Bonus 2 – Audio Lesson: Listen & Read

Refer to lesson PDF for transcript with highlighted vocabulary (download here).

Pete: And the whole reason with cannabis that shits me is that we Australia followed suit with America outlawing it. And this is… It’s a really interesting story. So, obviously hemp arrived in Australia. Hemp is cannabis. Cannabis Sativa. The stuff that’s it’s the version of it that’s been bred to be grown as fibres, to be used in things like paper and rope and everything. So, there’s not much of the THC or other chemicals in it that you can smoke and get high from because it’s been selected to be good for fibre. So, the plant puts its energy into that instead of into its flowers…

Ian: Rather than its flowers.

Pete: …where the drugs are. So, they came to Australia. It went to America. A lot of their products were being made. And it’s actually a lot better than paper. It’s a lot more durable. It’s an amazing product. This was in the 1800s. In America, in the 1900s immigrants came to the US and they brought smoking cannabis, which was a recreational thing that was unique to them, using it like cigarettes, which was called “marijuana” or “marijuana” that they called it.

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: And the issue was that at this time they had the prohibition of alcohol. And so, the FBI and a guy called Harry Anslinger was going nuts, cracking down on alcohol, because you had, you know, the… What was the movement called that was very Christian and anti- the use of any kinds of drugs? So, they were very strong. The problem was that obviously the prohibition on alcohol ended and Harry Anslinger still needed an enemy.

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: And so, he decided to switch onto marijuana.

Ian: Pick on marijuana.

Pete: And the biggest… The thing that irritates me the most is that at the time he… before marijuana had sort of made itself known in the early thirties, 1930s, he said it was not a problem, no one could become addicted to it, it’s not worth worrying about. And as soon as he lost alcohol, he decided to find a new problem. And on top of that, racism was at a high in the US. So, he found that this drug is used mostly by Hispanics, mostly Mexicans, and by blacks, by African-Americans using this drug. So, he created a lot of fearmongering, saying that black people, Hispanics would lose their place in society. They would forget who they were and that they were below white people if they smoked this drug, you know. They would mingle with white women and they… He used, you know, going after jazz musicians. I think Billie Holiday was one woman who had a song about it that he went after. And yeah, just went nuts. And they brought through that law in 1937 to illegal… make it illegal to have cannabis. And then Australia followed suit the next year without batting an eyelid. Even though we had no problem here.

Ian: Yeah. For no reason. For no reason. Yeah.

Pete: Except for the film that came out that was called Reefer Madness, which suggested that people… and it’s just crazy people who smoked cannabis, teenagers… The movie shows teenagers smoking cannabis for the first time, hallucinating, raping people, and murdering people. And it’s one of those things that at the time people obviously were scared shitless of this drug that could do that. But you think about it today and it’s like, when was the last time you heard of anyone smoking cannabis and raping or murdering or even robbing someone and ending up on the news and them saying, “Yeah, the dude smoked too much, he got messed up. And so, he decided to rob a liquor store and, you know, rape someone just for good measure.”? So, it just doesn’t happen anyway. So, off my pedestal.

Ian: Yes.

Pete: But that aspect of cannabis legalisation, even if you don’t want to use it, you don’t like drugs, it’s kind of like just let other people do what they want to do in the privacy of their own homes. And tax people for it!

Ian: Yeah. And look, medically and environmentally. Yeah, it makes so much sense. But you know, that’s another story.

Pete: Well, the medical thing irritates me too, because especially in the US you see these stories coming out of children with things like epilepsy or other diseases where they have motor neurone disease or something and they’re not allowed to use medication that’s been made from cannabis or that is cannabis that is shown on video to immediately remove any of their negative symptoms. 

Ian: Yeah. And Parkinson’s. Some people suffering from Parkinson’s. Yeah, it’s crazy. 

Pete: And yet they’re prevented from using it. And so, it’s so funny watching those documentaries where you see parents talk about their children’s illnesses and how they had tried to find so many different treatments and the suffering that their children or friends or family went through and that they were very anti-drugs originally. But as soon as they saw the good that cannabis could do for these children and these people that were sick, they totally change their minds. So, it is one of those things where I think we’re going to look back and be really ashamed of what we’ve done.

Ian: Well, it’s the politicisation of fear.

Pete: Yeah.

Ian: And that’s the challenge where you… And because it’s an old story, as you say, this is the 1930s that this story bubbled up in the United States of the anti-cannabis story.

Pete: Yep.

Ian: That’s an old story now. This is generations old.

Pete: Yeah.

Ian: And so, there are people who have grown up with their grandparents telling them that cannabis is evil. And so on. And so, when you get an enculturation like that, that you believe what you’ve been told and you believe what everybody else believes and tells you, then evidence just goes out the window.

Pete: It was sort of the same thing with racism, right?

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: …back in the day where white people in America haven’t significantly changed in terms of their morphology or their physiology that would make them less racist. They just had shitty ideas at the time…

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: …because everyone had shitty ideas at the time.

Ian: That’s right!

Pete: And so, it’s just been through that education that, you know, you realise, actually, we’re all equals and everyone should be treated the same. But the other cannabis thing that irritated me about the history in America was that they used it as a way in the ‘60s and ‘70s of cracking down on50 hippies…

Ian: Yes.

Pete: …and protesters against the government’s Vietnam War specifically, right?

Ian: That’s right. I was going to mention that. That was the politicisation part of it, is that…

Pete: The drug wasn’t a problem before. 

Ian: The drug wasn’t a problem before. But now, we’ve got people we don’t like the message that they are saying…

Pete: Yep.

Ian: …and some of them are smoking marijuana. Therefore…

Pete: Here’s how we can put them in jail and shut them down.

Ian: …we can put them in jail for smoking marijuana.

Pete: Yep.

Ian: And so, it’s a… yeah, it’s that politicisation thing. And now, we have this fearmongering within politics on all sorts of issues that when there’s a general cultural belief within our society… I would guarantee you that if you went around and asked 100 random people in the street, “Do you think that marijuana is a problem drug in our society?”, 70 or 80 of those people would say “Yes.” When you presented information to them and presented an argument and evidence to them, a small number of those people will change their mind, but others will just simply say “Yes”, because that’s what they believe and you’re not going to change their mind.

Pete: Well, and… but beyond that, asking them the question kind of frames the response too.

Ian: Oh, it does! Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: As soon as you say, “do you think this drug is a problem…?”

Ian: “Do people who drive red cars drive faster?”

Pete: Yeah.

Ian: Everybody’d say, “Of course they do!”.

Pete: Yeah.

Ian: And therefore, anybody who drives a red car expects that they should be driving faster. So, it’s… Yeah, it’s bizarre. So, and, look, I’ve had this rant for a long time about people. Mostly, it’s around loose… you know, generally called “science education,”…

Pete: Yep.

Ian: …not how you study science in schools. Although, I think that’s part of our problem. As an ex-science teacher, I’m part of the problem rather than the solution. But of just teaching people to understand evidence.

Pete: Yeah. 

Ian: Of “make up your mind based on evidence. Not when you told.”

Pete: Yep. Well, and that’s much more important because you have to get over what you think is right and what you think is best. If the evidence shows that’s not the case and you’re going to have better outcomes for your nation and for people as a whole…

Ian: And potentially even yourself.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Ian: You know, vaccination61. Let’s not get there.

Pete: Exactly. Yeah, then let’s do it. But it is a tough one because you have so many of those arguments of, “It’s a gateway drug,”…

Ian: It’s not. No evidence.

Pete: Well, it’s one of those things, too. How many… There are a million people in Australia who use cannabis on a regular basis or something like, you know, an annual basis – once every year. We don’t have that number of people using cocaine or using heroin anywhere… Like, it doesn’t just… They start out and then just shoot to the worst thing that they can find.

Ian: No.

Pete: And a lot of the things that I’ve seen recently on drug addiction tends to be that the person… It doesn’t… Not anyone can just take things like heroin or cannabis or… well, you know, cannabis isn’t even worth mentioning next to heroin, but cocaine and get addicted to it. You have to have a predisposition to it, whether psychological or physiological, but also societal, where you’ve got problems in your life that you’re trying to escape…

Ian: Yes.

Pete: …that then pushes you towards that sort of stuff.

Ian: There’s… They’re behavioural addictions and there are physiological addictions and…

Pete: Yep. 

Ian: …You know, heroin is a classic example of where there is… And, you know, I’ve never taken heroin, but I’ve taken opiates medically, painkillers in hospital.

Pete: Yep.

Ian: And once you’ve taken morphine-based drug, you understand why people get hooked on heroin, as a behavioural thing, because it feels amazing. And, you know, so a lot of people have sort of, “Well, what are you talking about?”. I said, “Well, if you’ve ever had a morphine-based drug…”, people say “It’s a painkiller.” It’s not. You just don’t care.

Pete: Yep.

Ian: And you feel the pain, but you don’t care. Now, that sounds weird, but it’s true.

Pete: Yep.

Ian: And so, there’s a behavioural thing that means people will keep taking heroin, but there actually is a physiological addiction. It’s like caffeine.

Pete: Yep. Well, it’s hard for me to stop that.

Ian: This is one of the most addictive things you’ll ever do, is drinking things with caffeine or eating things with caffeine in them.

Pete: It was much easier for me to stop drinking alcohol…

Ian: Whereas marijuana is not physically addictive. 

Pete: Yeah. It’s much easier for me to stop drinking alcohol than to stop drinking coffee.

Ian: Yep. Yes, exactly.

Pete: But the weird thing too, is that if heroin… ‘cause I’m someone who believes that drugs should be just legalised, controlled, and that if… obviously managed, you don’t just say, “Have at it!“…

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: …because you don’t want them sold next to primary schools and stuff like that. But I think that if you want those things, you as a citizen of society, if you’re going to do it anyway and you’re going to buy it from some shady dude who’s doing it illegally, at least if you do it legally, society gets the money and you get the product that is safe to use and hopefully information on how to use it. But also, if it were to be that heroin was legalised tomorrow, that stuff scares the shit out of me. If it was available at Woolies or Coles…

Ian: Yes.

Pete: I’m not going to buy it.

Ian: No.

Pete: So, it’s not that if it’s suddenly legal. I would… everyone in the world is just going to stop working and go and buy heroin from Coles or Woollies. You know, I would imagine that if you asked 99 people… 100 people out on the street, 99 of them would say, “No way. I’m not touching that. Even if someone gave it to me for free and it was legal,”…

Ian: Yeah.

Pete: …because they know better, right? It’s the same reason that I don’t drink two bottles of vodka.

Ian: Yeah, exactly.

Pete: It’s like, I’m just not looking forward to the results of that. Anyway, so we talked about that a bit.

Ian: We did. Over-talked about that one.