Dear Readers,
Today on the podcast I talk to Dale Gieringer, the longtime head of California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). Dale came in last spring to talk about what it was like to be there for some of the most important shifts in twentieth-century drug history, from the explosion of drug-taking in the 1960s, to California’s historic Prop. 215, which legalized medical marijuana, through recreational legalization in that state in 2016. Dale was there and talks about all of it. You even get to hear stories about weed in 1960s New York City, hashish smoking at Harvard, taking LSD for the first time in 1968, and much more.
As always, the podcast is available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Pocketcasts, and the Substack app.
Episode Outline
0:00-4:10: Introduction.
4:10-11:00: Cincinnati in the early ‘60s, the drug scene in high school and college, first exposure to cannabis.
11:00-14:40: Being conservative as a college student in the ‘60s, the Vietnam War, the drug turn in the ‘60s.
14:40-17:50: Teaching math in Kentucky to avoid the draft, cannabis after college.
17:50-32:20: Taking LSD for the first time, various jobs post-college, moving to California at the turn of the ‘70s, graduate school at Stanford, the Reagan drug war, writing about DEA abuses, and becoming head of California NORML at the very low point of the legalization movement.
32:20-41:45: First initiatives, pursuing decriminalization, Dennis Peron, Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, the link to the environmental movement, Herer’s hemp initiative, Herer’s influence.
41:45-50:00: The San Francisco medical marijuana initiative (Prop. P), initiatives in other cities, efforts in the state legislature, birth of Prop. 215.
50:00-59:30: Getting Prop. 215 on the ballot, coming up with $300,000 cash, getting support from Ethan Nadelmann and various big donors.
59:30-1:05:50: Perspective on the historic Prop. 215, not knowing what would happen afterward, tabulating what kind of medical patients were out there, chronic pain.
1:05:50-1:10:00: Dale’s contribution to the cannabis historiography.
1:10:00-1:25:15: The 2010 California legalization initiative, Richard Lee, Oaksterdam, Oaksterdam University, Dale Sky Jones, optimism for legalization after 2008, disagreements over the wisdom of persuing legalization in 2010.
1:25:15-1:30:40: The economics of legalizing, learning from nineteenth-century India, California regulations.
1:30:40-1:47:15: 2016 legalization, 2014 roots, the Teamsters, more economics of legalization, red tape, rescheduling, failure of decriminalization in the ‘70s, final thoughts.
1:47:15-end: Outro.
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