 Hello and welcome to today's debate on whether or not legalizing marijuana is a responsible public policy. My name is Jason Riddle. I'm the College Programs Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education. The mission of FE is to educate, inspire, and connect future leaders with the economic ethical and legal principles of a free society. We're hosting this debate as part of a seminar called Problem Solving 101 here in Golden, Colorado to serve as an introduction to the economic way of thinking for college age students. A special thanks to the Arthur N. Root Foundation for making this debate possible. And I want to welcome all the students here in attendance and welcome everybody watching this debate live from around the world. To start things off, I'm going to introduce the resolution. We're going to be debating today and how, and then I'm going to introduce today's participants. Finally, I'm going to explain the format of how we are going to proceed. The resolution we're going to be debating today is legalizing marijuana saves money and lives. Judge James Gray is going to be supporting the resolution and Dr. Kevin Sabette will be opposing. Now let me introduce our debate participants. Judge James P. Gray has served as a soldier in the War on Drugs for more than two decades. He's a Speaker and Representative of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the author of the book, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do. Judge Gray was a staff, judge, advocate, and criminal defense attorney for the US Navy JAG Corps and worked as a federal prosecutor for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. In 1983, he was appointed to the Santa Ana Municipal Court and in 1989, he was elevated to Superior Court of Orange County, retiring in January of 2009. Although Judge Gray has championed many causes, none has been bolder than his work to combat the illegal drug problem in America. He has concluded that helping to repeal drug prohibition is the best, most lasting gift that he could make to his country. Dr. Kevin Sabette has over 18 years of experience working on drug policy. He is the Director of Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida and an Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. From 2009 to 2011, he served as Senior Advisor in the Obama Administration at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. And he remains the only staff member at ONDCP to hold political appointment in both the Bush and Obama administrations. Dr. Sabette is the author of the book Reefers Sanity, Seven Great Myths About Marijuana and is a regular contributor to publications worldwide, including The Washington Post, Huffington Post, New York Times, Vancouver Sun, CNN, CNBC, and more than a dozen other media outlets. As a Marshall scholar, he received his PhD and MS in social policy at Oxford University. His areas of specialization include evidence-based drug prevention, treatment, and law enforcement, as well as the impacts of drug legalization and medical marijuana. Now for the order with which we're going to proceed in today's debate. Each debater will deliver eight minutes of opening statements, starting with Judge Gray taking the affirmative stance. We'll follow with four minutes rebuttal from each side. We'll then have a 15-minute period of Q&A from our audience here. And during that Q&A period, I welcome both of you to respond to audience questions, even if not directed specifically at you, or if you want to respond to a point made by your opponent. And finally, we're going to conclude the debate with three minutes of closing statements, starting with Dr. Sabette. Again, the resolution we're going to be debating today is legalizing marijuana, saves money, and lives. Judge Gray, you have eight minutes for opening remarks. Let me not mince words. Drug prohibition is the biggest failed policy in the history of the United States of America, second only to slavery. And in fact, regardless of your area of interest, health care, education, environment, whatever, if you'd give me some time, I will show you to your satisfaction how those issues are made worse because of drug prohibition. Yes, I was a former drug warrior. I was a federal prosecutor. I held the record for the largest drug prosecution in the Central District of California back in 1978. 75 kilos, a heroin, 165 pounds, was and is a whole bunch of heroin. Does anyone have a concept of what the record prosecution is today in the Central District of California? 18 tons of cocaine in one place. So you can see how much progress we're making. You folks are closer to being under 21 than I am. Some of you are under 21. So I'll ask you a question that I ask wherever I go. How many of you, when you were under 21, if you wanted to, would find it be easier to get marijuana than alcohol? Why? Because the illegal dealers don't ask for ID, right? How many of you agree with me? In fact, I'm from California. I am here to tell you that marijuana is the largest cash crop in the state of California. Number two is grapes, by the way, if you care. So it's here. We should have learned this from alcohol prohibition, which was a failed experiment. We cannot get rid of these drugs. They're going to be here one way or the other. Wouldn't you rather have the quality, the purity, the strength, the licensing in the hands of the government regulators, as well as honest in business people instead of criminals? That's the issue. It's a question of how we're going to deal with these drugs. Now I'm going to quarrel with the proposition. I do not want to legalize marijuana. Do not. I'm not just quibbling with titles. The shirts on your back are legalized products. They can be purchased in the free market. That's where the price is. There's no age restrictions. There's no advertising restrictions. I want to regulate and control marijuana like alcohol. That is so it's regulation and control. That's what's going on in Colorado today. They're having some problems. It's speed bumps along the way. They're learning, as you're aware, they had initiative 64 that passed in November by quite a substantial majority of the voters in Colorado. And now they have regulated and controlled marijuana for adults 21 years of age or older. And I say, good. Let me ask you a question. How many of you believe the federal government has all the answers? Never seen any hands yet. How many of you are adults in your states, be it Colorado or whatever else? How many of you believe that you as adults are perfectly able to decide how best to protect and care for the people of your state and you don't need the federal government to do it? No kidding. Now, I was the vice presidential candidate with the Libertarian Party in the last election, 2012. Governor Gary Johnson from New Mexico was our presidential candidate, and he would say time and again, look, if the federal government does not have all the answers, then let's allow each state to decide how best to serve and protect its people. And that will result in some wonderful successes that can be copied. And then, yes, maybe some noteworthy failures that can be avoided. Today, however, talk about something of import. I have never smoked marijuana. I'm not particularly interested in doing it. But lots of people are. There are some harms with marijuana. And you're going to hear from Kevin Sabette, and don't let him take up our time by talking about how dangerous some of these drugs can be. I will agree with pretty much everything that he says with that regard. But I'm also here to tell you that the most dangerous thing connected to marijuana is jail. We are arresting 750,000 people every year in our country for marijuana violations, and 88% of those are for nothing more than possession. It's crazy. I was a judge for a long time, and I would see in my own courtroom we're churning low-level drug offenders through the system for no good purpose, ruining their lives in many ways, and filling our prisons with nonviolent drug offenders. You're probably aware that the United States of America leads the world in the incarceration of our people, both by sheer numbers as well as per capita. And here I assure you, where number one does not make me proud? Does it make you proud? There was a fellow by the name of Jim Webb, who was a United States senator from Virginia, now retired. He saw these statistics and was quoted on the cover of Parade Magazine, saying, look, either we are the most evil people in the world, or we're doing something wrong. Which do you think it is? So what you want to do is recognize these drugs, be it marijuana, methamphetamine, whatever, are here to stay. Let's not moralize about them. Let's not wish that we could wish them away. They're here to stay. And sometimes they can be dangerous. Sometimes they can be addictive. So is my drug of choice, by the way, which is alcohol. So there's no such thing as a perfect system. But if they're here to stay, let's involve ourselves with a program that reduces the harms and increases the benefits. And one of those increases of benefits, I sentenced. I still remember, on four different occasions, if I remember correctly, young men for being under the influence of methamphetamines. And for various reasons, they had no reason to lie to me at time of sentencing. But they told me, your honor, my drug of choice is marijuana. And I would buy my marijuana from the same source. And one fine day, he sold me some marijuana, unbeknownst to me, was laced with methamphetamines. I smoked it a few times and I got hooked. And I remember thinking to myself, wait a minute. That's a quality control issue that we should be able to address, not that hard. We all know smoking cigarettes is not healthy thing to do. But at least if you go to your local mini mart and buy a pack of maul burrows, you're gonna know it's not laced with methamphetamines. That is an enormous harm we are inflicting upon ourselves under the policy of drug prohibition. So you've got to understand, regardless of whether a drug is legal or illegal, your body will not forget how you treat it. And it will respond accordingly. So if you start using marijuana, particularly when you're younger and developing, it's gonna cause some medical problems. Don't do it, but we have an enormous success story in our country with regard to smoking cigarettes, right? How? By making tobacco illegal? No, tobacco is fully as addicting as cocaine and certainly is life-threatening in a lot of ways with cancer and heart conditions and the rest. So how many of you believe that we should make tobacco illegal? Good, no, why? Because you just bring al Capone and Mexican drug cartels into the tobacco distribution business, right? But we're making progress by what? By honest information. Honest information works with regard to tobacco, with regard to marijuana, with regard to these other drugs as well. So these are things that we need to do. Let's stop being puritanical, let's stop moralizing, and let's start putting in programs that are based upon health, upon common sense, and trying to stay away from jail for nonviolent drug offenders. That's my position and that's where we will go. Thanks again to Colorado and the state of Washington. Drug prohibition is now on its way out. Hooray for that. But that's not a victory in itself. We have to be smart about this and involve ourselves with policies that work. And that's like with cigarettes, we'll talk some more. Look forward to your questions and thank you for being here. Thank you, Judge Gray. Dr. Sebet, you have eight minutes. I wanna thank Fee for putting this on and I wanna thank Judge Gray for agreeing to debate. We actually first debated since we're both from the same city about 18 years ago and it was the first debate I ever did and Judge Gray was just as gracious then as he is now and I thank him for his remarks. Actually, I don't disagree with a lot of what was said. Just like Judge Gray probably wouldn't disagree as he said with some of the issues regarding the harms, which I'm not gonna talk about. But what I think is the problem here is he's setting up a false dichotomy. And that false dichotomy essentially says this. We have two choices for drug policy, in this case marijuana policy. Either a lock them up, war on drugs, prohibition, heavy enforcement, costly approach. Or as an alternative, this shiny, brand new, wonderful object that's gonna cure cancer, get rid of Mexican cartels and solve the underage access problem legalization. Cause those are the things that are promised. And I think that that is a false setup. I think that is a false dichotomy. I do not accept that those are our only two choices and I actually think both of them are equally dangerous. I agree with Judge Gray. We should be ashamed of being the number one country in the world for incarceration. We should be ashamed at 750,000, by the way it's arrests, not different people. Some of them are the same people, but still 750,000 arrests every year for marijuana. We should be ashamed at the criminal record that some jurisdictions give to folks who have been arrested for possession. But we should also know that creating what I would argue is the next tobacco industry, which you need to understand the implications of what legalization is. I don't think that the answer to the incarceration problem is to create this tobacco industry. I don't think the answer to the social injustice in certain communities with regards to current drug enforcement, that the answer is to replace one tragedy of incarceration with another tragedy of creating another alcohol or tobacco industry. So when I hear regulate marijuana like alcohol said in such a matter of fact way, my response is regulate marijuana like alcohol? Well, we'll wait a minute. Let's look at alcohol for a minute. Alcohol kills more people than all illegal drugs combined. It's used by more than half of the population on a regular basis. The tobacco industry similar is still used, remember cigarettes are used by far greater numbers of Americans than marijuana, between 20 and 25% of Americans still smoke regularly, even with all the public health campaigns versus about seven to 9% that smoke marijuana. We have two massive industries who make no mistake about it. Their only goal is to increase profit. And the way they increase profit is through higher addiction rates. Okay, let me tell you, most people drink responsibly and that's great, but the 20% of us who don't drink responsibly and consume over 80% of the total volume of alcohol in this country, think about that for a minute, two out of every 10 Americans consume 80% of the alcohol in this country. Those folks are the ones that line the pockets of these industries. And I've worked in Washington actually in three administrations. Do not doubt the savvy of these lobbying special interest groups and do not doubt that the marijuana industry and the only reason folks that frankly look a lot like me than your Woodstock hippies are the ones cashing in Colorado and Washington with marijuana industry make no mistake about it. They're in this to make money, folks. They're not in this to protest a war, like maybe some of your parents were in that movement. They're not in this to love peace and equality. Folks, they're in this to line their pockets. And I ask you to do your own research about who is funding legalization around the country. Please learn about Archview, learn about privateer, learn about the tobacco industry and actually how they're now colluding with the marijuana industry in the vaporization sector and in other sectors. Read about the Yale MBAs, folks, the guys that look like me with the Ivy League pedigrees that are starting marijuana industrial farms and learn about what legalization about is about. Now that isn't to say that we should just be happy with current policy and I'm happy with arresting people and giving them criminal records. But folks, you wanna talk about social justice? There are eight times as many liquor stores in poor communities of color in this country than in upper class white communities. Now why is that? Upper class white people like to drink. I mean, some of us like to drink. It's not because they don't like to drink. It's because you go after the disadvantaged communities when you're an addiction industry. Folks, what about the lottery? I thought the lottery was, by the way, was supposed to solve all the public education problems. Are you guys problem solved here in Colorado with the lottery? Public education top notch? Marijuana is just one in a series of things that we're being presented as the answer to our budget problems, as the answer to schools. And what I would say is, and we're not gonna get into a debate about the harms because we'd probably agree, but the fact that alcohol, which has a long history, much more than marijuana, of widespread accepted use in this country. And tobacco, which also does. Those have been legalized. The train has left the station on those. Can anybody though say with a straight face that alcohol policy or tobacco policy has been a public health success overall? That over the last 200 years, we have benefited as a society. Now that doesn't mean we wanna prohibit alcohol or tobacco. Like I said, the trains left the station. But folks, in our hands right now, we have the ability to stop the next industry. And we only have one shot because they are steamrolling ahead with this whole air of inevitability. That's their talking point. This is inevitable, just like same-sex marriage. What they're failing to see and realize, although Judge Gray did, I think, and explicitly talk about how these quote-unquote bumps in the road that I would argue are more than just bumps, is that the theory of legalization, folks, sound a lot better than the practice of legalization. When people, when soccer moms, and suburban call a Denver, are voted for amendment 64, I don't think they had in mind the pot shop on the corner next to their kid's school. I don't think they had in mind the advertising than the mass commercialization and promotion. I don't think they had in mind, by the way, this is supposed to be a child-resistant package. I don't know, any kid, I guess, can open a zipper. I don't think they had in mind strawberry crunch edibles with cartoon characters on the front to appeal to young people. I don't think they had that in mind. What they probably had in mind are 60-year-old ex-Hippies wanting to smoke a joint after work every day. What's the big deal? No, I don't care about that. I agree with them. What does it mean? As long as they don't get into a car or take care of my kid, all the more power to you. But folks, that is not what legalization is about. It's about addicting young people and lifelong customers. Raise your hand if you know somebody with a drug or alcohol addiction. Now, keep your hand up if that person started their drug or alcohol problem, in other words, initiated use of whatever drug after age 21. In other words, they didn't touch the stuff until 21 and then they got addicted afterwards. There's about three or four hands in here and that's usually oxycontin because your doctor gave you 400 of them when you had a broken shoulder or something and they get addicted to the opiates. That's the problem. But the vast majority of people in here and across the country who have been addicted started when they were young. Folks, they're lifelong customers. That's the point of alcohol and tobacco marketing. You have to appeal to the young people. The 50 year old hippie isn't appealed by strawberry crunch and marijuana sodas with cartoon characters on the front of it. This is to start you all down a path and the folks younger than you of addiction because that's the only way to make money. So I am happy to talk about reform. By the way, if we wanna talk about decarceration, we need to talk about a host of crimes relating mainly to non-marijuana use because it's not marijuana that's keeping, that's the issue of incarceration. It's other drugs, it's other crimes, mandatory minimums, it's a lot of other things. I'm happy to have that conversation and I think we have a lot of common ground. Let's talk about diversion, treatment, drug courts, pre-arrest diversion, warnings, fines. That's fine, let's talk about that. But we don't have to say that in order to achieve that goal, the answer is to create another alcohol and tobacco industry. And unfortunately, the millions of dollars that have been pumped into legalization around this country have presented that false dichotomy as a failed war on drugs, folks, or this wonderful thing called regulation. I don't think we're controlling and regulating alcohol and tobacco that well, folks. And I don't think we're controlling and regulating this new marijuana industry that well because they're going into every single city council around here with their special interests and informing and lobbying for what they want. And they're in DC now with, like I said, guys that look a lot like me, not with the hemp T-shirts have been traded in for the Armani shirts. Let me just, let's have a reality check for a minute. And they're in there for one thing and that is to make money. So let's move beyond the false dichotomy and I think we can do better than either a failed approach of enforcement or what I would argue would be a public health and safety disaster of the real effects of legalization in the United States, a country with a First Amendment, a country where you cannot restrict speech, a country where we are, you come to Madison Avenue to learn how to market, you don't go to Beijing, you come here to this country. We are still the king of advertising and promotion. And I think that is a lot scarier than anything else. Thank you, Dr. Sebet. We're gonna have to stop it right there. Gentlemen, thank you for your opening statements. We're now going to move into four minutes of rebuttal for each side starting with Judge Gray. So much to talk about. I think we're making progress. I did hear Kevin Sebet speak earlier and now he's changed or he actually agrees that we should be involved in some changes and that's a good thing. Look, folks, the dichotomy is very straightforward. Not two choices, but whatever choice each of the 50 states decides they want to make, then we'll have some benefits, we'll have some obviously some detriments and we can make decisions much more intelligently. We have these big industries in effect right now. Wanting to get you and all you other people hooked on marijuana, on stronger marijuana of course, because the cardinal rule of prohibition is always sell the stronger stuff. For example, if I'm a bootlegger, I'm gonna face the same criminal justice penalties by selling a barrel of beer as a barrel of bourbon. Which am I gonna push? The bourbon, why? Because I make more money. So the marijuana is much stronger today because of drug prohibition because you face the same criminal justice issues by selling strong marijuana as weak marijuana. So it's already here. The question is, is this industry, which is right, it's a huge industry, is it gonna be controlled under the law or outside of the law? That is the question that we need to ask. If you have it within the law, first of all, you have a lot of money for taxes. No, it's not an issue that's gonna be a panacea but I'd sure rather have this money go to pay our firefighters, pay our teachers and fix our roads than to subsidize juvenile street gangs, Mexican drug cartels and the Hell's Angels for heaven's sake. So that's an easy one. The question is, are we going to have marijuana with controls or without controls? The biggest oxymoron in our world today is the term controlled substances. Let me say it again. The biggest oxymoron in our world today is the term controlled substances because as soon as you prohibit a substance, you give up all of your controls to the bad guys. Anything dealing with quality control, which again is a really important issue that I didn't hear discussed yet, hopefully we will, with quantity, place of sale, licensing. I agree that I wish there weren't so many liquor stores in the lower minority areas but if you're worried about the lower economic minority people in our country for heaven's sake, look who's in jail and prison today. Abnormally large numbers of people of color as a result of the war on drugs. So you talk about getting people involved and hooked on drugs, how about getting them hooked into a lifestyle of prison? How about taking away these children from their parents? Yes, we imprison hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people in our country for doing nothing but smoking marijuana. Nothing but smoking marijuana. Why? Because if they're on parole or on probation and they smoke marijuana and they get a bad test result thereafter, they're put back into jail and back into prison. Stupid, very expensive, ruining people's lives. So let's be smart with regard to these issues. Not, we're making progress. You heard the opposition in here. He's agreeing that we need to look at mandatory minimums and all the rest. He's agreeing that blocking people up for nonviolent drug offenses, I believe, is not a good idea. He believes in drug courts. Hooray for that, so do I. But hold people accountable for their actions, not what they put into their bodies. Final word, you all know Robert Downey Jr., very gifted actor and he's a heroin-addicted person and it makes as much sense to me to put him in jail for that as it would have Betty Ford in jail for her alcohol problem. Betty Ford, of course, was President Gerald Ford's wife and an acknowledged alcoholic. Bring them closer to medical professionals that can help them instead of rendering them automatic criminals and pushing them farther away. But if Robert Downey Jr., Betty Ford, you or I drive a motor vehicle impaired by, you name it, marijuana, methamphetamines, alcohol, my drug of choice, that's a crime and should be prosecuted. Why? Because now by their actions they're putting our safety at risk. But the government is not effective, nor should it be, in trying to save us from ourselves. Think tobacco, we're making progress. We're having fewer people smoking tobacco. Do you wanna make tobacco illegal? You said not, thankfully. We wanna make alcohol again illegal. Do we have problems with alcohol? Yes. Would we make the problems go away if we were to prohibit them? No. It's the same thing with these other drugs as well. Thank you, Dr. Sebet. Four minutes for rebuttal. Thank you. Look, I don't want Robert Downey Jr. or others to be incarcerated for their only crime is using any drug. I agree. They need medical professionals. Sometimes they do need a push of the law and you hear a lot of people talk about how drug courts have helped them because what got them to treatment was the real threat of some kind of incarceration. And oftentimes folks, this is not a black and white issue. This is the heroin is fueling crime, which is fueling domestic abuse at home which has to do with mental illness issues. These are complex issues. This isn't just most of the time I'm a perfect angel except for the $300 a day heroin addiction that I have. Okay, so these are complicated issues. I agree that our reflex should not be incarceration in the criminal justice system, but let's be clear about the fact that this is not simplistic. Let's talk about the point of control and quality control. Well, the last time I checked, the black market has not gone anywhere in Colorado and Washington. And don't say it's only because we've only been legal for six months. Folks, you know that if you were been over 18 and had a pulse, you could get marijuana legally in this state since about 2008 in any retail store. And many of you were smiling because you know, I don't know if you have personal experience or what, but that's the issue. So we've had it here for six years, folks. This isn't 2014. We've had the experience since 2008 and 2009. And the data that we have in peer review journals looking at what's happened here in this state since that time has not been good. It's why towns like Golden, where we are right now have banned retail shops. It's why other towns around the state have and are going towards doing that. Because again, legalization and theory sounds good. We'll get some money for the roads and the schools. But in practice, having that advertising and promotion and the candies and the cookies and the brownies in your face is not something that most people I think are comfortable with. And you want, again, quality control. Well, let's, I wonder if the family of Levi Thumba, the exchange student from the Congo who was in Wyoming and visited Denver solely for the purpose of ingesting marijuana, who was 19, by the way, not legal 21. I wonder what they think about the quality controls of the industry. You know, I wonder what Maureen Dowd thinks. This is a, you know, a well-known liberal writer of New York Times who ate a marijuana candy bar and then in her hotel room in Denver said that it made her feel like she had died. And then the industry responded, well, no, no, no, she was supposed to cut it into 16 pieces and only have one 16th. That's the serving. So she went above the recommended serving. I mean, so the idea that this is an industry that's gonna care about quality controls, I ask you only please to go read the tobacco papers of the 1960s and 70s. Look at what these industries think about when it comes to quality control. Look at what they think about when it comes to youth access. This industry is absolutely not different at all. If it was different, it would see selling edibles. It would say that we're only gonna sell, you know, lower amounts of THC, et cetera. It would change, but it hasn't changed. It's pretending to have child-proof packages and it's really turned into a joke. And by the way, the black market isn't gonna go away. Why? Because the number one customer that has to start before age 21, where are they gonna go to get marijuana? It's not legal for kids over 10. They have to keep going to the black market. So, you know, and what about the person that wants 25% THC because the city of Denver said theoretically, oh, we're gonna be very responsible and limited to 20% to have quality control. Well, where is that person gonna go? The underground market. Where is the person who wants 90% concentrates who's been using marijuana for 30 years and needs a better high? Where are they gonna go if they can't get the 90% THC concentrate? Well, the underground market. So, the underground market's not going away. And by the way, most of you who've studied Econ know that we have a huge underground market in cigarettes because of the increased taxes. That's been the result. These are the simplistic responses and answers that were given. And the reality is much more complicated. It goes back to, do you want another tobacco industry in society or not? Because that is exactly the same thing that's happening now with marijuana. Thank you. Thank you both very much. We're now gonna open it up to a 15-minute period of Q&A from our audience here, from the students that are participating in the seminar. First question, please. If marijuana is legalized, what precautions would have to be taken to limit people driving under the influence of marijuana? What regulations would need to be put into place and how would they be enforced? Sure, really good question. And of course we have the problem today. People are driving under the influence of marijuana, so it's nothing new. Are more people going to be driving under the influence of marijuana? Actually in Portugal, that decriminalized all drugs, they found that it did increase marijuana usage and decrease alcohol usage. As a result, they have 10% fewer deaths on the highway because yes, alcohol can impair and yes, marijuana too, but marijuana impairs less. It's a problem. And fortunately, the medical science and testing is starting to come up with some tests. Today, it's basically a litmus test and you take a urinalysis, it'll show whether you've used marijuana in the last 30 days. That doesn't mean impairment at all. Fortunately, as I understand it, they're starting with a swab that you can just put inside your mouth and test if you have in fact used marijuana in the last 10 hours. That's better. You've got to go to impairment. It's a criminal justice problem. It's a thorny problem, but it's true regardless of how you treat marijuana. Well, we're never going to have a .08 standard for marijuana like we do alcohol simply because of the way the marijuana is absorbed by the body. I'm right out. Fat absorption alcohol is not. And the issue about driving it, we don't have to look at Portugal, we can look at Colorado. Since commercialization in 2008, the peer reviewed research that just came out a month and a half ago is that fatalities involving Colorado, positive marijuana drivers have tripled since commercialization in 2008. It wasn't since medical marijuana passed in 01 because the commercialization hadn't started. The mass normalization and promotion hadn't started, but in 08 and 09 it did start. And the peer reviewed research from all the medical professionals are saying that it hasn't been a good result. And really this comes down just one final point to a larger issue of, are you gonna believe the American Medical Association, the scientists, the physicians, the APA, the College Nurses Association, the Psychiatric Association for Children, or are you gonna believe the industry? Because the industry is going around trying to make there be very little regulation on driving. They keep saying, well, if you test somebody, it's gonna show 30 days, et cetera. 90% of people who test positive on a urinalysis, it's last five or six days of use, not 30 days. I do think it's a thorny issue. I agree on impairment, but it's something that isn't solved by throwing a nanogram limit or saying that we're gonna have a 0.08 limit with alcohol. It's very, very difficult. And the final thing is marijuana doubles your risk of car crash, whereas alcohol at least quadruples it. They're both bad decisions. They're both things that you shouldn't be doing, even if alcohol, by comparison, is more dangerous for driving. They're both bad decisions. Next question, please. Is it responsible to legalize marijuana while there's a drug war going on in Mexico? Wouldn't this just further embolden and strengthen the cartels, possibly causing a failed state? One thing I'll say is, I think that you bring up a good point about the fact that the cartels aren't going anywhere, folks, if we legalize marijuana. They will, I think they're gonna turn away 50 years and billions of investment in this country of networks when, oh, a couple states have legalized or the US has legalized, they are still gonna be here, but one thing they are doing is diversifying. And we know that the vast majority of their profits actually never came from marijuana. They come from heroin, cocaine, meth, human trafficking, identity theft, and those sorts of things. And this leads to a larger issue and a question that I'll turn over to Judge Gray because I'd like an answer. If we really want to get rid of the cartels, we need to talk about legalizing all drugs and assuming that they're gonna get out of that business, I still don't think they would because you still need to sell cocaine to someone under 21. Someone under 18 is still gonna want meth. Someone has to be there to supply that. So you're still gonna have the underground market, but this goes to a larger question of where does this end with legalization? Again, look at the funders of legalization. Look at their end game. And I would ask Judge Gray, what your opinion on your end game? Is this about legalizing cocaine and meth? And what about the age restrictions? If you have age restrictions on meth at, say, 18, aren't you gonna, by definition, still have to have Mexican cartels in an underground market? You ask an extremely important question. Since President Calderón down in Mexico initiated his own drug war, we have lost 60,000 people in Mexico to violent deaths, about 12,000 a year, having nothing to do with drugs at all. Nothing to do with drugs whatsoever. It's all drug money that's caused these deaths. And that's a huge problem. Again, about 90% of all drug problems are drug money related without saying that the drugs cannot be serious. What are you going to do? Well, at least I acknowledge we had the mafia come into our country and they were given a major toehold, foothold, everything else, because of alcohol prohibition. When we repealed alcohol prohibition, the mafia did not go away. You're right. I wish devoutly we'd never made alcohol illegal in the first place to let them in the country. And yes, if we, in effect, regulate and control marijuana in our country, at least we're not gonna have Mexican drug cartels raising marijuana. Are they gonna be involved with methamphetamines and other drugs? Yes, they are. What are we gonna do with that as an end game? Look, I don't know. Which state are you in? That we can address with marijuana. I would have it regulated and controlled. If I were king of Colorado or California, I would bring heroin addicted people closer to medical professionals who could actually prescribe it and take that out of the criminal justice system. With regard to these other drugs, I don't know, let's find out what each state does. But at least at this point, we can talk about taking marijuana out. You do not see, for example, Mexican drug cartels raising illegal vineyards in our national forests in competition with Robert Mondavi. They could, but there's no money in it, right? Today you do not see your colleagues on high school and college campuses selling Jim Beam Bourbon to each other. They could, but there's no money in it. So that would be deprived from it. Otherwise, yes, the drugs cartels are diversifying and they're involved in all kinds of bad things. There's only so much we can do. There's not a perfect system, but at least we can start making inroads as to those. And one of the things is, let's not have so many violent deaths in Mexico and everywhere else around the world because of drug money. If we wanna solve the issue in Mexico or in South and Central America, I mean, none of us, there's no silver bullet. No one has answers, but I would think we need to start with the institutions in those countries that allow for corruption and these things to take place firstly. So rather than legalize marijuana as a way to, I guess, hurt the cartels, again, I don't understand that because they're still gonna be involved in underage markets. But, and in other drugs where they make a lot, you make so much more money with cocaine folks than you do with marijuana. They will be doing that. If you wanna, if you're actually caring about Mexico and caring about South and Central America, maybe investing in, I don't know, a stable government with an education system you can be proud of. Maybe a healthcare system. Maybe an infrastructure and roads. Why not try institutional strengthening real law and order, real kinds of, you know, judges that you can trust and others versus with the silver bullet of legalizing marijuana. It's a very complex issue. Legalizing doesn't help it. It's not a silver bullet. And by the way, the United States government is bribing the country of Mexico every year by giving about $10 billion of our money to pursue this war on drugs. Stop it. If you wanna makes Mexico better, stop bribing them to continue to fight for our drug policy. Thank you, next question. For each of your respective policies, what macroeconomic effects do you expect to see both in the short term and the long term? There are four things that work in pretty much any system, any program you're gonna talk about. The first is education. The second is treatment and prevention. The third is positive incentives. Today, by the way, we have so many incentives to have people, particularly young people, go out and sell drugs, which should be taken away. And the fourth thing that works of all things is individual responsibility. What are the macroeconomics? We have here in Colorado, fortunately taking some of these revenues away from some really bad people and using them for taxation and using them for controlled substance. And that's a good thing. We are taking some money away from bad guys and giving that money in effect to responsible businesses as well as governments. Good. What's gonna be the long term solution? We're gonna look at each state and decide how they act upon it. And that's a good thing too. Obviously, I think a lot is still unknown about what the macro effects are. We can, again, only look to our two legal drugs for an example, drugs that are used at far greater rates than any of our illegals combined. When we look at alcohol and tobacco, our two legal drugs, we see that for every dollar in revenue, costs us 10 in social costs. Now, the social costs of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are different. Tobacco does not cause public safety costs. In other words, you can smoke a cigarette and drive a car, not the same with marijuana. In some ways, we have the intoxicating effects of alcohol and the lung effects and other health effects of tobacco with marijuana, but we don't exactly know, and time will tell. I think in terms of other macroeconomic factors, other than it's not gonna be paying for itself with tax revenue, just like the lottery hasn't, just like our legal drugs haven't, the other effects are, let's look at America as a globally competitive workforce environment or as a globally competitive workers. I mean, good luck to folks here. I mean, I'm sorry to say, this is the worst time in US history since the Great Depression to be your age in terms of getting a job, having a stable family, having and having stable and healthy children, and not being involved in some kind of criminal activity. Odds are against you. And now we're saying as a country, rather than offer jobs, rather than offer things that are hopeful, we're saying, well, we'll offer pot and some online porn and things like that, too. At record rates. Good luck with that. Good luck to you and good luck to America. If we're gonna be okay with this kind of stone workforce, the idea that you're not gonna have more people using marijuana if it's legal and available and commercialized and promoted and advertised, we only need to look back at alcohol and tobacco to see that. So I think it actually has dire consequences way beyond consequences on the road or school today. It has consequences down the road for us as a country. Thank you very much. We have about five minutes left in the Q&A portion. Let's try to get to a few more questions. Okay, my question was actually just for Dr. Kevin Sabbath, because you mentioned a number of times about how marijuana legalization is sort of financially spearheaded by the businessmen and companies like ArcView and whatnot, who are self-interested in making a profit. But a number of credible sources cite the money that's spearheading against that movement. They cite the liquor industry as contributing the vast majority of funds, spearheading the movement against legalization. So I was wondering if you've heard of the special interest money against the legalization and how legalization would harm the alcohol industry. And I was wondering if you think that that sort of nullifies your argument against the special interest money that's promoting legalization? It would only nullify it if it were true. We don't take a penny nor do any anti-drug groups from the alcohol industry to fight legalization. You can look it up opensecrets.org. We are a volunteer organization that gets smeared by the legalization and marijuana industry as taking money from pharma, never taking a penny. As taking money from prison unions in the prison industry, do you know that Patrick Kennedy is the co-founder of the organization I started, Project SAM, Smart Approaches to Marijuana. He was the number one congressman against private prisons and the prison industrial complex. Trust me, he is no friend of the prison industry and the private prisons. We don't take a penny from them. And so, there's a quote from Gandhi about what happens when your opposition, and I don't have it off the top of my head, but first they ignore you, then they try and smear you, and they pay attention to you, and then you win, essentially. And I think we're seeing that now. There have been many accounts by groups that have a financial interest to legalize marijuana that have made up lies. And so, yeah, if we took money from the alcohol industry, would that be hypocritical? Yeah, that's why we don't. If we took money from large other major industries that would compete with marijuana, that would be a problem. I will say about the alcohol industry. We know that heavy users of marijuana, college students, those who are addicted in treatment, the ones that really cost society more than the occasional person that just smokes a joint. And remember, I am not here saying that everybody who smokes a joint has problems. Everybody who ever smokes a joint is gonna use heroin tomorrow. They're gonna crash their car. I am not saying that at all, despite being sometimes caricatured as such. But for the minority of all marijuana users who cause the majority of problems, the research shows that alcohol and marijuana are complements, not substitutes. So it's a wonderful political rhetoric, rhetorical line for folks in Colorado when they were doing this to say alcohol is the more harmful choice. Marijuana is safer. That is a fault, that doesn't matter. It is irrelevant because the folks were worried about who smoked pot. The heavy users we know also are heavy drinkers. So I actually see the alcohol industry benefiting by an industry of marijuana that's gonna have more marijuana users. Newsbreak, incentives matter. How many of you ever heard that statement before, okay? Of course it does. Money is huge in this issue. And it's money on both sides. By the way, you may not be aware but the original sponsors of this so-called partnership for a drug-free America were what? Were the tobacco industry and the alcohol industry drug-free America indeed? Is my understanding the biggest funder today of the partnership for a drug-free America? Is the pharmaceutical company? That is false. But I haven't heard of- And that's not us, but that is false. It's my turn. It is, okay. It is simply money that is dictating these things. I don't get paid. I'm not earning any money. Leap doesn't, they're volunteer speakers. We do this because of what we have seen. Our drug policy is not working. There are other people that use this as their full-time job. In fact, I think Dr. Sabette is one of them. But one way or the other, yes, money matters. Incentives do matter. Let's put the incentives on the side of not having your colleagues and my colleagues going out and selling illegal drugs. Let's regulate, control them, and bring them back under the law. If there is money to be made, I don't want these to be advertised. I have taken a strong position against advertising these for kids or anybody else. One state may do that. One state may not. I hope California does not allow the advertising. He's right. Money runs the bus. But today, it's the government money that is pushing drug prohibition on so many other cities in our country. They are actually giving, they call it government grants, but it's basically bribes to the city police departments, but it has to be used to continue this war on drugs. It's a mistake. Money does matter. I think Dr. Sabette probably wants to respond to that. We're gonna let him do so in the closing statements. In the interest of time, let's have one more question. Well, assuming that people are motivated by self-interest, hopefully an enlightened self-interest, and assuming that the Colorado venture capitalists and the Mexican drug cartels are all motivated by the potential pursuit of profits, what about this system is really making sense? I mean, the continued war on drugs at the border for the Mexican drug cartels creates a barrier entry which makes it more and more profitable for them to be able to be the ones making all the money in this industry. At what point does undercutting the criminal market weigh on the social cost of the country? The vast majority of these folks who are talking about the border and the war on drugs, it is not about marijuana. Frankly, made in the USA marijuana is a lot better than made in Mexico marijuana. Now that wasn't the case 30 years ago when the high potency was coming from Mexico, but we have adapted and learned thanks to this medical movement, which I thought was supposed to be about cancer patients, but is in reality about 31 year old white guys with back pain. That has therefore emerged a massive industry here in the United States. So they're motivated by the fact that they want profits and they want profits just like, I want you to read the Wall Street Journal, maybe many of you had on the March 16th edition, the Saturday interview, if you doubt what I say about the industry, please read the interview with the person who says, he will be the Philip Morris of Pot. Coincidentally, he's from the same area that both Judge Gray and I are from. And they talk about their plans to become the Philip Morris of Pot. I mean, they are unabashed. And it's such a joke and a sign of desperation when I hear these accounts of, well, you get money from this industry and that industry, which have never been documented in terms of what the Sam, that we're really the ones pushing back against legalization. And the joke of that is, if you look at who spent money on Amendment 64, it's a few billionaires and other people who wanna make a lot of money from Pot. And that's why there were millions and millions spent here in Colorado versus a paltry six or 700,000 of the opposition. In Washington, there was nothing spent by the opposition. Washington is a strong state for liquor and other interests, almost zero. And it was millions from the other side. Look at who was spending money on the initiatives and who's pushing back. We are an adaptable battle. Now, not only do we have the billionaires to contend against, we now have these industries, thanks to Colorado and Washington legitimizing them. We now have these major multimillion dollar funding groups that are in the Wall Street Journal, that are in Fortune Magazine. So they have a very strong incentive, again, to recklessly promote use. I agree with Judge Gray. I hope that in my home state of California, if they pass legalization, that there is no advertising. But that is a dream. That is never gonna happen because they have to rely on heavy promotion and advertising in order to sell their product. And, by the way, you restrict advertising. You will be sued the minute you do it and you will lose. Just like when the governor here in his good faith attempts, because he was never a fan of what's going on, as you all know, when he wanted to put marijuana magazines simply behind the shelf so that they weren't near the cartoon magazines where the kids were, he was immediately slapped with a lawsuit and the judge said, you cannot restrict that reach. And you cannot restrict the magazines and the coupons. Open any magazine here. I'm sorry, look at the biggest newspaper in the state where they're getting their funding from from the revenues. So that's what we're talking about when it's about economics. Wow. Most of the people that have contributed money to repeal marijuana prohibition have nothing to do with providing it. George Soros is the guy that has talked about a lot. He's not involved in that business. There are lots of other people, they just see what is happening, is undercutting the fabric of our very own country. And they, if it's a matter of patriotism or loyalty or whatever to you, are trying to get the worst policy in the history of our country, second only to slavery repealed. The bottom line is, let's try and figure out, put our heads together and figure out a better system. We couldn't do it worse if we tried under today's system. Does that mean that any, that there's a perfect system? No, does that mean that all of a sudden marijuana is not gonna be harmful to you people? No, or alcohol or any of these other drugs. But let's bring them under the control of business people, let's bring them under the control of regulators, and at least get rid of, as much as we can, the black market and the individual violent sellers. And we can do that, and we must, and we will, by the way. Thank you very much. Now we're gonna move into a period of three minutes of closing statements starting with Dr. Sebet. Well, again, I wanna thank everybody for coming to the debate, and the organizers, and Judge Gray, for debating. I wish this was about a responsible industry. You know, again, I wish this was about the fact that these things are going well, and that strawberry crunch bars don't say that there are actually 10 servings in this, and that this mint, chocolate mint, is supposed to be three to three and a half servings, this tiny thing that barely fits in my hand. I think that this has shown, as have the increased emergency room admissions that we've seen all across the state, as you know, with the kids getting hands on edibles. I think this is the fact that the baby boomers, many of whom are driving this issue, and think that there's no big deal, there is such a disconnect between the marijuana that they smoked at Woodstock, and the marijuana that is out here now in these edible, hypotency forms, the vaporizing, the dabbing close to 100% concentrates. Those things were, you couldn't even dream up that in the 60s and 70s. And so you have a lot of our parents who are saying, well, I tried it a couple times and it's fine and moved on and whatnot. Yeah, that was a very, very different product. And I agree, you could argue that it's been illegal the last 30 years and now you've had the increased potency, but only with the legal market have you had these items that are now targeting kids. And again, you have to target kids if you want to make money because it's the only way to get lifelong customers as the tobacco industry has taught us. So I think what we're learning right now is actually a bit of buyer's remorse. I think we're learning that legalization in practice is not as nice as legalization in theory. And I actually think the biggest enemy to legalization right now is legalization itself. It's this commercial market that is leaving a very bad taste in folks' mouths. And I think that when we look at the money behind marijuana, that's actually tied to legalizing as we heard hints of today, but we know is heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, et cetera. And we look at folks who want to get rid of the underground market, which therefore would mean you have to have no age limits. I think that's a place that we're not ready yet to go as a country. And I think that if we want to think about us as a competitive country going forward, if we want to think about us as providing hope for schools, the idea that you can promote marijuana use while at the same time, trying to race to the top, I think is a complete joke. I think it's the totally contradictory to that. That doesn't mean some people will smoke pot and be geniuses and create Apple computer. That doesn't mean some people will smoke pot and be the heads of fortune. Yeah, that's fine. I'm not here to talk about reefer madness and bring the just say no pompoms out. That's not what I'm talking about. What I do want you to do though is leave this debate at least with an open mind about the fact that this is about nothing more than the green and the green isn't the pot necessarily it's the money. And to realize that this is about an industry that wants badly and desperately to trick you and to trick other folks so that they can laugh all the way to the bank. Yeah, just like the alcohol and tobacco industries that are legitimized can do. If this was about humanitarian movement to not let people in prison, why didn't amendment 64 say this is about decriminalization? Why aren't people advocating for that and not incarcerating people in prison as opposed to advocating for this legal market? It's because of the money. It's because of the industry. And I just ask that you do your own research about the money behind this and what is actually funding and fueling where we're going. Thank you. I heard a story one time about a man who said you know when my grandmother turned 72 years of age she started walking five miles a day. Now she's 75 and we haven't the faintest idea where she is. In so many ways we passed our policy of drug prohibition marijuana prohibition really not knowing why we were doing that. In fact, a lot of people if you go back to the congressional record thought marijuana was a narcotic and they didn't know that they were outlawing hemp which was a valuable industrial crop. So we don't know where it has taken us. I share this view that we need to simply open up our eyes and allow ourselves to have an open honest full discussion on this issue. I am absolutely convinced that if we legitimize the conversation we will repeal marijuana prohibition. We will repeal drug prohibition and allow each state to decide how best to do that. Just because we regulate and control marijuana does not mean we condone it. You understand that just because it's not illegal for people over 18 to smoke cigarettes we don't condone smoking cigarettes but at least then we can regulate and control it. And yes, bring in some tax revenue take it away from very bad people. It's the question of the marijuana is here the alcohol is here so are the other drugs here. So now what are we gonna do about it? Yes, if people are involved in selling cigarettes Philip Morris is in there to make money. Okay, that's the system, that's the way it is but so are the illegal, the Mexican drug cartels are in there to make money. So the Hells Angels is in there to push methamphetamine and is there to make money. Who are you gonna trust more for the quality control even of methamphetamines? Squib up John or the Hells Angels. So it's a question of making the best we can out of a bad situation. That's what we're going to do with regard to repeal of marijuana prohibition and then I guarantee you once we repeal marijuana prohibition probably by the end of 2016 we will all look back and be aghast if not astonished that we could have perpetuated such a failed system for so long. It will be that obvious. Does that mean there aren't gonna be any problems anymore? Of course not, but we're gonna have fewer problems so at least when we start asking questions are we making progress here? Is things better now than they were before? People are gonna start to say yes. I appreciate this for you, I appreciate your being here, I appreciate your interest. Yes incentives matter, yes we can do better. Let's put our forces together and do just that and thank you. Thank you both very much. Again, thank you to Judge Jim Gray. Thank you to Kevin Sebed and thank you to everybody in the audience. If you enjoyed this debate you can learn more about this debate as well as nine others in our summer debate series at fee.org. Thank you all very much.