 I've been in jail for a year now. I know the prison walk. I know the routine. So I go into this maximum security part in the Madison Street jail in 2003. And you know, Max, it was mostly murderers, a few crystal meth chemists. So I, you know, I'm doing the prison walk now walking. All right, guys, today we have a special guest, Sean Atwood. Sean is a speaker, author and activist based in London, who's banned from America for life. As an inmate and Sheriff Joe's Arpaio jail, he used a tiny pencil sharpened on a cell door to write the first prison blog, John's Jail Journal. Sean, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on, Amir. Yeah, it's my pleasure. I think I first heard of you. It might have been London real, I think, maybe. At least for me, but what value attainment? Well, maybe it was value attainment. Yeah, I didn't do London real. And then they didn't follow through. Oh, bastards. All right, guys, if you're listening, fucking invite Sean on. What's going on, man? Like what the fuck? You know, shit, you guys are both in the fucking UK. I know, I'm south of West London. You know, there you go, man, like fucking neighbors. But your story stories, it's fascinating, very fascinating. And so I kind of want to kind of dive into it. And I know you probably talked about this already before a bunch of times, but I kind of, you know, for the audience who aren't aware of your story, who aren't familiar with your background, if you want to kind of give the coals notes of like, what happened if you want to kind of recap everything? Yeah, as a kid, I used to visit my aunts in Arizona. And I come from the Northwest of England from a chemical manufacturing town. So you can imagine going from this place where it was always raining and cold to sunny Arizona with the swimming pools in the backyards. Now, I thought, right, I'm interested in the stock market as a teenager. And I was only 14 when my economics teacher started giving me classes on my own. So there was a quarry at the top of my town on a hill called Peck's Hill. And there was a tree called the thinking tree. So me and my mates used to sit on this tree, the thinking tree, and I'd tell them, I'm going to go to America, make a million, fly you guys over. You know, that was my dream. Well, I managed to pull it off, arrived in Phoenix, Arizona. I think it was 91. Got a job as a stockbroker in the 90s. If you've seen Wolf of Wall Street, you know what that's like. Smile and dial. Brokers must have 20 foot curly cords and paste the room. Smiling, pacing brokers make the most money. You're only as big as your numbers are on this board for the month. It was all just like that. So that's where I saw people do it. Snorting coke, snorting crystal meth, getting strippers up to the office. Hell's angels coming and threatening people. This was my introduction to the work world. After five years, I was grossing half a million. My first year, I was living off cheese and toast and bananas, barely able to pay my rent. I was worried I was going to have to come home. But by the fifth year, I've got my own staff, secretary, call callers, only my 20s got enough money to retire. Put that into textures. Those textures on the stock market shot up. And I became a millionaire, but there was a disconnect between my wealth and my common sense. I'm in my 20s, high testosterone, no rational thought processes going because I'm on drugs and it scrambled my decision making processes. And it started out just throwing house parties at first, giving away drugs, you give away drugs, ecstasy, and you attract a lot of friends. Then I saw the business potential. Why be working in an office when I can just make money from the party scene? Applied my business studies degree to an ecstasy trafficking organization. And at the peak of it, I had people bringing 30, 40,000 hits at a time from Holland. We had people going through America originally, but after one of my smugglers got stopped at Sky Harbor Airport, she got stuck to a back room. The pills were in vitamin jars. And they opened the luggage, put the jars on the table. They said, so what are they? She said vitamins. They said, cool, have a nice day, put them back in a luggage. So I thought, all right, I need to come up with a new strategy. Consulted a lawyer and the attorney said, start bringing them in through Mexico. So that's what we did. So now I've got operations in Mexico, got people flying from Hermosillo to Mexico City to Paris, getting the train over to Holland, coming back. I've invested in beachfront property in Puerto Pena Escobar, Rocky Point. So I'm down there overseeing the Mexican operation. And nobody got busted bringing them back over the border into Arizona. At the peak of it, I've got the new Mexican mafia protecting me. Sammy, the Bulls crew, they knocked the teeth out of my top sales guy. And of course, down in Mexico, I had to be in with the local people down there as well. Now, I met a woman, fell in love. She thought it was dangerous. I quit the business, thought I'd got away with it. That was about 2001. May 16th, 2002. I'm back in college studying Spanish and backtrading the stock market. Get up early on the computer that day. And then that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what is this? Is it like the cops? Or is it someone pretending to be the cops come to rob me? Next thing they say, Tempe Police Department, we got a warrant open the door. So I run to the window. Whole apartment complex is surrounded. Police have got guns. They're marching up the stairs with these boots on. Go through to the bedroom. We're like, all right, we'd better let them in. Me and my girlfriend get halfway through the living room. Then just boom, just door flies off the hinges. Hands above your heads. Get on the fucking ground now. Don't move. So I thought you had to get caught with the drugs. And this is what I tell young people who are going to speak in schools. All it takes is someone from your past to tell the cops you did a drug deal with them and they've got you. It's a witness. It's a conspiracy case. Over 100 people were arrested in SWAT team raids. Add about 200 people working for me at the peak of it. And we formed the United Front. We got a lawyer, the Mexican Mafia, recommended to us. The new Mexican Mafia that was Alan Simpson. We formed the United Front. Only four people cooperated. I fought the case for 26 months. And I was facing a maximum 200 years. But by the end of it, we managed to get it down to a nine and a half years. So 26 months in the jail. Then I got sent over to the prison system. Then I got deported through federal immigration deportation. Now, while I was in the jail, I was in Sheriff Joe up high. I was jail, like you said. This jail had the highest rate of death in America. Locked up abroad. Nat Geo, they did an episode on my story. They researched it. 62 people died in that jail around the time I was there. And I've got videos of guards and gang members murdering inmates in that jail on my YouTube channel. So I asked the guard, how do you guys get away with all this? Dead rats in the food, cockroaches, crawlers. And they said, the world has got no idea what's going on in here. And the public don't care about prisoners. So something snapped in my mind. And with a tiny little golf pencil, sharpened on the door, I started to write everything down. My aunt smuggled it out of Mac security. Typed what I'd written up to my parents in England in my little town witness. They put them on the internet as a blog. Not in my name, John, J-O-N, John's Jail Journal. So they wouldn't know it was me. And it went on to attract international media attention to the conditions. And that whole thing has transformed my life. It has sent me on this new path now of being a YouTuber, an author, a speaker. And when I was in my 20s on the drugs, hanging out with these gangsters, I thought I wouldn't even make it past 30. So I just wake up with a smile on my face. Everything for the rest of my life now is gravy after going through that jail situation. A couple of questions. So my first question is going from Stockbroker, Wall Street, and then going into that world, there are synergies. How did you just get into it? Like, obviously, someone had to vouch for you. Like, how did you get connected with all these organized families? Okay. So I've been connected with these people at different stages of my life. So I could go over them individually if you like. The New Mexican Mafia, that came about, and it's weird for, you know, a pale-ass, British, nerdy business graduate to be connected with the New Mexican Mafia, which is one of the most powerful organizations in Arizona at that time, criminal organizations. What happened there was I was at an apartment, party, supplying the E, the ecstasy, and another guy comes in and, you know, he's supplying the weed and the coke, and he's this tall Mexican-American guy with the prison tattoos on. And we're all just chilling out in this complex. It was in Tempe. It's called Rancho Marietta, massive complex of buildings. People just listening to music, getting stoned, doing a bit of this and that. Next thing, a Tempe police officer walks in and he says, I could smell weed from outside. Nobody moved. He goes to grab his radio. I'm thinking we're all going to get busted. The guy I'm talking to, the Mexican-American guy, pulls out a gun, points it at the cop, says, the only one who's not leaving is you, motherfucker. Everybody run. So we all ran off into the night. Now, I've never seen anything this heavy before. So I'm crapping myself. We've got multiple apartments in this complex that we're doing operations out of. So I go over to the nearest one with some of my friends in there, police sirens, helicopter, all hell's breaking loose. We're like, all right, maybe they're going to track us here. Shall we flush our drugs? What should we do? And all of a sudden, on the French window, bam, bam, bam, bam. We think it's the cops. Someone looks out, and it's the Mexican-American guy who pulled the gun on the cops. He's like, let me in. So all right, we'll let him in. And he schooled us. They schooled me on a lot of things. And he said, look, they can't just come in here without a warrant, because the dogs will come in and everything. So he says, if they knock on the door, don't answer. Turn the TV off, turn the lights off. They can't just smash the door in. They'll think no one's in here. And that's exactly what happened. They knocked on the door. We kept quiet, and they went next door, and they just kept going around like that. So at the end of the evening, he said, look, Sean, because you and your friends protected me, me and my brothers have got your back. And I had no idea what that meant. So a couple of months later, he says, look, my brothers want to meet you. I go over to this apartment, I'm sorry, a house on this road, and they've got all these showriders, lowrider showcase cars on the road. And we knock at the door, his brother answers, looking up at me, and he's like, he hears me talk in my British accent, and he goes, damn, you talk funny. I guess you are from England. Come in and meet my homies. So I go into the living room, and there's all these massive tattooed Mexican American guys, little wife beat of vests on, they've got the shorts that go down just below the knees, all the prison tats and the chains, a whole range of guns in the big guns, weighing scales, slabs of crystal meth, slabs of cocaine, and they're all looking at me like, you know, who just let that guy in here like they wanted to kill me or eat me. So I'm shitting myself, and I'm looking around the room. There's the biggest TV I've ever seen. There's a little TV showing all the comings and goings on the street. And then on top of the big TV, I do a double take. I'm like, whoa, hold on a minute. I've seen one of them before. Where was it? Oh yeah, it was in a Rambo movie. They had a rocket propel grenade launcher on top of the TV. Now I didn't, I had no idea who they were. People don't just say, you know, we're the new Mexican mafia or anything like that. And it was a couple of years later when I took the Mexican American guy from the party back to that house and the whole neighborhood was blacked out. They were guiding the streets with light ones, the police were, and they were bringing them all out in handcuffs. And it was news headlines that night, new Mexican mafia at all and mug shots. You know, they tried to assassinate the head of the prison system, assassinating witnesses, police. And yeah, that was the day I finally found out who they were. So that's how I clicked up with the new Mexican mafia. Now, prison gangs, that's a whole new thing. If you go into prison, it's all racial. Yeah. You're in Toronto. Yeah. So do you have racial prison gangs in Toronto? Well, I'm not too sure how it is in the States or the UK, but how our prison system here is divided. It's three levels. You have municipal, provincial and federal. So municipal is two years under, sorry, provincial is two years under, then federal is two years plus. Provincial, it's not really, it's different culture. I think federal is, federal is race. So blacks with the blacks, whites with the whites, so forth. Yeah, because I did interview a guy on my channel, John Abbott. Who escaped from San Quentin, got in a shootout with some Mounties and ended up in prison out there. And he was telling me about the different cliques. But in Arizona, it's the main categories are whites, blacks, Mexicans, Mexican Americans. And then you got some minority of Native Americans. They call chiefs. So the white gang is early on Brotherhood. Black gang is Mao Mao. Mexican Americans, Chicanos, New Mexican Mafia. And then you've got like the Pisces, Mexican nationals, like old Mexican mafia. So as soon as you go in, they're going to check your charges. And some skinheads from the AB come up to me to like, hey, getting that cell over there. You can't say no to these guys, or they're just going to smash your head into the wall. I go into the cell, they come in behind me. They close the door so I can't escape. Biggest one gets in my face. He's like, what are your charges? What are your charges? I'm new to this. You get a little print out saying all your charges. It was like conspiracy, crimes indicate use of electronic device in a drug transaction. I didn't know any of that shit meant at that point. I've just been arrested. So I say, I don't know what my charges mean. That is not a good thing to say to the gangs when they're coming up to you. So now they've got me against the wall about to attack me. What do you mean? You don't know what your charges mean. Are you a chomo? Are you a chomo? I don't even know what a chomo is at this point. So some charges like chomos are KOS. Kill on site. Kill on site. Yeah, yeah. And so chomo, people don't understand that's child molester. Yeah, chomo is child molester. Pedophile, if you harm in women or kids and you come into prison, they're going to try and murder you right away or the very least they're going to give you a beat down. And you need to walk around with your papers like it's mandatory. You've got to show your papers. You've got to show your papers. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, they saw us in for drugs. They found out about my case. It was news headlines. It was a newspaper. Phoenix Newtimes did a big story on me. Made me out to be 10 times bigger than I was. They portrayed me to be a cross between Walter White and a vampire, basically. Picture of me on the cover looking like Nosferatu. And he drank GHB like blood, this nocturnal Englishman. So that got me like an extra milk with the breakfast for about two weeks before the novelty wore off. Now, because over a hundred people were arrested with me, including some of my bouncers, including my best mate from my hometown, Wildman, who's about this big. When we sent him to Mexico when he was on the run, they said the Mexicans would kill him. And the Mexicans ended up calling him El Oso, the burr because of his fighting style. And he enabled me to establish operations in Mexico because he went down there first. So, you know, people like Wildman, if you've watched my YouTube channel, he's done a lot of the videos. He's done a lot of videos and co-interviews with me. His own stories and stuff. This guy is a force of nature and a good guy to get arrested with. I'm not a tough guy by any means. I mean, look at the size of me. But I used my education as my currency. You've got to have a hustle. And there was my second year in, right? The prosecutor was really messing with me. I asked for a bail reduction. The bond was three quarters of a million cash only. Went to court. Seems to have gone really well. And the judge doubled my bail to $1.5 million cash only. I thought I was going to get out, which automatically reclassifies you to Max. So, I've been in jail for a year now. I know the prison walk. I know the routine. So, I go into this maximum security pod in the Madison Street jail in 2003. And, you know, Max, it was mostly murderers, a few crystal meth chemists. So, I, you know, I'm doing the prison walk now, walking up to this pod. What up, dog? What up, wood? And what are you in here for, wood? You know, where are you rolling from all this shit? Talking the talk. And I'm thinking, all right, I've got to do all this because they're determining right now whether to smash me or to accept me. So, the head of the gang in that building, he's like, all right, you know, stand at the table. You can talk to us, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, when I went back up to my pod, I'm like, my cell, I'm like, you know, I'm shitting myself, wondering what they're going to think about me because I can see they were really trying to scrutinize me, especially because I'm from England and all that. That's like something they're not used to dealing with. Anyway, when the head of the whites came back to my cell, he brought a file with him, all his legal paperwork. He saw right through my tough guy act he realized I was an educated person and I was a potential resource to him. So, if you're coming in, whatever skill you've got, they can see through people and they will decide what they're going to do with you at that point. Yeah. And so, let's go back a little bit before you went. Did it get you on a RICO charge? Okay. So, I've done some videos. I was about to cash his case because I'm a RICO case. Now, that was a federal RICO indictment. So, each state has its own state laws and in Arizona, the equivalent of a RICO would be like conspiracy charge, continuous criminal enterprise. So, I had the equivalent to what he had brought on how the state phrase it with their terminology. And they made your case that you mentioned earlier, like at the end there wasn't just somebody rat you out? All right. So, like I said, I'd quit the distribution. Yeah. Because you were done for like a year or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a thing called the statute of limitations. And in Arizona, that's seven years. So, if someone goes to the cops and says they did a deal with you within that seven-year window, they've got you, they've got witnesses. In my case, the cops tried to infiltrate us on the covers. We saw them come into my life. We had the whole local scene locked down. So, the cops would always come in these older guys from out of state saying they want to buy some pills. Nobody knew who the fuck they were. So, then they went to the judge and said, look, we can't infiltrate these guys. Can you get a wiretap on the basis of these 10 witness statements? And the judge authorized the wiretap. Now, I'd quit the importation when this wiretap was ongoing. And all of the suppliers of the drugs were on those calls. But the prosecutor said that this was my enterprise, the Atwood enterprise, and that I was still running it. They do all these dirty tricks, and I'm not trying to make excuses for what I did. I deserve to be punished. I put myself in there for my own decisions, and it ended up doing me a lot of good. But there are some people running the justice system, who, especially all these innocent people on death row, I see how evil in the games these prosecutors can play, just to enhance their own careers. If someone gets murdered, they'll get a black guy who's got some criminal history. They'll give him $5,000 to defend himself. And he's going to get a jury trial. He doesn't stand a chance. They'll spend a million putting on their own theater show. And then they'll fry him just before the government is up for election to show that he's tough on crime. I think the states, people really don't understand how fucked up the states are when it comes to prison system. Number one, it's a massive business. It's so fucked up that when I tell people this, they don't believe it, there are publicly traded prisons on the fucking stock market. Well, Corrections Corporation of America were bolstering in the annual reports of their shareholders that our profit growth is guaranteed because they keep coming back. Like, let me guys say more, United States has more prisoners per capita than any fucking country on the planet. 25% of the world's prison population. And for black guys, it's off the scale. I mean, I was there when the black guys got sentenced, the war hero, Vietnam vet had been shot in the head by a sniper in a purple heart medal for bravery. Prosecutor said he's unemployed. He's got a nice new car. There was some crumbs of cocaine. He must be a dealer. And the judge was like, bam, sent him away for almost 10 years, just like that. Yeah, man, it's fucked up. The whole war on drugs is fucked up. And so for you, you were just focusing on ecstasy, huh? Well, ecstasy was my primary product and what I got my reputation for. But when you branch out to have 200 people working for you, you start to become like these outlets became like one-stop shops for various club drugs, ketamine, amyone, LSD chemist. We were getting crystals from the rainbow family in San Fran. And various Mexican pharmaceuticals, Zenex, Valium, Somers, GHB. But yeah, I mean, the ecstasy was the bulk of it. It's a crazy thing. Like we're in a process now. We might see MDMA legalized within the next two, three years in North America. Well, I think it's made me more empathogenic. I almost got beat to death by some drugs when I was a teenager. And I want to go out and dance. One talk to women. I was too self-conscious. And when the rave scene began, I took ecstasy. Couldn't stop dancing. Couldn't stop talking to people all night long. And for over 10 years, I was in that mindset. But you just sit down with people and you open your hearts and tell each other your life stories. Even the New Mexican mafia. I told you that every time I went over to, it was a lethal atmosphere and they looked like they want to eat me. Except for the one night they said, we're going to have ecstasy party tonight. Our women are coming over. Most of us are doing it for the first time. I brought in the pills, get a call in the middle of the night. We've run out, bring some more pills, brought some more pills over. And they're all over. They're like these sweaty, overgrown teddy bears smiling away, picking me up, burr hugging me. England man, we love your pills. Telling me their life stories. So yeah, it does. It breaks down those barriers. Yeah, personally for me like ecstasy or MDMA, it's been my personal choice of anything. And do you think that's made you like more feeling towards people? Like I've been in the psychedelic scene for a long time. I used to pop ecstasy when I was young, like crazy, like double stack, triple stack, Mercedes, you name it. I was in the grave scene long fucking time. I was raiding before. Mitsubishi's. Oh yeah, Mitsubishi's, White Mercedes, Blue telephone, double stack, double stack, the whole nine yards. Where were you raving at? Fuck Toronto, man. We had a huge rave scene. Oh, imagine you was about a massive scene in Toronto. Massive, massive. Like the nineties, like mid nineties, even like early 2000s. It was crazy. Way before the whole like electronic music festival that you see today. It was like real raves, raves. Yeah. For me, me currently I do MDMA therapy, like pure 100% guided, facilitated MDMA therapy. You do that presently? Yeah. Yeah. I do everything. MDMA, Ibogaine, psilocybin, like four. And what's the legality of that in Toronto? So ketamine is legal in facilitated medical establishments. There's lobby groups right now where we might even see within the next 18 months that MDMA is actually, MDMA psilocybin is already sanctioned for research in certain laboratories here. We're part of the super cluster. So U of T is researching all these. MDMA is not a psychedelic. I'll just group it in there for the sake of conversation. We could potentially see within under two years, MDMA psilocybin be completely decriminalized and then put in a category of use with medical treatment. Yeah. I think all drugs should be completely legalized and decriminalized. Yeah, but then there's no business. End the war on drugs. People who want the drugs to be kept illegal are the gangsters and the people chasing the gangsters because like you said, it's big business. I always say, if you want to make things better in North America specifically with the cartels in Mexico, legalize everything. Better the whole world, man. Everything from knife crime in London to Juarez being the murder capital. A lot of that revolves around gangsters competing for that black market profit. And I learned this writing about Escobar. I've written several books about Escobar. I'm writing the longest book ever about him presently. It's over 1,000 pages long Papua Escobar story. Two, the first two installments are out. But he could get coca-paste for $60 a kilo in the 70s when he was starting out. And because of drug laws, cocaine was going for $60,000 a kilo. Jesus. So making worthless plants illegal has made those worthless plants more valuable than gold. And it's been the biggest profit opportunity in the history of the world for criminal organizations. Yeah, I was reading a fascinating deep dive study in Mexico where the cartels have taken over avocado plantations because the profits for avocados are better than some other forms of drugs, which is interesting. Yeah, you're right. I think it's epidemic. You know, what I mean by epidemic is it's funny because at least for Ontario, so where the province I'm from, by the scripts written by doctors, and so this is all documented, we have one third of Ontarians who are prescribed some form of opioids, so oxycodines, et cetera. Now, that's one third of the population is on a script. But you can take something like CBD, or you can take psilocybin, or you can take camp, or you can take any of these non-addictive two, three-time use, and you're completely alleviated of your pain. But the problem with that is it's not a sustainable business model. Like opioids are highly addictive. You got to buy them every single month. So it's like the writing's on the wall, man. People have to see it. It's always funny when people tell me, it's like, oh, you're taking a drug. I'm like, no, motherfucker. What do you think you're popping? You think you're Advil and Tylenol every day is healthy? You think you're fucking oxycodines healthy? Or you must be fucking delusional. Like, I mean, at the peak of the war on drugs, you had hundreds of thousands of potheads going to prison. What gives the right of people who are popping all those pills you just mentioned, and smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol? What gives those people the right to put hundreds of thousands of people in prison choosing weed? That is moral relativism. That is not what the prison system was designed for. I'm a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. They're cops, and they say, look, we joined to put away the bad guys. And if you look, our crime has been defined for millennia, person A harms person B, murder, robbery, rape, drug traffickers like me, not making excuses for. But if you put hundreds of thousands of people in prison for weed possession, who's a person with weed hurting themselves, possibly? But that's the most. So, yeah, it's just a whole thing is a big shakedown on the tax base. And you're right, the flood gate is open because these evil fucking politicians that have kept drugs like cannabis illegal, I'm not talking smoking, I'm talking the oils. These kids that have had these cancer seizures and going to commas and they can die. And all the kids who've died and all the people who've cancer died because the fucking evil politicians have kept this illegal. They can't go up against those babies anymore like Charlotte in America. A politician will not go up against a sick baby because they will lose votes. So the flood gate has opened and people are waking up all over the world. Queen Victoria's doctor said, this is the most medicinal plant on the face of the earth. And the earliest laws against cannabis were the pharmaceutical societies of California. They wanted it to be made illegal so people could not grow free medicine in their own backyards. Yeah, Canada used to be before World War I, the biggest producer of hemp because we have good weather for it. And it's versatile. Then during the wartime efforts of World War I, World War II, they started growing rapeseed, which is canola oil, which stands for Canada oil. And so the big pharmaceutical companies came in. Well, let me rewind. Before pharmaceutical companies, they were chemical companies. Then they went into pharmacy. So they provided all these oils and materials for wartime efforts and then they made it illegal for hemp to be grown in Canada. Like think about it, a native type of... Well, it's not native, but planted natively there. You can't overdose from it, has so many benefits. You can use it as biodiesel. You can use it as CBD. You can get hemp strains and then make clothing out of hemp. There's like multivariable usage of hemp. No, no, no, that's illegal. It's illegal. You can't plant it. That's illegal. Henry Ford made a car out of it. And he said, why are we depleting the world's resources when we can just grow these plants and replace them? Yeah. And the whole world economy was hijacked by Harry Anslinger and his gang, William Randolph Hearst and the Duponts. And that's shaped the whole world, that decision. Because Harry Anslinger said to everybody around the world, all the different countries, if you don't sign on for these drug laws, America's not going to trade with you. And Harry Anslinger was the future son-in-law of the Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. And Mellon had investments in fledgling, pharma, petrochemicals, all these other industries. So it was just one big corporate cabal that stopped it. But now, like you said, the hemp, there's so many applications for hemp. I was in Holland towards the end of last year, and I went to the hemp museum. I'm thinking about writing a book called The War Against Weed. So I was doing some research and everything I saw in there just tied right in with what I've been finding out on the internet. But you're right. Tides are turning like here in Canada, I think we're the second country after Uruguay, I believe, that we fully legalize marijuana. So you can grow your own, I think like three, four plants, you can grow their stories everywhere. There's obviously pros and cons for this. But like Portugal's a good example where they decriminalized the drugs and 70% drop within, I think it was murder rates, suicide, the prison system, everything got better by just decriminalizing the drugs. Well, that program started in my hometown with this. Yeah, what they did was heroin use was off the scale, shoplifting, car theft, burglaries, disease transmission from dirty needles, AIDS. So they said, all right, let's just give these guys medicinal grade heroin. It's a worthless plant. It's not going to cost the tax but it's that money to source this. And that's what they did. And the usage went down because the users weren't afraid of getting arrested. They spoke to the health teams. Like Portugal got their users down from over 100,000 by counseling them to less than 50,000. And then all the crime collapsed. The shops were so happy that they were going to roll it out across the country. And America found out, the DEA found out, the White House found out and one call to our to our prime minister. And that program got shut down. It was Portugal that picked it up years later, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I think Canada might follow Portugal. Like, you know, we're leading the scene in the psychedelic therapy, especially in Vancouver. We have an area called East Hastings, which is like, they have safe zones. So you can shoot up in this, like exactly how you mentioned. And especially Ibogaine. Like Ibogaine has, and we've been studying Ibogaine for a long time where two treatments of Ibogaine for heroin addicts has been shown that I think at around 77% of people within that study got clean after this two treatments of Ibogaine. Wow, that's phenomenal. Think about that, just two treatments and you're not addicted to heroin anymore. So it's like, you know, so like, since you've been out, like, have you seen, has anything kind of surprised you the scene still the same? Like, do you still pay attention to what's happening but like the laws and what's happening with like the that type of culture and within that world at all? So I went for being a selfish narcissistic, hedonistic party person to become an activist and writing all these books in the beginning, exposing the jail and the prison system, then expanding to writing a war on series, war on drugs series of books, exposing the war on drugs. And that's, you know, that's what led me to Epstein was the international trafficking in arms and cocaine and people and the intelligence agencies, the CIA, the Mossad, because I wrote a book called America Made about Barry Seal and Barry Seal, he was flying cocaine in for the CIA under George Bush and Oliver North, Bush Sr. President, I mean, Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton was providing the state security for it by with the police and Clinton was absolutely on the rampage on cocaine. There was multiple sexual assault suits settled during that period of his life and his brother, his brother Roger got arrested doing a cocaine transaction and he told the cop that some of it was for Bill and his brother Bill's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner and then Bill turned around and locked up a record number of low level drug users. So that's obviously makes me sick about these hypocritical people that get in power. They are so psychopathic and sleazy. They have no morals whatsoever. They'll lock up a chunk of people for doing the exact same thing that they did themselves. It makes me sick. Well, you know, there is a psychological profile for you being the so-called politician as a sociopath. To get to the top of it. Yeah, I think you have some well-meaning ones in the bottom, but they're not allowed to rise. Yeah, like listen, like anything in life, like, you know, you look at politicians and we probably say like maybe 5% of them on top are the crazy sociopaths and there's like a good huge number of people within all levels of government that really want to do good. Now there's two things stopping them. Number one, you know, Nassim Tlaib talks about this the two biggest addictions in the world is heroin and a salary. Right. So they have a family support. So then they have to be careful. They have to tiptoe around. So they don't get, I'm going to say fired, but maybe demoted. And number two is they don't, they can't really change anything. Like people think governments is like one magical person, stand up. There's factions and factions and factions within the government and everybody's running their own thing. Think of it like, it's a prison with their prison. Like get all these little clicks in there, like the CIA, NSA, FBI, then within that you have different clicks and everyone has their own agenda. Everyone's doing their own self-interest. Like how the fuck do I benefit from this? Yeah, right now I'm reading the assassination of Robert Maxwell and that is just taking me down this huge rabbit hole of all the various clicks and how they're interrelated. People who are watching this who don't know who he is. He's Galane Maxwell's dad who died mysteriously off the Canary Islands. His body was found naked. The boat he was on was called the Lady Galane. But Maxwell built up this empire of trafficking in arms, drugs, money laundering, people, because he brought all these disparate factions into his criminal enterprise and they were all the intelligence agencies around the world which he sold promised software to. His ultimate loyalty was to Israel and the Mossad. And he was also working with the Russian mafia, the Triads, the Yakuza, the Colombian mafia. So man when you start researching this stuff it gets really scary. Yeah, sometimes ignorance is bliss and you just gotta you know, I always tell people there's absolute power corrupts absolutely all. And so when you have people in a position of power that there's no consequences. There's no retaliations for your actions then they're going to continue doing what it's like a bully. If a bully keeps on bullying people without any retaliations or consequences. Well, it's not rocket science. You don't have to be a psychologist or psychiatrist to figure out the behavior of that bully. He continues or she continues doing the exact same thing. Yeah, it was Maxwell when Ghislaine and Epstein started going out together. It was Robert Maxwell who brought Epstein into the intelligence community fold. That house that Epstein was in it was already wired up with the cameras the house he got from Wexner before Epstein even moved in there. So the picture is so much bigger than what the mainstream media are portraying. Yeah, I've read about that. It's like they gifted Epstein like a 70 million dollar fucking house. Yeah, Leslie Wexner who was the guy Crazy. From the limited and the Victoria's secret brand. And Epstein was enticing young women and teenagers on the basis that he could make them a Victoria's secret model. And then he was doing these assaults on them. And that was just one of his strategies. He had numerous strategies. The whole Epstein thing is crazy. It's like I think this is the first time ever that everybody from every side this is in a conspiracy. He just straight out fucking everybody. It's like, wait a second. The guards walk away. What the cameras or the electricity or shuts down. Wait, the first recording disappeared. Wait a second. How did he hang himself? Where are these marks? Like all of this just happened. And it's like it's pretty like blunt of them to just do it. Like fuck it. We're just going to do it. And the whole history of the Metropolitan Correctional Census since it opened in 1975. There's no record of two guards ever falling asleep simultaneously. It's crazy, man. It's absolute. I heard that right now. I just read on Twitter like the British Virgin the British Islands they're also putting a charge against Epstein in the state. Good. Did you guys watch the Prince Andrew interview on the BBC where he just lied his art off? He tried to deny everything but he said he he couldn't possibly win a nightclub sweating because he doesn't sweat because of his bad experience. And then instantly on Twitter all these pictures showed up of him sweating. He says he doesn't go out in casual clothes in central London. Instantly on Twitter all these pictures of him in casual clothes in central London. He doesn't party. All these pictures of him party. He says he was at Pete's to express walking. Well which closes at 10 30. Club Trump opens at 10 30. So nothing he said made any sense at all. He completely ruined his entire career in the UK. He has that. He's had to quit all everything that he did all these charities all the work is he's had to quit everything. What's your take since you're in the UK what's your take on this whole was is it Prince Harry that's stepping down from the Royal Family? Yeah. I mean I've interviewed David I a couple of times and we talked about the assassination of Lady Di. Yes. And there's various theories that about you know was she pregnant with Dodie's baby? Did the Royals have a taken out for that reason or for another reason because you know she went on TV and said that Charles wasn't fit to be king. Whereas Fergie she was being more conciliatory during the breakup because she felt that she had to put on a front for the kids. Di was like getting on national TV and just calling the Royals out. So there's various theories as to why she had to go. So can you imagine being a child of hers and maybe reading this stuff or watching this stuff or how that's going to impact you as you grow up and if you've seen things you're only inside things that probably his mom didn't approve of. He could probably see how her mind started to turn. So I think he has carried the spirit of his mom. He's seen what's rotten in there because you can see things that the rest of us can't and he doesn't want a part of it. That's interesting to play out. They're moving to Canada here in Vancouver. Yeah. Well it's convenient for Prince Andrew because that has swamped the news here in this country. But before that every single day was a new angle on Prince Andrew and Epstein. Yeah. And so right now because you've mentioned you're an activist and you're spearheading better justice and better laws. Has anything have you seen stuff that kind of I know we've been talking about a lot of negative stuff but have you seen any laws or any movements that it's putting like a smile on your face as kind of positive light that you think we're going in the right direction of things? Yeah. I mean the biggest thing is that people at the state level in America got the cannabis legalized and decriminalized and people in this country they see that America do now. They think it's the politicians when it's not. It's been the people voting at the state level. The US federal government has maintained we to schedule one substance more harmful than cocaine with no medicinal value whatsoever where it's been since Harry Anselinger or Nixon or whatever. So that has been a huge thing now when I went to the Hemp Museum they said there are people still doing live sentences in America for weed possession under three strikes laws. All those people should be released. Everybody who's in prison for cannabis possession should be released. So it's good that we're moving in the right direction but there's still a long way to go. Yeah. Now I told you my brain snapped when the guard said the world has got no idea what's going on in here and I got that maximum security Madison street jail exposed. I was working with a number of activists back then mothers against our Pio these are people whose sons and daughters have been abused or died in Sheriff Joe Pio's jail system. Well that jail was closed down a couple of years later and at the last election I think it was the last election for Sheriff Sheriff Joe Pio got kicked out then he got indicted for contempt of court for racial profiling he's a big time racist he was a he came he used to work under Harry Anslinger and he had a frame picture of Harry Anslinger in his office and Harry Anslinger was saying that the main reason that weed and coke need to be made illegal is because there is there effect on the degenerate races a black man or a Mexican man on coke or weed or want to rape every white woman in the site so this was this was Sheriff Joe Pio's idol. Wow. Yeah so Sheriff Joe then he's found guilty contempt of court racial profiling he's looking at spending six months in his own jail but then Trump pardoned him and now he's announced that he's running for Senate Jesus or you might be running again to try and get control of the jail that's crazy man yeah so it's an ongoing battle but I've really branched out into just all different areas my podcast on my channel True Crime Podcast I started out just interviewing people who've been in prison wanted to help them get their stories and experiences out there because so many people helped me when I got our prison then I started interviewing ex cops ex prison guards now I'm interviewing activists journalists you know people around the world on the webcam and it's just really branching out so that we're exposing a much bigger picture of what's happening in the world yeah I think we're going to going through a slow I would say awakening I think especially with technology like things are easier to communicate it's a double-edged sword right it's easier to manipulate to right people take everything for face value they read a headline like Sean Atwood X Y Z almost be true I'm like dude you just read a fucking sentence but but I think they're slow tides are turning I think more and more people are slowly realizing that the systems that they trusted for a very long time aren't the systems our systems not looking out for their best interests and I think I think as a society we slowly evolve and grow and I'm more of the optimistic side of you I think things will get better yeah in the 1980s Bill Clinton could snort all the coke he wanted smoke all the weed he wanted go out and sexually assault women Hillary could track those women down and threaten their lives and the media they wouldn't report it but now try and get away with that you know someone's going to see you doing something take a picture take a video put it on twitter so that that floodgate has opened and that's how a lot of this old stuff is coming out to the masses because they could contain it within a certain jurisdiction but one click of a mouse and it's worldwide yeah but yeah I think we'll leave it at that man covered a lot I appreciate it and thank you for sharing your story Sean and I hope people found value in this and if people want to get a little know you know get to know you a little bit more and look at your resources and books and videos what's the best resource for them to reach out to you yeah I mean all my socials all all my books on Amazon worldwide on Amazon or under my name S-H-A-U-N-A-T-T would but I can send you a link to my youtube channel I can send you a link to to my books just just one link if you want to put them in the description box below the video I'd really appreciate that and if I'm if I'm allowed to put some clips up on my channel from this I can promote it for you and put a link to the main video on your channel as well I'll get you some subs for sure thank you man like always thanks Sean all right cheers Amir take care thank you