Thom Hartmann: And welcome back, Thom Hartmann here with you. And the future of marijuana in the United States? This is going to be an interesting one. Cully Stimson is with us. And Cully Stimson is the senior legal fellow at the center for legal and judicial studies at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage.org the website. Charles “Cully” Stimson. Cully, welcome to the program.

Cully Stimson: Hey Thom, thanks for having me.

Thom Hartmann: Glad to have you with us. I don’t understand why anybody in the United States would oppose marijuana decriminalization when nobody in the history of this republic and the 200 years before it was a republic that it was occupied by Europeans, has ever died from an overdose or any kind of dose of marijuana. And yet we’ve got 50 thousand people a year who die from alcohol.

Cully Stimson: Yeah I don’t understand why anyone in this country would actually want to legalize marijuana, especially under the scheme established in California in Prop 19. I mean, you know, conservatives and liberals share a number of things. One is a libertarian bent, sort of liberalization less government in personal aspects of our lives. And so I share with some of my libertarian sisters and brothers the idea that you should be able to put most of what you want in your body. But, you know, unlike Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman and others who were from our conservative family, they haven’t worked in courts as a criminal defense attorney or prosecutor like I have. They haven’t read the recent, for obvious reasons, studies showing the huge differences between marijuana and alcohol. This…

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, alcohol causes your brain cells to die off, pot doesn’t. Pot causes short term memory loss, but only while you’re high. Alcohol causes long term dementia. Alcohol pickles your liver, causes cirrhosis, pot doesn’t. even the studies done at Harvard University showed that regular pot use is less destructive to the lungs than smoking an occasional cigarette.

Cully Stimson: Those comments you’re making about alcohol are true when they’re used to excess. But week after week, day after day, even today, there was an article that came out about moderate to low usage of alcohol and how it actually is good for you.

Thom Hartmann: Well it depends on who YOU are. There are some people who you know may have you know who have had hepatitis or who have other conditions that you know alcohol is contraindicated for them.

Cully Stimson: Yeah but I’m saying the general, we’re talking about the general person and there’s no doubt that…

Thom Hartmann: But are you suggesting, Cully, that alcohol is …

Cully Stimson: Theirs is no doubt that alcohol is destructive when used to excess, period. I mean I was a DUI prosecutor, a homicide prosecutor. I’ve seen the ravages of alcohol when used. I’m sure you and others and listeners have had alcoholics in their family. It’s a terrible burden, it’s a disease, no doubt about it. We’re not talking about the people at the margins who abuse it. We’re talking about the inherent use of it, if it’s used the way it’s intended, not to excess. So if you compare alcohol next to marijuana, used as it’s supposed to be used but not to excess, alcohol has arguably good things that it does for you and marijuana—nobody, no credible research has come out to say smoking marijuana is good for you. Yes, I’m sure it makes you feel better. I’m sure of it.

Thom Hartmann: No, I’m sorry, that is not the case, that is absolutely not the case. Marijuana has been demonstrated in published peer reviewed studies. And you can find them as easily as anybody else, that it is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, in fact the pharmaceutical industry has taken THC out of marijuana, turned it into a drug, it’s been approved by the FDA and is being sold. It’s, it relieves spasticity of muscles associated with multiple sclerosis and paralysis, people who have nerve damage. It helps treat appetite loss in people with HIV/AIDS. It helps relieve certain types of pain better than morphine and yet…

Cully Stimson: Yes. Doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Thom Hartmann: none of those things are true of alcohol.

Cully Stimson: Doesn’t mean marijuana is good for you.

Thom Hartmann: Well we’re not talking about whether we should legalize lettuce or tomatoes here, we’re talking about an intoxicant. People, you know when alcohol is used as directed, it produces mild intoxication. When pot is used as directed, it produces mild intoxication. And my argument is that the toxicity of marijuana is not as great as alcohol so at least it should be a competing…

Cully Stimson: Actually the toxicity of marijuana has gone up over the years.

Thom Hartmann: No, no. The potency has gone up. The toxicity, no one has died.

Cully Stimson: The potency, you’re correct.

Thom Hartmann: Name one person who has died from marijuana. One.

Cully Stimson: You know what, you can’t because it’s hard to tell. Most people just from to marijuana…

Thom Hartmann: I can actually give you people who have died from marijuana.

Cully Stimson: … and move on to other things and they could die from a marijuana overdose. But I don’t think that there is a known person, at least that I can point to.

Thom Hartmann: No, the people, Cully the people in the United States who are dying from marijuana are the 800 thousand people in prison right now. 80% of them, because they’re there for possession. More than 80% of all people in prison are there for possession.

Cully Stimson: Well, that’s a bunch of hooey.

Thom Hartmann: Those people are dying, they’re being raped in prison and they’re getting HIV. Their lives have been destroyed.

Cully Stimson: Come on, be serious here. Be serious here. Alright. I looked at your resume, you have an impressive resume, but I ask you. How many days or weeks have you spent in drug court and seen people step back and sent to prison for a simple possession. The number is so minimalist.

Thom Hartmann: It happened to my best friend when I was 17 years old.

Cully Stimson: Simple possession.

Thom Hartmann: Yes.

Cully Stimson: Simple possession of a dime bag and he’s in prison?

Thom Hartmann: No it was about an ounce and a half. He went to prison for two years, in Lansing Michigan. Yes when I was 17 years of age.

Cully Stimson: And he had no prior criminal record?

Thom Hartmann: He had none. And it destroyed his life.

Cully Stimson: Well that’s an outlier. That is an outlier. And in fact to me that’s outrageous.

Thom Hartmann: Well to me it was outrageous. And I can tell you when Jerry came back and all of us, you know, we didn’t know this guy when he came back. I mean we knew who he was but it was like prison transforms people. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Cully Stimson: I agree, I agree. It is a criminal university.

Thom Hartmann: So let’s get it, instead of spending, you know we have more people in prison in the United States than China does. And they have you know three times the population we do and most, I mean half of them, our prisoners are there because of drug violations. Let’s put that money into treatment.

Cully Stimson: I think it is entirely appropriate to have the conversation as a public policy matter of whether sentences for simple possession shouldn’t be lowered or changed. As you know, California just last week, made simple possession of marijuana an infraction, a non-incarcable infraction. That’s a good thing, I think that’s actually a good thing.

Thom Hartmann: I know I can tell you in the ’70s in Michigan it was 20 years.

Cully Stimson: Yeah. And I think that you know you look at Senator Webb’s efforts overhauling the whole criminal justice system and other targeted efforts around the country…

Thom Hartmann: But setting that aside, why, if we’re going to have intoxicants… Is this, Cully, from your point of view, is this really an argument. We’re talking with Cully Stimson from the Heritage Foundation, Heritage.org. Is this really an argument that we shouldn’t have intoxicants? Is that the core of your argument?

Cully Stimson: No. It’s not. It’s, the argument is this. There is a regulatory process in place. Through the Food and Drug Administration. They have not been convinced, either through solid scientific evidence, or through our representatives who we put in office to study and approve marijuana as used as a smoking, you know, so I’m concerned. Not only, I’m concerned of marijuana legalizing…

Thom Hartmann: I’m sorry, respectfully Cully, that’s very disingenuous. First of all alcohol isn’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration either. It’s regulated by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division. And so there have been, you know no studies on alcohol either, number one. And number two, we’re not suggesting, I’m not suggesting that marijuana, well actually maybe it should be put on the market as a medicine because the pharmaceutical companies have already done that. It’s, as you know. So I mean why, if we’re going to, just this core simple question. If you’ve got two intoxicants, alcohol and marijuana. And one produces at least 50 thousand deaths a year, alcohol. And the other produces no deaths that we can define marijuana. I mean just looking at raw toxicity if nothing else. And we know that alcohol causes alcoholic dementia and brain damage and all kinds of… why not at least give people the choice of these two intoxicants? I’m not arguing for heroin here.

Cully Stimson: Well first off, and I know, I know the left thinks their strongest argument is this alcohol marijuana comparison saying alcohol is the bugaboo and marijuana is good for you. The fact of the matter is, Thom, is that when used as they’re supposed to be used, not abused, used as they’re supposed to be used. Smoking a couple joints, having a couple glasses of red wine or beer during or after your meal. Alcohol is good for you arguably, the marijuana is just not.

Thom Hartmann: Well I, we don’t know that yet, Cully because we haven’t had the vast majority of the population…

Cully Stimson: Well read my paper on legalizing marijuana, why citizens should say no and look at the footnotes, I mean…

Thom Hartmann: Okay, people can check it out over at Heritage.org. Charles “Cully” Stimson. Cully thanks for dropping by.

Cully Stimson: Anytime, Thom, thank you.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Good talking with you. I, you know, I think people smoke pot regularly is a good thing, who knows.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.