Penn & Teller: Bull! 2x4

1. Bullshit was doing a lot of hippie bashing.

2. It was starting to seem like right wing bullshit.

3. So today we're going to change it up and side with the hippies.

4. America has a drug problem.

5. It's not the turn on, tune in, drop out.

6. One that you expect.

7. The real problem is drug prohibition.

8. No alcohol prohibition didn't work last century,

9. so someone figured it was a PR problem and changed the name

10. prohibition to an even more bullshit macho name.

11. The war on drugs.

12. It's got that word war in there.

13. And as much as we hate to admit it, it seems pretty clear that our country,

14. which which we all love so dearly, loves a fucking war,

15. even if it's a war fought in our own streets against our own people.

16. The issue here is moral and ethical.

17. The issue is freedom.

18. If you live in a free country,

19. you have the right to put anything you want into your own body.

20. Anything else is bullshit.

21. I. Have.

22. Had an.

23. America's public

24. enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.

25. The new prohibition was launched in 1971 by this crazy motherfuckers.

26. Politicians needed a moral battle on their home turf to distract voters

27. from a morally questionable war in a faraway country.

28. To fight and defeat this enemy.

29. It is necessary.

30. To wage a new.

31. All out offensive.

32. The Civil War, which started as a $350 million a year waste of our money,

33. has today become a $20 billion a year, waste of our money.

34. This ridiculous prohibition has been a favorite

35. political tactic of every power hungry whack job

36. following in Nixon's random, staggering, lying, insane footsteps.

37. This balanced budget includes the largest anti-drug effort ever.

38. This scourge will stop.

39. What do you do when someone offers you drugs?

40. You know, that's easy to say,

41. but it's not easy to do if you if you've done it already and you like it.

42. The reason we buy promises from power junkies

43. is we know that being a drug junkie can be like the bottom level of hell.

44. It is the bottom.

45. Any lack of it is the bottom.

46. It's down.

47. Here is the bottom of everything.

48. I'm up used for.

49. Maybe 30 years.

50. Those poor fuckers.

51. They fucked themselves up with drugs.

52. It breaks your heart.

53. But is locking them up going to help them?

54. Man, if we start arresting everyone for being miserable due to a bad decision,

55. we need to cuff everyone who chose to see a Pauly Shore movie.

56. Even though 82% of Americans want drugs to remain illegal.

57. 74% of Americans don't think the war on drugs is working.

58. But that still leaves a few crazy fuckers to tell us stuff like this.

59. There are 70% fewer cocaine users

60. than 15 years ago, and it's been a constant.

61. Since we began the war on Drugs in earnest back about.

62. 20 years ago.

63. We have substantially reduced drug use in the United States.

64. We wanted to check those numbers, but it's kind of difficult

65. since they pulled them directly out of their asses.

66. The war on drugs is bullshit, and we all know it.

67. A lot of Americans

68. know that a lot of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum

69. have seen this war is full of shit, and that's not doing any good.

70. It's creating more problems, and it's solving.

71. Let's learn a little bit about history.

72. I mean, as long as we're doomed and repeating it.

73. Back in 1990, Protestant groups decided

74. the government should enforce their God given right to hate drinking.

75. So to deliver us all from their temptation, they muscled

76. through a constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacture, sale,

77. or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes.

78. But people wanted their hooch, and a whole underworld of bootleggers

79. and violent gangland lowlifes stepped in to supply the demand.

80. A lot of people were fucked up by improperly made bathtub cocktails,

81. and a lot of innocent kids were mowed down by Tommy guns in prohibition

82. induced disputes.

83. The name of the gun has changed, but innocent people

84. are still being mowed down in turf wars.

85. When you criminalize things that aren't real

86. crimes, you still create real criminals.

87. But what does the government want to do with the criminals it creates?

88. I think tough love is not a bad way to go.

89. Bob Weiner, drug issue strategist.

90. It's done a lot to help us make it make us safer, and is one of the reasons

91. why we have record low crime numbers and one of the reasons why drug abuse is

92. going down because of the moral framework of a, of a tough law approach.

93. Bob Wiener was involved with U.S.

94. drug strategy home with the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

95. You probably know the group of the more warlike, freedom hating name

96. the drug czar's office.

97. We will not play politics with drugs.

98. That's one game the American people simply will not afford.

99. Bullshit.

100. How much of a political game is it to declare drugs the scourge of the earth,

101. then serve perfectly legal cocktails at the white House?

102. It's nothing like having a few friends over for a cocktail or two.

103. Not by any definition at all.

104. Alcohol is a mind altering drug.

105. It's the drug.

106. The most popular, lethal and fucking pointless.

107. Fucking stupid drug in the world.

108. But the freedom to get blind, stinking drunk remains every American's right.

109. Providing they don't harm anyone else.

110. And that's the way it should be in any country that wants to call itself free.

111. So how much spin does it take

112. to make this freedom hating, hypocritical, failed drug war sound like a good deal?

113. If you measure success by your ability to control a problem,

114. keep it under control and reduce it, then it has been successful.

115. I'm David Evans, and I'm the executive director of the Drug

116. Free Schools Coalition.

117. Teenage drug use is down across the.

118. Board in the last couple of years.

119. Across the board.

120. You can smell that bullshit right through your TV screen.

121. Since 1994, marijuana use is up more than 60% among high school seniors

122. among the same group.

123. Use of cocaine has increased, and since the late 90s, ecstasy use is up.

124. So exactly which drug is being used? Less.

125. Aspirin.

126. Truth is, the most recent,

127. household survey the government released showed an increase in drug use.

128. and the government was quick to say that

129. that the increase was not real was due to a change in methodology.

130. Jacob Salem, senior editor, reason magazine

131. I don't think any reasonable person can look at the evidence and say

132. everything is hunky dory.

133. Drug prohibition doesn't show any compassion or give any help

134. with drug problems.

135. But maybe the idea is to stop drugs from being is available so fewer

136. people have the money and opportunity to make the wrong choice to do drugs.

137. You know, supply and demand.

138. So let's check the numbers.

139. Now we don't dance with the monkey ourselves.

140. So we're going to use donuts to represent some black tar.

141. We don't like drugs, but we do dip and dab and donuts.

142. Yeah.

143. We, we abused it in the early 1970s

144. of the French connection and pique your interest and smack.

145. Heroin cost $30 per bag.

146. It was 5% pure drug.

147. We picture buying a box of a dozen donuts and getting this much actual donut.

148. Today, heroin is available in every city in the U.S., and it costs.

149. Four.

150. Dollars per bag and is 80 to 90% pure.

151. Adjusting for inflation, the same money that would have bought

152. this much pure lethal pleasure in 1970.

153. Now get you this much.

154. Heroin is more than 600 times

155. cheaper than it was before the war on drugs.

156. It's hard to pass up a bargain like that.

157. Heroin is cheaper than a six pack and easier for kids to get.

158. You see, drug dealers aren't checking ID.

159. So what are the feds accomplishing by spending our money

160. and taking away our freedom?

161. I means you create

162. a black market and the black market,

163. you have these tremendous profits for criminals.

164. you have violence because it's the only way to resolve disputes in a black market.

165. So this becomes a tremendous shot in the arm to organized crime.

166. You give people who are willing to take that risk and break that law

167. tremendous profits.

168. What is the war on drugs doing?

169. Driving the prices up, driving the profit margin up and proliferating more drugs?

170. Richard Stratten, editor in chief, High Times Magazine

171. we're creating people like Carlos Later and Pablo Escobar

172. by having these drugs illegal in the first place.

173. It's a multi, multibillion dollar business.

174. It's unstoppable because of the amounts of money that are involved.

175. You can arrest one person, you can wipe out a whole network.

176. It'll just be replaced by another network overnight because of the profit

177. that's involved.

178. And Richard would know he made millions as a drug smuggler in Phoenix, Arizona.

179. And we're here in New York City right now.

180. You can walk out and buy within half an hour or 20 minutes.

181. You can buy virtually whatever you want.

182. Heroin, cocaine, any of these drugs are all available.

183. I mean, the war on drugs has not stopped the proliferation of drugs.

184. It hasn't made a dent in it.

185. It's made it go up.

186. Over 700,000 people are arrested each year for drug charges.

187. And that's just for marijuana.

188. 75% of those arrests of possession alone.

189. These are the Pablo Escobar's.

190. A lot of them are the idiots

191. you see smoking the sticky icky in school parking lots and shopping malls.

192. Yeah. They're stupid.

193. But with the mandatory federal sentencing laws on drug charges,

194. we're filling our prisons with these nonviolent drug offenders.

195. It costs over $20,000 a year to keep a pothead in prison.

196. That's a lot more than how much it cost to have a pothead live on your couch.

197. Do the moral crusaders give a damn about this?

198. Hell, no.

199. Let me point something out.

200. We have a record low crime rate.

201. One of the reasons that we do is because we've taken a lot of the slime

202. off the street and put it into prisons, and we have a safer society.

203. I'm glad that our cops are tough on drugs.

204. We wanted to meet one of these cops on the front lines of the new prohibition.

205. So we took a trip to, of all places, Phoenix, Arizona,

206. to meet America's toughest sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

207. The reason crime has gone down in this nation in the last ten years, 20, 25%.

208. I tell you why he's gone down. Very simple.

209. More people are in jail for longer periods of time.

210. Joe Arpaio, Sheriff, America County, Arizona.

211. When you legalize something, it opens the door for everybody

212. that would never use drugs. So, you know, I'm going to do it.

213. I'm going to start using marijuana. Cocaine.

214. I'll be driving my car high on this.

215. High on that.

216. It's against the law.

217. Against the law.

218. We're going to have doctors now taking a little puff of marijuana

219. when they're opening. Yeah. Oh that's great.

220. It really does you good. Thank you.

221. Marijuana is not good for you.

222. Drugs are not good for you.

223. Knock it off.

224. Did he just say

225. the only reason he doesn't drive his car high is because of the law.

226. Where's his morality?

227. I'll tell you if, Joe Arpaio is a general in the war on drugs,

228. and the government needs to surrender immediately.

229. I am Nick Hentoff.

230. I work as a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, Arizona.

231. He wanted to put, literally, a perimeter of deputies and his posse

232. around Maricopa County on the major roadways

233. to do random stops to search people for drugs, and

234. it had to be explained to him very slowly that that would be unconstitutional.

235. And he couldn't do that.

236. Does the end justify the means?

237. Well, the end never morally justifies evil means.

238. But our guys with guns and attitudes like Joe's making a difference.

239. The kid.

240. Most of the money in the war on drugs is being spent either on preventing them

241. from getting into the country or intercepting them once

242. they get into the country, arresting drug dealers and traffickers.

243. All they're doing every now and then is getting a major bus

244. that they can put on camera and try and prove to the American public

245. their money isn't really going down the rathole that it is going down.

246. We all know the image.

247. The government projects of the stoned loser just doesn't stand up.

248. For years, the hardest working, highest paid entertainers in the world

249. were the grateful Dead, and they were advertising their drug use.

250. I hated their music, but they weren't losers in any capitalist definition.

251. Let's take a look at our gallery.

252. Each of these folks not only used drugs, they used them to access

253. none of this weekend wussy crap for these guys.

254. Be it pot speed, alcohol, skank acid, whatever

255. they all talked to about it publicly.

256. You might even recognize some of these admitted drug abusers

257. as part of our government.

258. They learned of the dangers of drugs firsthand,

259. so they can use your money and violence in your name to stop others.

260. Are they the only ones who should be allowed the freedom to learn for themselves?

261. Here's one of their early efforts

262. at scaring the shit out of you.

263. There's a name

264. for this kind of bullshit voodoo pharmacology.

265. Voodoo pharmacology is basically the idea

266. that drugs make people do bad things,

267. that drugs take control of. You.

268. What's different about the illegal drugs

269. is that they seize control of you and force you to sin.

270. The demonization of marijuana is at the heart of the war on drugs.

271. Listen, people do not realize

272. that marijuana is the number one drug

273. where teens must seek treatment in hospitals today.

274. That is a big shock to people.

275. To people who say marijuana is not a dangerous drug,

276. let alone the fact that it's the number two cause of car crashes.

277. I'll cut him some slack. He must be high.

278. The top three causes of car crashes, according to the California DMV,

279. are unsafe.

280. Speed driving on the wrong side of the road and improper turns.

281. And the number one drug causing teen hospital visits is way alcohol.

282. There are

283. real dangers involved in drug use, there's no doubt about that.

284. Kids need to know this stuff, but not from the government.

285. This is how the government gives information.

286. This is your brain.

287. This is heroin.

288. This is what happens to your brain

289. after starting heroin.

290. They claim success.

291. Youth drug use in the last five years has really started to drop

292. because of general McCaffrey, the former drug czar's media campaign.

293. It is succeeding by leaps and bounds.

294. But most kids think these ads are a fucking joke.

295. They actually commissioned a research

296. to track the effectiveness of these campaigns.

297. Meanwhile,

298. and the studies consistently said there's no evidence that they work.

299. And the government's response

300. response was, well, we have to get rid of these reviews.

301. They know the ads don't work.

302. And they don't change.

303. Man, that is way pothead behavior.

304. We have to get away from this moralistic approach

305. that insists that all drug use is bad, and start talking about

306. what kind of damage does drug use do under what circumstances?

307. And there's plenty of real facts, real scary facts that could be used to educate.

308. That is, if the government's constitutional job were to educate people

309. on how to spend their personal time.

310. But when you say marijuana is killing people and making them insane,

311. end up being a fucking job.

312. Kids are not stupid.

313. What do you say?

314. Marijuana is a gateway drug and leads to more

315. serious drugs like cocaine and heroin.

316. Even grown ups know your life.

317. What an asshole.

318. I know

319. most people who use marijuana certainly are not going to become heroin addicts.

320. You know, a very small percentage of them will.

321. The first drug used by almost everyone in almost

322. every instance was either alcohol or tobacco.

323. Keith Straub, marijuana advocate.

324. So why don't we hear that alcohol and tobacco are a gateway drug?

325. Well, it's because alcohol and tobacco are a multi-billion dollar corporations,

326. and they make lots of money in our society.

327. The typical marijuana user

328. is not a hardcore stoner, but pretty much your average Joe.

329. There are 20 million Americans who smoke marijuana just in the last year.

330. There are roughly 100 million Americans

331. who have smoked marijuana at some time in their lives.

332. The vast majority of marijuana smokers are people just like me.

333. They're good citizens.

334. They work hard.

335. They raise families. They pay taxes.

336. They are not criminals.

337. And we must stop treating them like criminals.

338. Marijuana may also have incredible medical benefits.

339. People ask you about medical marijuana.

340. that's a, just a,

341. an excuse by the legal advisers to get into the issue.

342. When you you look at the issue of medical marijuana, it's largely a big hoax.

343. First of all, there are so few people I don't know any good

344. doctor out there who's going to say, hey, take a joint is going to make you better.

345. Really?

346. It only took us a few minutes to find a good doctor.

347. Doctor Lester Grinspoon,

348. professor of psychiatry, emeritus at the Harvard Medical School.

349. Back in 1967.

350. This professor spent two years studying

351. the world's medical literature on the subject of marijuana.

352. I learned that despite my training in medicine and science,

353. I had been brainwashed, like just about every other citizen

354. in this country, that marijuana was not only a

355. not a dangerous drug, but indeed

356. it was remarkably nontoxic.

357. And, I had to, revise my view of it.

358. And by a painful irony, he got to experience its benefits firsthand.

359. In 1967, my son Danny, who was ten years

360. old, was diagnosed as having acute lymphocytic leukemia.

361. He had terrible nausea and vomiting

362. with each session of the cancer chemotherapeutic drugs.

363. My wife and I heard about

364. a young man in Houston, Texas,

365. who had the same problem Danny had.

366. This boy in Houston found that

367. cannabis eliminated that nausea and vomiting altogether.

368. So Danny smoked at 20 minutes before his next session.

369. He had no nausea, no vomiting.

370. He got off the table and said, mom, could we get a submarine sandwich

371. on the way home?

372. And I can tell you that from that time on, for as long as he lived after that,

373. which was about a year and a half, we never, never had to go through

374. that awful business of his nausea and vomiting.

375. And because the quality of his life was so much better, so was ours.

376. We didn't have to see this suffering.

377. And in fact, it led to the first study of,

378. cannabis and nausea and vomiting.

379. The argument for the medical.

380. Use of marijuana, I think, is very strong.

381. It helps their appetite.

382. It relieves pain, and it works.

383. That's why people use drugs.

384. Because they work.

385. They they actually do what you want them to do.

386. Otherwise, why would people use it under the federal system right now?

387. Marijuana is equated with heroin.

388. And it's it's mandated by Congress that it has no accepted medical use.

389. Now, you know, there are nine states in this country

390. where they have legalized the medical use of marijuana.

391. If a doctor recommends that under state law, you're allowed to have it.

392. We visited a location in California where medical marijuana is grown.

393. Why is our crew wearing those stupid pillowcases over their heads?

394. It's not because they're unattractive. Here's why.

395. Although pot farms like this one can grow marijuana

396. for medical use under California law, they are secretly hidden away

397. because the Federal War on Drugs says these pot farms are illegal.

398. It's crazy.

399. Is everyone fucking high but us?

400. We shot these plants and then put the pillowcases back on our heads

401. to drive to a clinic where marijuana is suspended for medical purposes.

402. Well, other people actually drove.

403. We had pillow cases on our hands.

404. Surely these folks are just a bunch of giggling potheads.

405. How did a k the moral fiber of our nation?

406. Well, no.

407. But they do have something in common.

408. They're suffering, and the marijuana is making them feel better.

409. We have resources for medical marijuana patients.

410. Everything from food to housing to medical cannabis.

411. Jane Weirich, medical cannabis advocate, San Francisco Bay area, California.

412. Everyone here has a recommendation from a doctor licensed in California

413. giving them the right to use medical marijuana.

414. California has a very open ended medical marijuana law.

415. If you've got any conditions, okay, you can get marijuana.

416. And if you look at those marijuana clinics in San Francisco, you see people look

417. pretty healthy to me.

418. Like this woman, she's suffering from her chemotherapy

419. so much, she's unable to even smoke the marijuana.

420. She has to have it blown in her face.

421. Yeah, she looks pretty healthy to me.

422. But how do

423. we know they're not overdosing and harming themselves?

424. Nobody has ever died from cannabis.

425. You cannot find a case in the world literature.

426. Well there's that.

427. So let's say we went ahead and legalized drugs.

428. How bad would it really be?

429. If drugs were legalized, we would have a disaster in America,

430. in hospital emergency rooms and crime and in car crashes and in family destruction.

431. It would be a terrible thing.

432. That would be, the worst conceivable policy.

433. It's a long road.

434. Rod Davis house.

435. One from drugs, in a way of

436. far right.

437. That we would be an incredible cast.

438. Watch your hospital emergency rooms if you were to, if you were to

439. legalize drugs, they would be

440. in complete catastrophic chaos.

441. Or we'd

442. have fewer victimless criminals clogging our prisons.

443. The courts, police and lawyers would have time and money to deal with real crime.

444. We take away the huge black market profits from the bad guys.

445. We'd be able to ease some suffering.

446. We could seriously reduce the transmission of HIV and hepatitis.

447. We control the quality and dosages so fewer people would get sick

448. through contamination, overdose.

449. I remember who's telling you this.

450. I've never taken a recreational drug. Never.

451. Not one hit, inhaled or not off a joint.

452. Never even had a single sip of alcohol.

453. But I'm sure not to spend money or come to your door with a gun to stop

454. you from getting stoned and listening to the Grateful Dead noodle.

455. It's your life.

456. Just stay the fuck out of my house.

457. All of the potheads and the government.

458. Let me compare

459. the three most common used drugs in this country.

460. Recreational drugs.

461. And that's alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.

462. With alcohol, it accounts for roughly 50,000 deaths a year in this country.

463. Tobacco accounts for 440,000 deaths a year in this country.

464. There's never been a person in the history of mankind that died

465. from an overdose of marijuana.

466. It simply is not toxic enough.

467. It could not kill.

468. Fuck the numbers even when they're on our side.

469. This is a bigger issue than numbers.

470. I think that what people do with their own bodies

471. and their own minds is their business, providing

472. they do not impose any harm on other individuals or society.

473. Is it any surprise that Wiener disagrees?

474. It's incredibly selfish to say it's my body when you when you,

475. don't recognize what you the the the havoc that you are

476. wreaking on your family and all those who are close to you.

477. Yeah, like the havoc marijuana brought to Doctor Grinspoon.

478. Family still grieving the loss of their beautiful son.

479. At least he knows that he helped ease the pain of his son's

480. final months on earth.

481. You see, it's not your body.

482. It's Wiener's wiener, for Christ's sake.

483. Wiener, Wiener.

484. We fuck.

485. As Americans, we have an inalienable right

486. to make up our minds about what substances we want to take into our bodies.

487. I don't think it's the government's purview

488. or should be within the government's purview to say, you can take caffeine,

489. you can take nicotine, but you can't take marijuana.

490. People have a right to control their bodies,

491. to control what goes into their bodies,

492. to control their minds ultimately, because that's what you're talking about.

493. If you're talking about psychoactive drugs, you're talking about controlling

494. the contents of your mind, what goes on inside your brain.

495. That's a pretty basic right, you would think.

496. I took you guys off lockdown, you know that?

497. Yeah.

498. But people like Sheriff Joe couldn't care less.

499. The war on drugs can't be stopped just because of something as stupid

500. as freedom of choice.

501. That freedom that make our choice.

502. Freedom to make our choice. Okay.

503. Everybody says yeah, yeah, yeah.

504. It's your own body.

505. So puppet fuel, full of heroin or cocaine or marijuana.

506. You know, let them kill themselves.

507. Who cares?

508. That's garbage.

509. We have to protect society.

510. We have to protect the people.

511. We have to protect our, other people.

512. So we should never legalize drugs.

513. This is drugs.

514. These are your liberties.

515. And this is the government.

516. Any questions?

517. Is this not smoking a joint in front of the Capitol?

518. I'm Irvin Rosenfeld.

519. I'm one of seven federal medical marijuana patients.

520. If you ever wanted incontrovertible proof of the government hypocrisy

521. on the subject of drugs.

522. Listen to this.

523. Back in 1978, the government started a program to distribute medical marijuana.

524. Yep. Uncle Sam grew it and distributed it.

525. At its peak, 30 patients were on the program for the last 21 years.

526. Irvin Rosenfeld has been receiving this little care package

527. from the federal government for his potentially lethal bone tumors.

528. If they grow outwardly, most of them and what they do is a stretch

529. the muscles in the veins that go from making very painful, more important,

530. any kind of movement can tear the muscle and more important, tear vein.

531. And you can hemorrhage

532. a hemorrhage, break off, break it off goes to your heart,

533. your brain, your lungs, and you could be dead.

534. Here's how the marijuana comes.

535. It's 300 cigarets in this.

536. Cookie tin right here.

537. I try to smoke 2 to 3 in the morning when I get up.

538. Then I smoke one on the way to work.

539. Driving to work. Try to take a break around 1030.

540. Then I try to smoke two after lunch if I'm able to.

541. It's difficult when you're trading stocks.

542. To be able to take breaks.

543. Trading stocks?

544. Oh that's right.

545. Irving's a very successful stockbroker.

546. Doesn't exactly fit the mold of a pothead, does he?

547. Anyway, when George Senior was in office saying things.

548. Like this scourge will stop.

549. Funding a medical marijuana program, didn't make much political sense.

550. So he closed it down in 1992, just in time for his reelection campaign.

551. Today, there are only seven patients who still receive

552. the federal weed, and they will until they die.

553. Thank God that I found it.

554. And thank God that I'm getting it from the federal government.

555. I couldn't afford it otherwise.

556. I've been able to fight a very devastating disease with the right medicine.

557. Irvin and the other members

558. of the Fortunate Seven know they are the last of a dying breed.

559. And I think that's what the government's waiting for.

560. Just that one day we won't be around and then they can end it all.

561. So why is Herman smoking in front of the white House and the Capitol building?

562. Because he can't.

563. And, well, you you gotta admit, it makes a really cool shot for the promos.

564. We are also hoping someone who runs the country

565. would look out their fucking window and learn something.

566. 21 years I've been smoking marijuana

567. legally provided by the federal government.

568. And they still don't want to know how well it works.