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"Methamphetamine: Fact Vs. Fiction and Lessons from the Crack Hysteria"

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TRANSCRIPT "METHAMPHETAMINE: FACT VS. FICTION AND LESSONS FROM THE CRACK HYSTERIA" A Conversation With Carl Hart, Bill Piper, Holly Catania and Howard Josepher Moderator: Marykate O’Neil Inroduction: Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch ANNOUNCER: You are listening to a recording of the open society foundations, working to build vibrant and tolerant democracies worldwide. Visit us at OpenSocietyFoundations.org. KASIA MALINOWSKA-SEMPRUCH: When-- Carl and I had a conversation about (UNINTEL PHRASE) for this report I think we were in a taxi in Bangkok. And-- one of the reasons we had this conversation is because it seemed that Thailand which has a serious stimulant program-- is experiencing what the U.S. was experiencing a number of years-- number of years ago which is sort of-- panic around which, in the U.S. was sort of a panic around (UNINTEL) they are now dealing with it-- in-- Thailand around stimulant use. So-- so it seems that if you look at-- if you look at the map of the world and sort of regardless of where you are moral panic is what seems to drive a large (INAUDIBLE) and so-- so we don't-- are looking at methamphetamines is one way to address this question sort of us-- us talking science and better use-- and utilized in order to make sensible policies. And so I'm really pleased to, A, have the report, B, to have this fabulous panel here-- to move us to a discussion about-- about methamphetamines itself but also more importantly what are the lessons learned and how can we use science for good policy making. Also we'll be tweeting. And the hashtag is meth facts. So please if you are on Twitter or will be on Twitter late-- later this evening-- keep that-- TRANSCRIPT: METHAMPHETAMINE: FACT VS. FICTION AND LESSONS FROM THE CRACK HYSTERIA 2 MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: What's-- what's the-- what's the hashtag? KASIA MALINOWSKA-SEMPRUCH: Meth facts. So over to our fabulous panelists, I will-- let-- our (UNINTEL) into this other one. MARYKATE O'NEIL: Hi, I'm Marykate O'Neil. And I'm moderating today. We have Holly Cantania. She is-- an expert in drug policy, law and health consultant. She has been working on harm reduction since the late '90s. On my far left we have Howard Josepher. He's the founder and president of Exponents, a minority led, community based organization in New York City helping people who struggle with substance abuse. To my immediate left we have Bill Piper. (APPLAUSE) Bill Piper is-- hold your applause. (LAUGH) Bill Piper's the director of the Drug Policy Alliance Office of National Affairs in Washington D.C. And then we have Carl Hart who is the professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University. Carl was the first tenured African American professor of the sciences at Columbia University. He's also a research scientist in the division of substance abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He's a member of the National Advisory Council on drug abuse, on the board of director of the college on problems of drug dependence and the Drug Policy Alliance. He was also featured in the award winning documentary The House I Live In. And his 2013 bestselling book High Price has been receiving national acclaim and is due out in paperback soon. (LAUGH) And-- I guess who is gonna start is Carl's gonna talk for a bit and then we'll-- each panelist will talk for about ten minutes. And then we can open things up. CARL HART: Okay, thank you, Marykate. So thank you all for coming out tonight. I guess-- before starting I just wanna say a word about-- cautious comment about this report. She's right. We-- we-- we talked about, well this port-- report was-- the idea of the report was born in a taxi cab in Bangkok. She didn't say what had happened-- previously in- - the night before or something. We were out all night or something, right, at some-- one of those bars in Bangkok. (LAUGH) She didn't say anything about that. But, no, that's not so important. I-- in doing this report-- I didn't think it was that important to do a report. TRANSCRIPT: METHAMPHETAMINE: FACT VS. FICTION AND LESSONS FROM THE CRACK HYSTERIA 3 I thought it was more important to do the scientific paper. There was-- there was a scientific paper that accomp-- accomp-- accompanies this report and which-- it's a critical review of the scientific literature on methamphetamine particularly as it relates to brain imagining and cognitive functioning. And I didn't think this w-- the report was as important. But I-- I'm wrong. I was wrong. The report is important because it's translated into language that-- regular people care about. Scientific-- the scientific report-- there's only 20 people who r-- read it. Whereas this report, more people will read it. So I thank you all for coming out and-- and we'll talk-- I'll talk briefly about-- my motivations, my primary motivations for writing the report and what I hope will follow as a result of the report. But before doing this I-- I have to acknowledge someone in the audience-- because I recently have gotten a lot of press surrounding drug related issues. And people are-- talking about drug issues now more like adults than I have ever seen in this country. And I have been given a lot of credit-- for some of the things. But none of these ideas that I am talking about are new. They are actually-- you know, people have been saying this before me. And I just wanna acknowledge one of the people who I read as a graduate student and still do read to get some of these ideas. Stanton Peele is in the audience. And-- this is his latest book called Recover. Here Stanton. (APPLAUSE) So I-- I just want people to understand that these ideas are not new. And I'm not the- - the person who-- invented them. People like Stanton Peele-- deserve more-- most of the credit. But back to the report. The report, the major motivation-- was kinda talking with caution about this but there had been something else that happened before our taxi ride and-- and something that happened in the United States. I participated in-- in a panel, a roundtable discussion in 2005 with some writers-- writers put together by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They did this sort of panel to help these writers better understand what the effects-- of methamphetamine were. And while participating at this panel, the panelists were-- a law enforcement official, a U.S. assistant attorney, somebody who was addicted to methamphetamine and myself. There were a number of claims made about methamphetamine that just seemed incredible to me. And this was back in 2005. And it sounds like the hysteria surrounding crack cocaine. And so I tried to remind the panelist audience-- what had happened in the mid 1980s with crack cocaine and how we made those mistakes in terms of policy. But no one was listening. And nobody really wanted the hear it because the stories that were being told about methamphetamine were just too sexy. They just made-- it was just too m-- TV was j-- it was just great television and great drama. I mean, the law-- the law enforcement official, he told a story about how a parent was so cognitively impaired she cut the head of her child off and threw it at him. You know, this is great TV. It's not reality. But it's great TV. And-- and so shows like Breaking TRANSCRIPT: METHAMPHETAMINE: FACT VS. FICTION AND LESSONS FROM THE CRACK HYSTERIA 4 Bad, those kind of shows, they grow-- they grew out of this sort of hysteria. It's great drama. But it's just simply not reality. And so what-- a way to try to help people understand what the reality is was to put together this report. And this is what we did in the report. The report basically goes through the scientific literature, the popular literature and evaluates what's real versus what's not real. So-- just-- I'll give you one-- or two quick examples. And then we'll move on. But one example in the scientific literature, for example, is that-- you see these beautiful brain images. You see somebody who is-- addicted to methamphetamine and someone who's never used drugs. And you see what area light up in the brain of the non-users and then that same area doesn't light up in the-- in the-- in-- in the region for the methamphetamine user. But then-- when-- but when you critically look at this data and this information what you find is that there is considerable overlap in terms of the-- what you see on these images. By the way, the images are not data. But when you actually look at the data you see this crit-- you see this tremendous overlap. So it would be as if I decided to just divide this room up in half and image this side of the room and image-- and also image this side of the room. We will see brain differences more than likely. We will see brain differences. But what is the meaning of those differences? The meaning of those differences have been interpreted as being pathological. But when you look at the behaviors of these people, they all behave the same except one group takes methamphetamine and the other one doesn't.
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