Georgia Voter Suppression | Carl L. Hart
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: Ears Edition- 1,768 views
- 6 Apr 2021
Trevor highlights voter suppression in Georgia, Desi Lydic examines how the pandemic disproportionately harms working women, and Dr. Carl L. Hart discusses his book "Drug Use for Grown-Ups."
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You're listening to Comedy Central. Now The Daily Show, Eres Edition in the following message is brought to you by Ford Motor Company in the Ford F series. The Ford F series has been America's pickup truck leader for 43 years and counting in the all new twenty twenty one F one 50 is completely redesigned to be the toughest, most productive F1 fifty ever. This is a great truck. The interior has been given a serious upgrade with more luxury and comfort. Tough.
This smart can only be called F1 50. Check out the all new twenty twenty one Ford F 150 at Ford Dotcom. Built Ford proud. Built Ford tough. Hey, what's going on, everybody? I'm Trevor Noah and this is the Daily Social Distancing Show. Today is Monday, April 5th, and I hope everybody had a happy Easter. And I hope you also enjoyed a really nice Easter egg hunt. I actually haven't found my Easter eggs yet because my trick is I wait a few weeks until all of them start to rot and then the smell gives them away.
Pretty smart, anyway, coming up on tonight's show, America has a new creepiest congressman. He discovers why women are leaving the workforce and why Georgia Republicans are switching to Pepsi. So let's do this, people.
Welcome to the daily social distancing show from Trevor's couch in New York City to your couch somewhere in the world. This is the Daily Social Decency Show with Trevor Noah. Here's a. Let's kick things off with an update on covid-19, the pandemic that's harder to get rid of than a serial killer in a hockey mask this past year sometimes felt like an endless repetition of Netflix, crofts and boring little walks around the neighborhood. Hell, I took so many walks, I started naming the fire hydrants.
It was going all Yellow Springs name. Yeah. Good to see you, Richard. Where's my money, Richard? I don't forget you told me you needed to buy new not to close the water hole. And you did I kill you, Richard? I don't forget. But now things are suddenly moving very fast in the right direction. The only question is, are they moving fast enough?
After a weekend of Easter gathering's and a record number of spring break travelers, the fear this morning. Another dangerous surge is looming. Michigan now seeing the country's largest spike in cases reporting its highest daily count since early December, while infections are rising in over 20 states. Health experts aren't in agreement that a fourth wave is imminent.
We will see in the next two weeks the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic. I think that there's enough immunity in the population that you're not going to see a true fourth wave of infection. What we're seeing is pockets of infection around the country.
This as the vaccine rollout is picking up pace. The CDC says more than three million doses are now being distributed every day and over 18 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated.
That's right, people. America may be entering a fourth wave of coronavirus. This pandemic is getting more spinoffs than law and order. But the good news is, and I really mean this focus on the good news, the fourth wave might not be as big as earlier waves because so many people are being vaccinated. Yeah. So in many ways, it could end up being like when the wave comes around for the fourth time at a baseball game.
Right now, the problem is that we just don't know yet. Some experts are saying things are about to get worse and some experts are saying things are getting better. It actually makes it hard to know how cautious we should be. That's why I am not taking any chances. I have started licking doorknobs again. But just to be safe, I put a condom on them first. Basically, right now we're in a race between the people who are masking and getting vaccinated and the people who are spreading the virus.
When you think about it, that's been the question with every big issue in history. Well, the people solving the problem faster than the people causing the problem are the people fixing the climate going faster than the people changing it? All the people building sewage systems faster than the people shitting in the streets. All we produce in Cancun is fast enough to fight the gutsiness. We never make enough Cong's. Regardless, you want to be one of the people fixing the problem.
So please get vaccinated so that you can go back to living your life and keep your mask on so that you can stay safe. And because time is of the essence here, if you do see the coronavirus, you know what you're going to do. You've got to stall. Oh, hey, Korona, yeah, I know you want to come into my lungs, but before that I was just wondering, do you have any good podcasts you'd recommend?
Oh, wow. With serial killers. Oh, that's cool. And then like. Oh, so did I.
Yeah, that's right. I got the vaccine beatch.
But let's move on now to some political news.
Donald Trump may have lost the twenty twenty election, but that's only if you count all the votes against him. The good news, though, is that doesn't mean he walked away from the race empty handed.
Well, Trump supporters may have gotten or given more than they bargained for when they donated to his reelection campaign. And New York Times investigation found the people who thought they were sending a single donation were charged over and over again by his campaign operation and what the Times calls an intentional scheme to boost revenue. Recurring online donations were set up by default. Here is how that fine print disclaimer look. Take a look at this. It was buried. That tiny line at the bottom of the first yellow box calls for a weekly recurring donation.
Hundreds of thousands of people had money withdrawn without their knowledge, leading to a record amount of fraud claims against more than sixty four million bucks in refunds in the last months of twenty twenty.
The sixty three year old man willingly initially contributed five hundred dollars to the Trump campaign when the man who had his bank account repeatedly charged five hundred dollars several times in the weeks to come to the tune of three thousand dollars in less than 30 days.
God damn. Say what you want about Donald Trump, but this man is a legend, his last act as president was to rob his own supporters.
They loved him so much, they stormed the Capitol for him. And meanwhile, he was like, you go on ahead. I'll watch your stuff. Leave your wallet here, Bobby. I got you. What's most surprising to me is that Trump's base didn't expect this from him, because if you know Donald Trump at all, you should know that he will scam anyone. That's why even when Melania is at home, she still takes her purse with her to the bathroom.
I'm going people now. Credit card comes with me, Donald. Now, you probably think that after getting scammed, his supporters would have second thoughts about him. But it turns out some of the victims still say that they are loyal to Donald Trump. I mean, how far does he have to go for these guys to stop believing in him? Well, sure. I missed that check box to let Trump take my nose, but that's my fault.
I would still shake the man's hand. If I had a hand because I missed that checkbox to and finally there's another political story that we missed while we were off the air last week. And, you know, normally when we miss a political scandal, we just say a big deal and we wait for the next one because it's fine. Scandals about politicians come around more often than YouTube.
Apologies, but this story is so insane that we just have to talk about it.
Stunning new allegations that Florida Republican Matt Gates paid women for sex. The Justice Department is investigating whether the congressman in a local Florida politician gave cash or other items of value to multiple women who are recruited online to sleep with them. The men allegedly told women to meet at hotels and that some of the encounters reportedly involved the drug Ecstasy. The inquiry is also examining whether Gates had a sexual relationship with a 17 year old girl and possibly violated sex trafficking laws. Sources tell us that as a member of the Florida House of Representatives, female colleagues referred to him as, quote, creepy gates because he made them feel so uncomfortable once in Congress.
Sources say Gates allegedly boasted of his sexual encounters with women and would allegedly tried to show colleagues photos and videos of naked women. He'd claimed he'd slept with one source saying he tried to show him video of a naked woman with a hula hoop.
OK, this is crazy, Matt Gates, Florida congressman and only living relative of Beavis and Butthead being accused of sex crimes.
And there are a lot of different accusations happening here now, do I think that Matt Gates looks like a guy who shows photos of naked women to people at work? Yes, but do I think that he would have paid for sex? Yeah, definitely. But do I think that he's the kind of guy who would take ecstasy and have sex with an underage girl also? Yes. So really, there's only one question left for Gates. Does he deny all of the charges or does he admit to everything and just become king of Florida and not forget these allegations would be criminal no matter what.
But the fact that he's in Congress makes them even worse, because at what point in the day is he showing all of these nude videos? And that's why Americans should be free to choose their own health care. And speaking of free, check out these days, but let's move on to our main story, voting.
It's democracy's rose ceremony. Ever since last November's election, when Democrats turned out in large numbers, Republicans around the country have been working hard to make voting harder. And last week, the biggest voter restriction law just passed in one of the states with the results were the closest.
A new law signed by Georgia's governor, Brian Camp imposes a series of new restrictions on elections in the state.
Let's remind folks about what that law does. It shrinks the window for sending absentee ballots severely limits the number of ballot drop boxes and gives more control of local elections to state lawmakers who are majority Republican. It also makes it a crime to give water or food to people waiting in line to vote.
President Biden last week slammed the Republican backed law as sick.
When I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagles'.
Yeah, you tell him Biden. And then maybe explain what you just told him, because I have no idea what you're talking about, like, is he saying eagles are worse than crows? Like, are we all supposed to share his personal burden rankings because I don't know about you, but this is the most Joe Biden thing ever. He's trying to make a point about America's history of racist voting restrictions. And instead, he's got us arguing about birds.
Look, man, I agree. Eagles ought to go, but you can't be disrespecting the crow like that, man. You show me another bird that could use a tool to obtain food. She. But that's right. After losing in November, Georgia Republicans decided to basically make voting more like all of the worst parts of flying. OK, so there's going to be really long lines. No one can have water. And if you like, you can go yourself.
In fact, you know what? No shoes. Everybody take off your shoes. So obviously, a lot of people were upset about this law. Democrats were angry. Black people were angry. The president was angry. So for help, they turned to the only people whose opinions might actually count for something giant corporations.
More fallout now over the new voting law in Georgia. Major League Baseball pulled the all star game out of Atlanta. And over the weekend, the Braves covered up the all star patch on their uniform. MLB decision comes after civil rights groups put pressure on organizations and corporations to pull business out of Georgia.
Two major Georgia based companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, are now taking the same stance, arguing the Republican law was based on a lie and will restrict voting rights. Delta CEO Ed Bastian spoke to CBS This Morning. The right to vote is sacrosanct, and we can't do anything to send a message to people that we're going to make it more restrictive and harder to have their voice heard.
That's right. Corporate America has come out in force against Georgia's new laws. Delta and Coke spoke out. The MLB moved its All-Star Game and decided to film the next season of Atlanta in Alaska. Who paperboys not going to be happy. And look, it's great to see corporations use their influence and support of voting rights. But but just to be clear, they didn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts, right? They did it because liberals were threatening to boycott them if they didn't speak out.
And it's actually amazing what you can get companies to do when you threaten a boycott. I mean, just the threat of a boycott got Coca-Cola to back a voting rights group. Think about that. That means with just a little more pressure, we can probably convince Coke to put cocaine back in the drinks business people. But I guess I'm not surprised that they gave in because a lot of these companies aren't exactly in a great position to negotiate. Well, you can't boycott Delta Airlines because what are you going to do, fly a different airline?
Oh, yeah. Oh, well, when you put it that way, I guess we'll put out a statement. Now, here's the problem for these corporations. Any time they try to make one side of an issue, happy, people on the opposite side are going to get pissed off, which is exactly what happened next.
Georgia based companies are facing backlash from Republicans after expressing their dissatisfaction with that state's new voting law. Now, Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola have found themselves in a heated fight with Governor Brian Kemp after Delta's CEO Ed Bastian condemned the restrictive voting rights bill. Republicans in the state legislature are looking at increasing taxes on the company in retribution. A group of Georgia House Republicans is canceling Coca-Cola. They're saying Pepsi is OK after the company's CEO spoke out against the state's new restrictive voting law, asking for all Coke products to be removed from their offices.
GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted, quote, Guess what I am doing today? Not watching baseball, followed by four exclamation marks.
Former President Donald Trump is calling for conservatives to boycott corporations, saying it's finally time for Republicans and conservatives to fight back. Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, Viacom, CBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS and Merck. The radical left will destroy our country if we let them. We will not become a socialist nation. Adding Happy Easter. OK, first of all, I love how he just threw Happy Easter in there. I mean, forget politics.
I think Trump needs to start a line of greeting cards. How Joe Biden's laptop exposes the whole Russia. The election was rigged and Batmitzvah. But more importantly, Trump has now called for boycotting the NFL and MLB. I mean, at this rate, pretty soon the only sport left for him to watch will be what soccer? And I actually think that he'll like it, especially the flopping. Mr. President, an important part of the sport is making it seem like your opponent did something wrong when in fact, they didn't.
It truly is the beautiful game. And honestly, you've got to feel for the GOP because they spend so much time defending corporate interests, trying to cut corporate taxes, letting corporations do whatever they want. And then the corporations are just like, cool, now we have more money to pay Colin Kaepernick. Not only that, Democrats are like, we will disband every corporation and make them pay.
And Coke and Delta are like, yes, queen slay us. But this is tough for these corporations to I mean, they really miss the old days, you know, when they didn't have to take sides on voting rights or culture wars. They just made dipoles out of asbestos and that was that. But these days, being a corporation means trying to navigate all these political issues without getting boycotted, which is not easy. But luckily, we have an idea for how they can avoid this problem altogether.
Here at Delta Airlines, we've heard your concerns. You want us to speak out against voter suppression and you want us to speak out for voter suppression.
It's been an uncomfortable position for us, like trying to squeeze your knees into one of our coach seats until now, introducing Blue Delta and Red Delta, our new subsidiaries that let you patronize the company with your values at Blue Delta.
We offer carbon offsets and in-flight copy of Michelle Obama's memoir and direct service between New York and Los Angeles with nowhere in between at Red Delta.
Every plane features an in-flight shooting range, and in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, no masks will drop hungry.
Take Delta Blue and enjoy our gluten free and vegan meals.
Or take Delta Red where everyone is served a cow personally shot by Don Junior. But most importantly, read.
Delta's official corporate position is that black people should not vote while Blue Delta's corporate headquarters is located in a cloud above the ocean and will not return to America until racism is over.
So by blue or red, no matter which you choose, we guarantee that your money will never go to the other one.
Delta Airlines, guys, we're trying here.
All right. When we come back, Desie figures out why women have been hit so hard during the pandemic Picolo.
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I'm Carrie Champion, the host of a brand new podcast, Naked with Carrie Champion on the back of the podcast network. I'll be asking some of the greatest in sports and entertainment to remove the veil and give naked. Being naked on this podcast means describing life altering events and circumstances that helped shape who the person you love has essentially become naked with. Carrie Champion is available now on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or whatever you listen to podcast. Welcome back to the Daily Social Distancing Show, the pandemic recession has hit many people hard, but it's hit one group especially hard.
The Zelenik has more.
The covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the U.S. economy with millions out of work and much like underwire and micro bleeding, it's disproportionately hurting women. Economist Olga Starkloff told me why.
February twenty twenty, about two and a half million women left the workforce. Two and a half million. That's right, 80 percent of net job losses.
Wow. Even when it comes to unemployment, women are overachieving. For decades, women have been chipping away at the glass ceiling, joining the labor force in greater numbers with each year until the pandemic, which has reduced the percentage of working women to 1988 levels. The question is, why is this happening?
Well, my interview with Dr. Darshana Mahalingam provided one compelling reason why the pandemic is one of the reasons that I just needed to step back from my research.
We lost child care for several months before I can.
I couldn't quite hear there was a bit of a background. That's my three year old son with a Lego train car. Sorry, hold. I know it's my I think it's my background. And that's the trash bin. There better not be any new jobs in there. There were Ninjago sent there thanks to school closures and child care disruptions, mothers are stepping back from the workforce in large numbers and not because they want to.
I think we really need to move away from this idea of personal choice. If you have to choose between bringing home a paycheck to feed your family and, you know, avoiding a deadly disease, that's not a choice. No, it's it's not.
And it doesn't matter if you're young, old, black, white or that slick bitch in the next apartment that keeps eyeing my husband. This affects you.
My research has been focused on infectious disease and incarcerated populations. And so they were looking at sort of how can we improve testing and support for these individuals who are very vulnerable to getting infected.
So you were researching covid and you had to take a step back?
Yeah, I mean, it was a very difficult decision, I think, of all that you could have accomplished in this past year if you had full time covid safe child care. Like I know for me, I just know I would have been able to finish my one woman show from home. Hamilton my whole life is in this room where it happens, this room where it happens, this room where it happens.
Yeah, art is important.
So millions of women have just spent a year stuck at home workshopping our dream projects with our kids instead of with audiences or producers. And much like a stoned Elon Musk tweet, this could affect the whole economy.
Women leaving the workforce means that these women are now losing the skills that they have and becoming less productive. And so that could affect actually the entire economy and economic growth for years to come. Even women who are still working are experiencing sort of hidden burdens that are doing the dual role.
They know, no, you can't have a snack, you just can't have a snack.
They have to work and at the same time take care of their children. And so there are also mental health repercussions. Something's got to give. Hey, babe, can you give us that? No, he can't.
No, he can't have a snack. So how do we fix this before moms across America just lose it asking for a friend.
I know you can't. Yeah. You know what? Have a snack, have a snack, have all the snacks. Dr Chertkov says it's going to take a lot of work.
covid-19 highlighted and exacerbated longstanding structural gender and racial and ethnic gaps that need to be addressed. And not to mention women I think have learned it.
Yes. Oh my goodness. You want me to Google? We're looking up a Pokémon Collo. We did my other new piece, the level area of expertise. So where was I? If we would like to see things get better, we need institutions, policymakers to pay attention to child care and expand access to child care. Shoot.
I had a question off of that. I'm actually sorry. Maybe my producer Sarah, the women have it.
I definitely have it here. I remember that question. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah. You got your hands full. It's OK. Oh OK.
I come prepared and mommy's working.
Well, one thing is certain. The pandemic has shown us that the system is broken and women need institutional support. Something has to be done probably by someone who doesn't have kids at home.
Thank you so much for that, Daisy. All right, when we come back, I'm going to be talking to Dr. Carl Hart, an Ivy League professor, about why he uses drugs.
You don't want to miss it. For the ones who know safety isn't a catchphrase, it's a culture and the ones who help make sure everyone makes it home safe for the safety minded who watch everyone's backs, Granger offers supplies and solutions for every industry, as well as safety assessments and training. To keep your facility safe and your people safer. Call Clint Granger Dotcom or just by Granger for the ones who get it done. Welcome back to the Daily Social Distancing Show.
Earlier today, I spoke to Dr. Carl Hotz. He's a professor of psychology at Columbia University, an Air Force veteran and a recreational heroin user. We talked about that and his new book where he explains what the real problem with drugs is. Dr. Cohort's, welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Thank you for having me. Trevor, good to see you again. You have a new book out that's got everybody talking drug use for grown ups. Now, just to set the stage, you are a tenured professor at Columbia. Right? You are. And you're an established and respected neuroscientist. You are not some dude who's just, like, selling Banky like little baggies of weed or this is like we're talking to a doctor here. First things first.
Things first. What is the biggest misconception around drug use, because when people say, like drug use for grown ups, people won't be like, wait, you're talking like Vicodin. What do you mean by drug use? Yeah.
So when I'm talking about drug use, I'm talking about the fun drugs that people take, cocaine, MDMA, psilocybin. And the biggest misconception is that most people who use these drugs are addicted. The vast majority of people who use drugs are not addicted. 70, 80 percent of those people who use drugs don't have problems like addiction. They are responsible individuals. They go to work. They take care of their families. They pay their taxes, responsible people.
They are professionals. And that's one of the reasons that I wrote the book.
So to clear up some of those misconceptions, you speak from experience. I mean, I remember how shocked people were when you said, oh, I use heroin. Everyone was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What?
Yes. So let's let's talk about that for a second. So I. I acknowledge the heroin use, cocaine use, MDMA use. I acknowledge all this drug use in order to dramatize the fact that most people who use these drugs are not addicted. So I wanted people to see somebody who's responsible and somebody who writes books, somebody who meets their obligations so they can understand that. See, we've been misled. Instead, they say they don't want to believe that.
But one of the major concerns, when we think about the drug and selves, let's think about a drug like fentanyl. Fentanyl has been approved in the United States in medicine since 1960. So we use fentanyl in medicine safely.
Not a problem. But when you think about somebody like Prince, for example, he died in part because he had fentanyl in a drug in a pill that he thought was oxycodone, Percocet. He didn't know fentanyl is a lot more potent than OxyContin. So if you put the same amount that you take of OxyContin, then you take that same amount of fentanyl can kill a person. And so if Prince knew what was in his drug, he might still be with us today.
So in the book, I'm arguing we need to regulate these things. We need to make sure we have drug checking facilities so people will know what's in their substance. So it decreases the likelihood of them dying from ignorance, not knowing what's in their substance.
If somebody is addicted to cigarettes, is that as bad as being addicted to crack or the effects of certain drugs, not worse than other drugs in the addiction? Yes.
So let's think about that.
We can think about people who are addicted to alcohol and then if they abruptly discontinue the alcohol use, they can die. The same sort of thing is less likely with something like heroin. So alcohol withdrawal can kill people. So when we think about the severity of addiction, alcohol is one of the sort of worse.
But we managed to deal with that, OK, in our society, although we still lose people every year from alcohol withdrawal.
But the point is, is that it's an important point here is the if the majority of people who use any drug are not addicted, it tells you that you have to look beyond the drug itself. There are other factors that are important for drug addiction, other factors like psychosocial factors, psychiatric factors like people who are who have co-occurrence. Psychiatric illnesses are far more likely to be addicted to drugs and somebody who doesn't. So it tells us as a society, we have to be better.
We have to treat people better. We have to do better. We have to make sure we have social safety nets. All of these things will radically decrease the amount of addiction of addiction that we see in a society. But when we focus on a drug, then we're not focusing on the most important aspects of addiction.
What terrifies me, though, on a completely uninformed level, I look at the stories, I go, man, Whitney Houston and then DMX. I read in the news DMX and they go, like, what happened? And he he's in a coma and like, it's because of drugs. And then I go, man, Dr. Hotz, I. I mean, I'm all for, you know, people legalizing drugs, but I don't want to keep losing people.
Is that is that something that I'm missing when I think like that? Yeah.
Let's let's think about Whitney. Oftentimes you see the headline she was she had cocaine in her system and it probably had nothing to do with her death. She died in a bathtub because she fell asleep.
She also had an histamines in our systems, which you can get over the counter. She had benzodiazepines in her system that she was prescribed. She fell asleep in the tub. So if anything, you know, you want her to be awake. Cocaine keeps people awake. And so people need to understand that the headlines are often wrong. Let's think about DMX. I don't know what happened with DMX yet. We don't know. But there are people who are speculating and it would be nice to know, but that's why I would try to get the right information out.
So if there was a drug in. And he may have hidden what he was doing because it's stigmatized. We hope people come out of the shadows and they can seek help or they can seek information about doing the activity more safely so we don't lose people.
If you said to me six years ago, hey, Trevor, we'd should it be legal or not be like that is the devil. People are going to smoke the weed and it's a gateway drug and it's going to kill them all because that's what I was brought up to believe in my school, in my community, in my life. Now I look and I go like, man, I was an idiot. I can't believe I even thought that. So how are we all so wrong?
How do we all become programmed incorrectly then?
Well, so the first thing people have to understand is in the United States, drugs are not banned because of pharmacology or science. Drugs are banned because of racism. We banned all of these drugs originally because of their association with despised group, the opioids we banned because of our hate of the of Asian Chinese folks, cocaine, because of our hate of black people, marijuana, because I hate Mexican Americans and black people. And so we understand why drugs are banned in the first place.
Then we can start to look behind the curtain and see some of the what the reality really is. Like you said, with marijuana, you can no longer fool people because more than 50 percent of adults have used marijuana in their life. So it's harder to fool them. But with something like cocaine or crack, it's still easy to fool people. Most people haven't used that drug. It's still easy to fool people about heroin because most people haven't tried heroin.
And so as we increase the number of users with these drugs, it becomes more difficult to fool people. Or when you have people like me and other scientists who speak up, it will become less likely that we mislead the public.
But you have to remember, Trever, there is a lot of money in misleading the public about drugs in science and law enforcement, all of these sort of industries that have been around prisons. So there's a lot of money in this. People have to know and remember that drug trafficking, the illegal drug trafficking business is a multibillion dollar industry and that industry is supported primarily by middle class and upper class people, white people.
But when we think about drug users, we don't think of them as being the users.
So there are a number of people in our society who know that drugs are not the boogeyman and not the devil that we've been told, but they are comfortable doing the activity for themselves. But they don't want anybody else doing this. Right. Right. And remember that.
And then what do you say to the communities out there, especially black communities, where community will go like Dr. Hart, what are you doing? We watched the crack epidemic destroy our communities. Why would you advocate for drugs?
Yes, I'm not advocating for drugs, but I'm just saying that if people are using drugs, we shouldn't throw them away because of their drug use. We should look at their other. That's what I'm saying, number one. And number two is that when we talk about the crack epidemic destroying the black community, it was just wrong. I mean, it's true that people have problems, but when we think about things like unemployment, the highest unemployment rates in the United States in black communities was nineteen eighty two.
Crack didn't come on the scene until nineteen eighty five. But yet crack is blamed for that sort of thing. We think about violence. We had peaks in violence in nineteen thirty three, 1980, 1991. Crack was on the scene in eighty five for the ninety one month. But we've had these periodic peaks in violence. That's how, that's how societies work. And so crack was blamed for these things that were really caused by things like Reaganomics and Reagan's economic policies.
But butt crack was blame. And so I'm trying to get people to understand that if you look beyond drugs, then we might find some real solutions. Right.
Well, I can talk to you for ages, but luckily, that's why you wrote the book. I hope people read it before they comment on it, because it's one of the most thought provoking reads that I've that I've had the pleasure of exploring a in a very long time. Dr. Hart, thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you coming on.
Thank you for having me. And I really appreciate you. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.
Drug use for grown ups is available now. All right. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back after this.
Well, that's our show for tonight, but before we go, please consider supporting an organization called Teens for Food Justice. They help at-risk students throughout New York build and maintain hydroponic farms, allowing them to grow thousands of pounds of produce every year for their communities. By supporting teens for food justice, you are helping youth led farms ensure a sustainable, equitable food system and eradicate food insecurity. So if you're able to help, just go to the link below and donate whatever you can until tomorrow.
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