cannabisnews.com: Partial Transcripts From Politically Incorrect 





Partial Transcripts From Politically Incorrect 
Posted by FoM on April 07, 2000 at 09:57:21 PT
Show Date: April 5, 2000
Source: Politically Incorrect
Carroll: America is a great country for punishing people.We love to punish people.Carroll: We love capital punishment.We love hard punishments.We love to punish the unrighteous.We are the righteous, we punish the unrighteous.
Bill: Okay.You mentioned as we were going away that we love to punish people, and let me give you a few statistics to back that up.Since 1985, the jail and prison population in this country has increased 130%.We have now over 2 million people in jail --"a higher percentage than any country except Russia.And of course, a lot of that is drug offenders.A lot of that is nonviolent drug offenders.Marijuana counts for more federal drug offenses than any other substance.I know this is personal for you, because you had a tragedy in your life, and I respect that.But a lot of the reason people say we need to do this, we need to be so harsh on drug offenders, is to protect our children.But it turns out that protecting our children involves jailing innocent people.And I just wonder what we can do to accomplish both.Christopher: How do you define innocent?Bill: Well, I think people who have just been thrown into jail.And I have a friend right now who's in jail for smoking pot.I think that's an innocent person who is rotting in jail, and I think that is a tragedy.Rick: Taking the focus away from that which is the most serious, they say justice is blind.But the courts shouldn't be when it comes it marijuana especially.And again, I know the situation.I've studied it a lot with your son.It was a tragedy.And there are tragedies happening like that every single day.People with a bag of pot, smoking a joint before they go to bed do not belong in prison.Drug dealers, especially when --"Bill: You don't have to smoke a whole bag -- I just wanted to point that out -- before you go to bed.Rick: Drug dealers belong in jail.Drug dealers belong in jail, not the revolving door, and that's what we have in this country.Why is it your friend -- I have a friend, too -- is gonna spend his whole term, the drug dealers -- for whatever reason --"it's a revolving door, they're back out before the paperwork is done.Christopher: But it's a case-by-case basis, too.You have to be -- some people --"I'm not good at it.I fell into a bonfire when I was 17 -- I'm not good at drugs, I'm not good at alcohol, so I stopped.Now, if I took drugs and were put in jail for taking drugs, hurting myself, you're right, I think that's wrong.If I take drugs and I kill a kid or I wreck something --"Tracey: That's a separate crime.But they're being put into prison for drugs for -- specifically marijuana, which, I think is the lesser of the drugs.I mean -- it's the most --"Bill: But the rationale is that it's a gateway drug.The rationale is that we have to --"Tracey: I don't think so.Christopher: What is alcohol?[ All talking at once ]Tracey: Yeah.Alcohol leads to --"Bill: I saw Eric Clapton on "60 Minutes" the other night say that sugar was his gateway.He said, "When I was 5 years old, I couldn't get enough sugar in my system."Tracey: How many people a year die of lung cancer of from cigarettes?But yet they are legal, we smoke them.Bill: And that's their choice.It's not the government's job to keep you from --"Rick: That's a behavioral -- yeah, it's not the government's job to tell me what to eat, when to eat it, what to smoke, what to drink --"that's none of their business, and the more of us that keep silent about that, the more control they will take.Drugs, for the sake of drugs, people shouldn't be spending hard time in penitentiaries for smoking marijuana.They should -- a gateway drug.What does that mean?That means that somebody didn't have the character to say, "Hey, this is bad for me, so I'm going to stop."Tracey: And the thing is, if you send somebody to jail for doing drugs, they are going to go there and get more drugs.There's no sense of reform.If you really think somebody has a problem, the last thing you should do is put them in jail.I mean, that's the place that they are going to just sink even lower.We're not helping anybody, we're just making ourselves feel better.You know?Rick: We are warehousing people.Again, if you are a user, you're a user.If you are a dealer, your butt belongs in jail -- period, end of story.But that's not the way it works.Carroll: What should we do, nothing at all?Just let drugs happen?Even legalize them?Let anybody do whatever he wants to?Rick: No, sir.We don't need to legalize drugs.Carroll: Let cocaine come in here, let everybody snuff cocaine, shoot heroin.It is a gateway drug, not only that, it's a bad drug in itself.It's twice as conducive to cancer as tobacco.Bill: But shouldn't that be the individual's choice?Carroll: Well, if -- listen, a lot of things that we do not allow the individual to do in a democracy, freedom doesn't mean that you are allowed to do anything you want to do.But if we want to do that, we should vote for it, then.Bill: Shouldn't we be allowed?Carroll: I'm not going to have to live in this world, you people -- I'm not going to have to live in this world much longer.And I don't have to live to see the terrible results.Just forget about it, do nothing.Bill: Come on.Isn't there something between robbing a lot of people -- there are 400,000 of these people in jail.Now, come on, if that was a disease, we would not tolerate it.Why should these people --"Carroll: It is a disease.Addiction is a disease.Bill: But these people weren't addicted.Carroll: It's a killing disease.And we have to go after it just as we go after other diseases.The reason we are going after it because it's a disease.Christopher: They were addicted enough to get caught and to not --"Bill: Caught?Caught at what?Christopher: Look, if you know it's illegal -- if you know it's illegal --"the law is -- yes, the law is the law.If you are not --"Bill: But maybe the law is wrong.Christopher: Does marijuana affect your judgment?Does it affect your judgment?[ All talking at once ]Tracey: Does alcohol affect your judgment?Of course it does.Rick: You said it yourself, people think it's a disease.We think gun violence is a disease.It is not a disease.Christopher: It's not a disorder, it is a choice.Rick: It is a choice, to be handled in some way or the other.Carroll: You mean alcohol and drugs is a choice?Rick: Yeah.Tracey: I don't think anybody chooses to become an addict.Rick: I have never --"Christopher: Wait a second.Rick: I have never met an addict --"[ All talking at once ]Bill: Wait a second --"not everybody who uses these substances is an addict!Tracey: Absolutely.You are right.Bill: I'm so tired of everybody lumping everybody in with the people who do it the worst possible way.That's not always how it happens.Rick: The professionals will tell you no junkie will clean up until they hit the bottom and they say, "Okay, I'm going to get clean" --"Tracey: But that junkie can't do it on his own, either.Rick: "I'm gonna get clean or die," and you know what, some of those people are going to die anyway.That's not fair.That's life.Tracey: The thing is, I don't think -- I think that if you do heroin, I don't think you can do it recreationally.I don't think it's like -- I think that it's -- what I've heard about it, you become addicted.It is an addictive drug.You know?Rick: Mr. O'Connor, what you are saying is, "How do we help people save them from themselves," and respectfully, I don't know that you can save people from themselves.Carroll: Well, I was at the University of San Francisco a couple of years ago, and they have a drug program up there, and I was amazed to see how heroin and marijuana and cocaine change the brain cells.They change the brain cells.They change your personality.They make you an addict.At what point you become an addict, I guess depends on your own constitution.Some people -- as we know are -- tend towards being addictive.Addictive personalities and so forth.Rick: Right.Carroll: If you use these things frequently enough, because they make you feel good and they do work, they do work, they do make you feel good, you get -- you don't know it, but your brain cells are changing.You can see it in the charts they show, you can see it in the pictures.And once those brain cells change, you change.You change.One of the things that happens to you right away is that you lose conscience.Conscience.You lose love -- love doesn't mean anything.Christopher: Alcohol does the same thing.Carroll: It means you can't appeal to an addict on the basis of love or conscience.[ All talking at once ]Bill: I apologize.I have to take a break here.This is television.---"Announcer: Join us tomorrow, when our guests will be --"From "Movie Stars," Harry Hamlin, entertainer Tommy Smothers, from the "Norm" show, Ian Gomez and political commentator Tasia Scolinos.Bill: All right.We're talking about the drug war, and a couple days ago, Congress voted almost $2 billion to send money to Colombia -- where a lot of the drugs come from -- to fight this war, to buy helicopters and guns for these guerrilla -- to fight these guerrilla armies, and a lot of people say this is basically Vietnam in Spanish.Rick: I'm sure they have made some drug cartel, very, very happy.Christopher: Actually, Vietnam got started over a dime bag of home-grown shake.So this could happen again.[ Laughter ]Carroll: How many helicopters does $2 billion buy, about four?Christopher: A lot.See, the drug war --"Carroll: I don't think that's gonna help a whole lot.Christopher: But its's not about --"Pastrana -- when Pastrana asked for the aid, he asked for 55% military, 45% economic.And the general -- he actually said, "No, no, we'll give you 92% military and 8% economic, so basically -- they have a per capita income in that country of $2,500 a year.You've got the guerrillas on one side killing people and you got the government killing other people.The people in the middle are the normal people who don't know what to do.Bill: Almost the same as in Vietnam.Christopher: And I gotta tell you, if I'm making $2,500 a year, I'm going to be wearing a Medellin cartel paper hat, and I'm trainee janitor sweeping up over there.Bill: Under George Bush --"Carroll: Makes sense.Bill: They tried to convince the coca farmers to replace their lucrative coca crop with -- I'm not kidding -- bananas and chrysanthemums.[ Laughter ]Rick: Sounds like something we would suggest.Bill: Try to get a stripper back up to your room with a banana and a chrysanthemum, let me tell you, it is slow going, ladies and gentlemen.Rick: The only reason they thought that would work is because they've been raping us through the tax code all these years.They thought maybe, just maybe it might work.That's nuts.That's crazy.Giving money to Colombia to fight the drug war, that -- why don't we just go to Palermo and say, "Here's $1 million, wipe out the Mafia."Christopher: But we're not giving them money.We're not giving them money, you know what we're doing?We're giving them military equipment.And why is that?Because it keeps Boeing and McDonell Douglas in business.Bill: That's right.Christopher: And the people who work at those companies can go buy ski boats at the end of the season --"Bill: That's right.Christopher: And have a little extra money in their pockets to afford some blow to party.Rick: They go buy the Colombian stuff, exactly.Christopher: That's it.Bill: Smart guy.We have to take a break.We'll be right back.Carroll: Take the rattle of the cynic over here.[ Laughter ][ Cheers and applause ]---"[ Cheers and applause ]Bill: All right.We are in the studio where you filmed "All In The Family."That makes me feel so good.The Program Aired On April 5, 2000Guests On This Program Were: Christopher TitusTracey GoldCarroll O'ConnorRick Roberts 
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Comment #8 posted by Doc-Hawk on April 07, 2000 at 18:48:31 PT:
Different review of "The Truth Hurts"
But first this comment soncerning something said in the previous review:>There are no easy answers, but there's something to be said for a program that hasn't been orchestrated to play to advertisersYeah right! It is perfectly ochestrated to play for one of the biggest advertizers of all, that kind McCzar at ONDCP.Now back to the other review:"Teen Files: The Truth About Drugs"by Kevin McDonoughLeeza Gibbons hosts "Teen Files: The Truth About Drugs" (9 p.m., UPN, TV-14), the latest in a series of "scared straight" type documentaries. Four teens with casual attitudes toward drugs, raves and partying are shown the horrifying results of drug use gone bad, including prison, brain damage, homelessness and sudden death. In one gruesome scene we are shown the bloody organs taken from the body of a kid who died by inhaling or "huffing" a non-stick cooking spray. His lungs were coated with grease. Like many anti-drug films dating back to the 1940s, "Teen Files" undercuts its good intentions by going way, way over the top. A perceptive history of five decades of anti-drug efforts, driver-education movies, and other "social guidance" classroom films can be found in the new book "Mental Hygiene," by Ken Smith, available from Blast Books.(Sounds like one an "observer" would love.)
Mental Hygiene
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on April 07, 2000 at 16:39:48 PT
L.A.P.D. Blues with Geraldo Rivera 9 PM ET! NBC
I forgot to put the time in the previous post so here it is!
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on April 07, 2000 at 16:36:17 PT
Here's some information
Hi Everyone!Politcally Incorrect, on my satellite which is Direct TV, is on Monday thru Friday right after Nightline with Ted Koppel on the ABC Network. I have found tv programs with some links on GIST http://www.gist.com/tv/ but it was a while ago. Here's TV Guide which might be easier.http://www.tvguide.com/tv/One more thing. Tonight it appears that Geraldo Rivera is having a Special and it is called: L.A.P.D. Blues. It is on my tv at (pm et)This is on also but I don't know what UPN stands for.By William John EcklundTHE TRUTH HURTSTeen Files: The Truth About Drugs (9 pm/ET, UPN)In a time when much of what we refer to as "reality TV" is calculated and conjured up by gritty language, cheap film stock and shaky cameras, it's hard to imagine the reaction of TV audiences in 1979 when Emmy-winning producer Arnold Shapiro released his landmark documentary Scared Straight!Shapiro's recent Teen Files specials, in which teens who are headed for danger confront those who have been there and paid an awful price, echo the harrowing journey of Scared Straight's youthful offenders. Twenty years ago, those youths tried to face down hardened criminals at a maximum-security prison. In tonight's Teen Files, hosted by Leeza Gibbons, at-risk teens from Washington state and California take a nightmare trip through hospitals and down skid row to face the reality of a life on drugs.It isn't giving anything away to reveal the truth of drugs as presented in the program: They slowly destroy every organ in the body and eventually kill the user. If you don't believe it, watch a coroner show a group of cocky California teens the battered brain, heart and lungs of a victim who overdosed — by inhaling cooking spray. This message is repeated from beginning to end and it is Teen Files's greatest strength. Shapiro finds one message and hammers it home... with coffin nails. He doesn't analyze why or how, or present the many faces of drug abuse. Instead, he focuses all of his efforts on its one conclusion.Some viewers will be nauseated; others may find themselves overcome by emotion. In one scene, a father breaks down as he recalls the day his 13-year-old son died from huffing an air freshener. In another, teens travel to a pediatric interim-care center and hold trembling infants born with addictions. Many scenes are uncomfortable due to the awkward reactions of these kids, who are often aware of the cameras facing them as they hug a fellow teen or reach out to a grieving parent. Seeing this self-consciousness captured on MTV's The Real World is a guilty pleasure, but here it is painful to watch.So why watch, and who will watch? There are no easy answers, but there's something to be said for a program that hasn't been orchestrated to play to advertisers or the audience, and simply presents itself with the hope that maybe the lives of some will change because they tuned in.[Chat with Teen Files executive producer Arnold Shapiro tonight, 7 pm/ET.]http://www.tvguide.com/live/
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Comment #5 posted by dddd on April 07, 2000 at 16:12:41 PT
Time
Down here in Orange County,CA..,PI is on channel 7,at 12:05 AM.....dddd
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Comment #4 posted by fivepounder on April 07, 2000 at 14:27:28 PT
Time Pi is on
I just found Politicallty Incorrect myself. Here in North Cal its on ABC m-fr at 12:05 AM
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Comment #3 posted by Dankhank on April 07, 2000 at 14:06:50 PT:
What ?
What network is PI still on every night?I try and usually fail to see him on Mon. night what is that ...CBS? no ... ABC?anyhow ........ I temd to agree with FOM regarding Bill M.This sounds like a good show ........
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on April 07, 2000 at 13:52:58 PT
You're Welcome! dddd
I watch PI almost everynight and I was lucky enough to see it this night. Transcripts don't show emotion and there was alot of it there. Mr.O'Connor was deep in thought and the others were very respectful of his loss but they spoke their minds and it was great. The show was over too fast. This topic is one that can go on and on without getting people bored. I don't agree with all of Bill Maher's beliefs but I am with him on the way he feels about the drug war.Peace, FoM!
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Comment #1 posted by dddd on April 07, 2000 at 11:20:01 PT
Thank You
 I watch Politically Incorrect every night.I had to work late this nite,and I really appreciate you posting this.....Thanx......dddd
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