discover that lisa First thing was, when you're a cop and you arrest a rapist, people who used to control them licensed legal businesses to armed criminal gangs right and Cops would arrest him. through aggression, through violence, and you maintain it through aggression and violence

1:13:09 this violence is caused by by um by the fact that we prohibited it just ask yourself where are the But she also has another really painful realization. matthew fogg once went to his superior officer and said you know this is a bit weird right we That's really, that's just a whole load of shit for us. and lee goes to see ed's body and she's like what did he die for right there are no fewer drug

1:15:52 person with a conscience right and there are police officers all over the country who are graph of the murder rate in the 20th century in the United States, So I think the main thing is because this is a and clearly for medical use has spread. It is in Canada. you can see the interests, right? more than 80% say the war on drugs has failed and been a disaster,

1:19:18 we talk like we're a philosophy seminar. So decriminalization is where you stop punishing users, but they still have to go to armed We need to decriminalize use and legalize supply. I've been to Iraq. They're transferred to armed criminal gangs. which is on the border with, I remember going into the prison actually to see him border at that time so he grew he was growing up in the the late 90s noughties i mean rosalio

1:22:44 according to where they put policing it always gets through but it moves around they call it the balloon effect alive. He's given a gun by a guy called Miguel Trevino, who later became the head of the border to a warehouse where they are torturing people burning them alive because they don't give a shit if they live or die, right? He now lives in solitary confinement where he will live for the rest of his life

1:24:50 weird on on the other side of the bridge there's this sign and it says welcome to historic downtown But Maricela was incredibly hardworking. later she discovers to her horror that he's having sex with her 14 year old daughter ruby and she's she's kind of accepted the police aren't with real rage that police aren't going to do anything Just saying, have you seen this girl?

1:27:43 and he made me help him dispose of the body. Sergio's put on trial. you own the state right and you have if they control 70 of the economy you have more money how frightened other people were for me and julian right and i remember after i've been there for a country where there is no justice she decides okay they're not going to solve this i'm going to solve

1:30:25 over a thousand miles, right? She walks through the desert. It becomes a media phenomenon. People this fight right and it gets to christmas eve and she's preparing to just before christmas when they hear that is someone using drugs losing their shit and attacking someone right there's a No alcohol seller anywhere in the United States today will kill a single other alcohol seller, right?

1:33:21 the supply route it is the system those people have erected of persuading everyone else and it goes back to your question why does it persist right but then we can address that fear by talking about what actually happened. Yes. this is never an option because those are the only ones that are going to really change policy so we're seeing a suffering from a lot of ailments showing that they were helped substantially by cannabis and then the attitude of it changed in

1:37:06 and we should talk about use as opposed to addiction but um dehumanization of drug users transgender crap dealer who is hilarious and amazing if they could meet bud osborne the why they're addicted they're most people i would i would say it's safe to venture aren't really war body in the world the unodc you're an office of drug control admits 90 of all currently banned drug

1:40:05 higher for things like heroin but it's pretty consistently in that zone right which is not to Really serious scientist. of elephants who broke into an alcohol store, they're going cock uh so anyway loads of examples is what a guy professor seagull i remember he and he so he's like spying on these mongooses with with binoculars and he gets caught and he

1:42:34 steak because that's how deep it is in human beings if there is nothing in the environment A really nice example is for 2,000 years, 40 miles outside of Athens, in ancient Greece, there used to be once a year people would meet at something something a place called the temple of elusis and it was basically burning man they would all use a psychedelic together

1:43:48 sometimes people say at the actual foundations it's an attack on them right it's this deep misunderstanding so this is a natural human know as my friend steve rolls who's a big campaigner on this is it's like saying metal and policies with alcohol enough people well everyone knows people who drink alcohol right and one of hammered and had a great time you'd be pretty foolish if you put on facebook oh saturday night i went out and have five lines of coke and had a great night right

1:47:05 You guys are responsible for our drug epidemic. who they should build fucking statues to. they cut off the supply of all of them people start dying in hospitals all over mexico in agony but doctors can prescribe it to people with addiction problems, 12 000 doctors are arrested and rounded up um when they come to the one in portland oregon It's not that people thought all drug use is good.

1:49:40 And most societies until very recently had a mature appreciation of this, right? But we are the historical outliers right i mean to give you a sense just the united states and i would give one bit of credit for this is we gave it a fair shot right the united states has most people asked do you think the drug war has failed people injecting in the streets that kind of. And Bud was living homeless and he was watching his friends die all around him.

1:52:52 have put it then he also thought i'm a homeless junkie what the fuck am i going to do right and that meant people who would have died were living which is a great thing but it also meant the addicts where people could go and use their drugs and be watched by doctors and nurses not optimistic about persuading him van do barred his friends they decide everywhere philip owen goes

1:55:15 oppenheimer park which is a big park in vancouver with a cross more than a thousand crosses each of the addicts and he says something like i'm not going to speak again without having the addicts here with me about addiction, career ends but a more liberal guy wins the election and the room stays open right in the evangelical christian in mississippi called christina dent who's doing incredible work with

1:57:46 streets of the downtown east side where bud had lived as a homeless person and they had this right the day he started that right just by virtue of the fact they have a device on which to listen You can tell them stories. have a wall perimeter and we pay people to walk around it the whole time so good luck keeping them out of a 3 000 mile border right that will never happen

2:00:31 people who want to you know get everyone to use drugs and get children to use drugs and think I mean, there's been a little bit of a backlash in a kind of absurd book that's come out, schizophrenic episodes probably directly as a result of large dose use of THC, whether it's book i don't think he did a good job for two reasons one because he's basically only making

2:02:50 is absolutely right i think there's another layer that's going on at the same time before alcohol was banned in the US, the most popular drinks by far were beer and wine, right? If we fill it with vodka, we're going to get drink for thousands of people. for a reason uh when the ban happens heroin becomes the only form of opiates powder cocaine becomes

2:05:06 It's not good that mild forms of the drug are when they're not available. And if you have a high tolerance and you smoke a lot of pot, or than beer rather it's easier to carry gin around you have to carry less of it with cannabis it listed at all these dispensaries they have it listed you know 20 35 they have it listed so you so if i remember rightly there's 38 active components in cannabis right so cannabinoids

2:07:52 But actually, this is really interesting evidence. right very rich thc in some people will cause psychosis that's a real problem there are things the um i think it's slightly more slightly more complicated than that the other thing i think obviously and a kid comes up to him like an 11 year old or something and goes hey mister um i'm not allowed to buy alcohol will you go into that liquor store and

2:10:43 protect our kids argument is used as a so so psychosis versus schizophrenia what is the major distinction yeah i've not researched this in depth but um i don't say it's the same degree of confidence i've been saying the other stuff but um professor nut argues well we know that cannabis use has massively increased says. and have a psychotic break psychological causes how you think about yourself and your place in the world.

2:14:05 degeneration of the brain or a disease like alzheimer's um but even with dementia which is much stronger in african you could turn to in a crisis and when they started doing it years ago the most common answer was five about this immigrants are more likely to have psychosis than non-immigrants there's a whole The fact that these people in Africa are not,

2:17:10 illegally that is a prescription drug so called modafinil or provigil provigil why did you use Oh let's give it to people with narcolepsy way of whether it's addiction and other things wasn't working that well so for me modafinil was or provigil i bought it on the internet um but obviously we can't be in a state of executive focus all the time right um but what modafinil

2:20:12 oh well i mean it was designed for people who find it hard to stay awake so that's not true I haven't done a huge amount of research on this drug. and walk out down the street, Exactly. vigil or pro vigil they're very similar it didn't seem like there was much creativity going on that And it just gave you like this pepped up sense of focus and awareness.

2:22:53 non-drug based addictions right you think about 20 years ago people start talking about sex addiction goes through a meeting of sex and love addicts anonymous and like there's some woman talking next room down at narcotics anonymous i've known a lot i've known a lot of gambling addicts and did you feel that Well, absolutely everything you do that you like gives you dopamine.

2:24:54 because they fail so often. and healthy, you'll bond and connect with like the people around you with meaningful work. But if you well lots of moments especially if you look at someone who's playing online poker as i've done It's a weird place. minute i got out of the car i'm feeling really pissed off that i couldn't check my email i was getting something out of it right and she argues that one of the things they're getting is the

2:28:18 There's puzzles. me i've got teenage nephews i've got god sons we actually don't ask anything of young men right it's not like the old days where you would say hey you're wasting your life now it's basically and particularly gambling addictions You know, so you're chasing the thrill. Several years. And I came to a realization. and we started playing it again recently

2:31:29 But that's so interesting in itself, isn't it? That's a bit like the Rat Park principle. portuguese drug decriminalization right if we give people good lives they will not want to obsession uh a a way of being in the world right like i don't it's like sometimes i get people the the yeah sorry now people that are journalists he's, But you know, I'm not against people,

2:34:26 You enjoy them. But I think in terms of stimulants, Right? Do you know, I went to this Amish village for Lost Connect lost connections but one thing that's really interesting there are these people who argue let them go off and go fishing right the amish don't want to make you sit passive do what you're told right it this is um i think it's a guy called alfrey cone uh i think it's him who says every school has two curriculums or curricula whatever the plural is you've got the

2:37:37 So I started to look at the evidence about this. That's a really extreme figure. much more likely to become depressed cleaned toilets i'm like wait are we saying they're just condemned to these miserable lives thought this was going to be the next 40 years of her life so one day with her husband josh meredith corporations you know how it's a very recent human invention you know how it works as an army

2:40:56 So they don't have a boss. totally in line with professor marmot's findings is you know giving them back control over their better for the economy a study at cornell university found democratic workplaces grow change change the way we live in ways that will make or it won't just make people who are depressed And I said a line in my, I did a TED talk about it called Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong.

2:44:01 crisis so i think that question that people kept asking me i could see that portugal and switzerland had dealt with some problems of disconnection but you went quite food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick right but there's this really your show has two kinds of motivation in their life right we're all a mixture of both so imagine

2:46:09 piano right you're not doing it because that thing gives you joy you're doing it to get something about something as simple as i was a while ago uh i was at elton john's last night in caesar's palace not enjoying the experience and it makes them feel like shit because it makes you're trying to get us to neglect what is important about life, right? to sell things you're you're changing the the current market that a lot of people don't have

2:49:19 london there was a big controversy um a couple of years back skinny billboards exactly so it was this it was a is a possible goal yeah i mean it's not possible for the vast majority of people You wouldn't show, isn't there? full of bullshit junk values right educate them on what it's happening to them and make it less appealing well this is the latest nike sneakers or the latest iphone or whatever it was and if their parents couldn't

2:52:27 You don't have to do it in this context. um it was very often i would be almost or whatever, if that's the right phrase. but giving people the ability just to see how hollow those junk values were, and just meeting we don't have these conversations in our culture very often just meeting once every I sometimes feel like I'm giving people permission to know the thing they already know.

2:54:55 how did we get to the point we're pointing out the most fucking obvious thing you can imagine and I got some relief from the chemical antidepressants but it did not solve my depression experience where you know peter teal have you had him on your show no but i know him yeah so peter Institute of Health who's a hugely admirable man and I'm sitting there and I'm like

2:57:17 I'm sitting there thinking, way juliet you wouldn't understand a damn thing about why anyone does wrap this up we're already after i really enjoyed the show can i just say very quickly that anyone of loads of the people of both those books as well