The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Page #3

would rate them the way

two researchers

were asked to rate drugs

in order of addiction.

Nicotine was one,

alcohol was two.

Then heroin, then cocaine,

then coffee,

and then marijuana.

There may have been a couple

of other drugs,

but marijuana

was at the very bottom.

Below coffee.

( man )

This narcotic, unlike

the opiates, the synthetics,

and cocaine,

is nonaddictive.

( man )

What do you mean by

"nonaddictive" ?

By "nonaddictive," it is meant

that the user of marijuana,

when deprived of the drug,

will not experience

the agonies of withdrawal.

It is habituating, but its

use can be discontinued.

Then what is its danger ?

It's used as a scapegoat

for covering up underlying

problems in people,

especially young people.

"Here I am,

don't ignore me."

If you use marijuana on

a daily basis for a year or so,

and you stop using it,

you're gonna

notice some differences,

but nothing like the kind of

withdrawal people will

experience withdrawing from

either tobacco or heroin.

But why would the government

and the DEA

wanna put a statistic

like that out there ?

We'll learn more

about that later.

The Gateway Theory.

( host )

Is marijuana a gateway drug ?

Yes, I think it is.

If you haven't--

How do you know ?

I don't exactly know why,

but I know it is.

It opens the doorway

to other drugs.

It makes you wanna

experience more.

It makes you feel good.

Yeah.

People wanna experience

something else,

and you know,

have a...

I guess, more dreams.

( man )

Its greatest danger

lies in the fact

that it is a steppingstone

to the harder drugs,

such as morphine and heroin.

That's why

there are people

that wanna legalize

marijuana.

They think if they can get the

young people of this country

onto hard drugs, they can

destroyyourgeneration

during this generation.

You know, in the days

of Harry Anslinger,

it was called the

Steppingstone Hypothesis.

If you stepped on this stone,

marijuana,

you were bound and determined

to go onto the next stone,

which would be one of

the so-called hard drugs.

Every time it's been studied

and looked at and so on,

they have never,

ever found that there's--

certainly nothinginmarijuana

that makes you

want to go to anything else.

There is no inherent

psycho-pharmacological property

of the drug which pushes one

toward another drug.

I'll smoke a joint,

I want a bag of chips

and f***ing junk food.

I don't wanna go out

and get ripped.

I drink alcohol,

that's my drug of choice.

It could be said

I started on milk.

I mean, this is crazy.

If I use marijuana,

why does that automatically

make me a candidate

to black-tar heroin ?

It's a nonsensical argument.

In fact, only one out of every

and less than one use heroin.

The black market throws

the dealers of soft drugs

together with the dealer

of hard drugs.

So if you have a black market,

and you have a dealer that's

dealing in marijuana and LSD

and everything else,

and the dealer might say

to you,

"Hey, you wanna try

something stronger ?"

Well, in that sense,because

of the black market,

because of Prohibition,

people may be more susceptible

to seeing these other drugs

and being willing

to try these other drugs.

( Kirk )

And so what you see is that

there is a gateway effect,

but it's a gateway effect

caused by Prohibition

and the blending of the

hard- and soft-drug markets.

( host )

Where does this leave us ?

Oh, wait-- what about

laziness ?

You will be useless to

society if you use marijuana.

But if that's true, well, there

are about 50 million people

who smoke marijuana in America,

and over half of the Canadian

population who've tried it.

And yet, both societies

seem to flourish.

And just look who

some of these people are.

( man )

Steven Jobs developed

Apple Computer smoking pot.

Ted Turner developed

CNN News smoking pot,

still smokes

a joint every day.

You go through every musician

you like,

from the Rolling Stones to

the Beatles to Led Zeppelin.

They all smoked pot.

( man )

Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson.

Come on, Bill Clinton,

for f***--

He didn't inhale, man.

( scoffs )

Don't be so naive !

( Norm )

Virtually every

presidential candidate

has now copped to using

marijuana at some time

in his or her life.

A few times in the Army,

I tried marijuana.

It was not

a significant part of my life.

I had a senior law-enforcement

official tell me,

that in his judgment,

up to a quarter

of the White House staff,

when they first came in,

had used drugs in the last

four or five years.

The people that have

personality problems

and the people that are

gonna be lazy

and gonna lose their job,

they're gonna lose

their job, anyway.

They're not losing their

job because of marijuana.

That's just a lie !

( Todd )

I love Tommy Chong.

I think that a lot of the

"Cheech and Chong" episodes,

that people believed,

not knowing that Tommy

wrote and directed the movies,

thinking that, you know, that's

what a stupid stoner looks like.

No, actually, that's what a

really brilliant creative genius

looks likeactinglike somebody

you think's a stoner.

And none of this is

borne out in the research

or when you look at people

who are long-term users.

And there happen to be

lawyers, judges, doctors,

and, you know, writers.

But what about the potency

of the drug ?

"Marijuana is dangerous.

There's higher THC levels

than ever before."

( Ian )

Any time you got a bag of

Columbian dope 20 years ago,

it was way better than

the Mexican shwag

that you normally got,

so there's always been a range

of THC in plants.

And the fact that

we can now grow stuff

that's equivalent of what

Columbian was, 20 years,

well, it doesn't mean

that we're boosting THC

to unheard-of levels.

It just means, you know,

"Hi, there are some nuances

in this discussion that people

should be aware of."

( Todd )

And I actually think that it's

a real stroke of our own ego

to think that for the 50

or so years of Prohibition

that we've improved

upon varieties

that have been

cultivated for drug use

in places like India and such,

for thousands of years.

People say, "Well,

you can abuse marijuana."

Well, sh*t, you can abuse

cheeseburgers, too, you know ?

You don't go around closing

Burger King

because you can

abuse something.

I can take a f***ing fork

and jam it in my eyeballs.

Does that mean forks should

be illegal ?

You know,

I could jump off a bridge.

Should we outlaw bridges--

let's Nerf the world.

But what about all the crime

and violence associated

with marijuana ?

From beat cop

to police chief,

I saw ample evidence of

the harm caused by alcohol

and the absence of evidence

caused by marijuana use.

And I mean

the complete absence.

I cannot recall a single case

in which marijuana contributed

to domestic violence,

crimes of theft and the like.

You wanna know what

a weed smoker looks like ?

You're staring at one.

You know, like,

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