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No, we're just 49 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:03.920 necessary foid. 50 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:16.680 You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking 51 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:19.800 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 52 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:27.439 written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week, 53 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:31.439 another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous 54 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:35.479 killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 55 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:52.759 journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good evening, Good evening, Hi Dan, 56 00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:53.479 how are you doing? 57 00:02:54.560 --> 00:03:02.120 Good evening, Johanna. Thank you for agreeing to this interview, 58 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:04.000 to this interview now, thank you for doing it. 59 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:07.520 I really appreciate that. Would it be better to have 60 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:08.960 spoken on headphones? 61 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:12.240 I think you should. Maybe you have speakers on. We're 62 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.879 having an echo here, an echo here. 63 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:16.919 I'll hang on. Let me see if I hang on 64 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:19.159 a second, if I my headphones on it MN stop. 65 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:25.159 How about now? 66 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:26.120 Have you got that postill? 67 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:27.800 That sounds great? 68 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:28.479 Uh? 69 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:31.319 Let me just do the introduction and we normally do. 70 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.039 I want to just mention that this episode of True 71 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:37.599 Murder is brought to you by squarespace, and Squarespace is 72 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:41.159 the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or 73 00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:44.879 online store for you and your ideas. Square Space features 74 00:03:44.919 --> 00:03:49.439 an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and an incredible twenty four 75 00:03:49.479 --> 00:03:54.719 to seven customer support. Try Squarespace at squarespace dot com 76 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:58.000 and enter offer code true Murder at checkout to get 77 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:01.800 ten percent off your first purchase. Waespase build it beautiful. 78 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.159 Thank you agree to this interview, Johann, Thank you very much. 79 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:10.960 I just want to do the synopsis of the book 80 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.400 as we normally I normally do. 81 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:18.480 Sure. Let me just America who can say my name 82 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:19.439 correctly as well? 83 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:23.480 Okay, Johan, it's Johann Hari. 84 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:26.639 Yeah, you're a very rare perston who gets it right 85 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:27.199 first time. 86 00:04:28.199 --> 00:04:31.759 Oh, thank you. Let me just introduce this incredible book. 87 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.240 It is now one hundred years since drugs were first 88 00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:38.920 banned in the United States. On the eve of this centenary, 89 00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:42.759 journalist Johann Hari sot Off on an epic three year, 90 00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:46.279 thirty thousand mile journey into the War on drugs. What 91 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:48.279 he found is that more and more people all over 92 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:52.399 the world have begun to recognize three startling truths. Drugs 93 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:54.759 are not what we think they are. Addiction, is not 94 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.079 what we think it is, and the drug war has 95 00:04:57.240 --> 00:04:59.720 very different motives to the ones we have seen on 96 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:03.920 our t television screens for so long. In Chasing the Scream, 97 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:07.439 Harry reveals his discoveries entirely through the stories of people 98 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:11.600 across the world whose lives have been transformed by this war. 99 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:15.639 They range from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn searching 100 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:18.360 for her mother, to a teenage hit man in Mexico 101 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:21.600 searching for a way out. It begins with Hari's discovered 102 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:24.240 that at the birth of the drug war, Billie Holiday 103 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:27.560 was stalked and killed by the man who launched this crusade, 104 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:31.360 and ends with the story of a brave doctor who 105 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:34.360 has led his country to decriminalize every drug, from cannabis 106 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:38.279 to crack with remarkable results. Chasing the Scream lays bare 107 00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:40.560 what we really have been chasing in our century of 108 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:43.680 drug war, in our hunger for drugs and in our 109 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:46.879 attempt to destroy them. This book will challenge and change 110 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:49.680 how you think about one of the most controversial and 111 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:53.360 consequential questions of our time. The book that we're featuring 112 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:55.800 this evening is Chasing the Scream. The first and last 113 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:58.879 days of the War on Drugs with my special guest 114 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.680 journalist and author Johann Hari. Thank you for agreeing to 115 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:07.040 this interview, and let's get right into this incredible book. 116 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:09.160 Great, thank you. 117 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.720 Now, Johanna. In two thousand and two, you announced on 118 00:06:14.759 --> 00:06:16.800 your website that you were going to write your very 119 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:20.199 first book about the War on drugs. Please tell us 120 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:24.519 a little bit about your professional journalism background, and because 121 00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:26.600 I do know that this was not the first time 122 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:30.759 that you wrote about the War on drugs in your journalism, 123 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:34.000 so tell us about your professional background before that so 124 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:37.319 that we can have an adequate background as to how 125 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:39.800 you came to this to write this incredible book. 126 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:42.120 Well, it was twenty twelve I put it in, not 127 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:44.920 two thousand and two. But it's really interesting because I mean, 128 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.519 sorry enough, for many years I've been a newspaper columnist, 129 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:51.480 and I'd written about the War on drugs, and I'd 130 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:53.519 written about it in what I think of as quite 131 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:56.120 a polemical way. I would argue about why we should 132 00:06:56.199 --> 00:06:59.480 change the policy we had. And I wasn't really interested 133 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.560 in writing a book like that for lots of reasons. Really, 134 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:05.959 one of my earliest memories is of trying to wake 135 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:07.920 up one of my relatives and not being able to 136 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.319 and as I got older, realizing we had addiction in 137 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:15.480 my family, and then other relatives becoming quite serious addicts. 138 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:19.160 And I guess when I realized the centenary was coming up, 139 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:21.199 as you said, from reading the instruction, I just realized 140 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:25.040 there was so many basic questions I didn't understand about 141 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:28.399 this question, like why were drugs banned in the first place, 142 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.240 Why do we continue with this strategy of punishing drug 143 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:34.720 users and addicts, What do the alternatives really look like? 144 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.759 And what really causes drug use and drug addiction? And 145 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:40.279 I kind of was realizing that in a way, I 146 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:41.959 didn't think I was going to get the answers to 147 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.040 those questions by arguing with people, by looking for arguments. 148 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:47.600 What I wanted to do was go and sit with 149 00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:50.240 people whose lives have been changed by this approach one 150 00:07:50.279 --> 00:07:53.439 way or another, and a kind of crazy mixture of people. 151 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:55.199 It turned out to be over the kind of three 152 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:56.959 and a half years I was doing the research and 153 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.040 writing the book, and I kind of felt like I 154 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.519 was going to find the answers not by arguing, but 155 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:06.000 by sitting with people and listening to them and going 156 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.120 back to them again and again, and just trying to 157 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:11.240 see the effects in the real world, not as if 158 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:13.680 we're liking some kind of philosophy seminar, but in the 159 00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:15.040 real world. And I think part of the problem with 160 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:17.680 this whole question is so many of the people involved 161 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.279 in this have been totally dehumanized, you know, whether it's 162 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:25.399 drug users, drug dealers, cops. You mentioned that the guy 163 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:27.279 I interviewed who was the only person to ever be 164 00:08:27.319 --> 00:08:29.959 at the heart of the deadliest Mexican drug cartel and 165 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:32.440 get out and live to tell his story, albeit he 166 00:08:32.519 --> 00:08:36.000 lives in a very terrible way. And I kind of 167 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:37.840 guess I just wanted to listen to those people and 168 00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:40.799 tell their stories, their human stories, in the hope that 169 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:44.559 the best way to deal with dehumanization is to rehumanize people, 170 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:46.360 and the way you rehumanize people is just to tell 171 00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:48.240 what their lives are like. And I kind of felt 172 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:51.480 like if most people I knew could have met Gino, 173 00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:54.600 the incredible transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn, that I got 174 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:57.519 to know the three as former pract dealer, for example, 175 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:01.440 or one of the extraordinary former street attic time that 176 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.279 has started a revolution in Vancouver that completely transformed the city. 177 00:09:04.519 --> 00:09:06.799 I felt like they wouldn't be able to think about 178 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:09.039 the drug war in the same way. 179 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:14.159 Now, before we introduce this fascinating cast of characters that 180 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:21.000 really clearly demonstrate this story that unfolds in this Chasing 181 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:25.519 the Scream, Let's talk about the state of legalization of 182 00:09:25.559 --> 00:09:29.240 drugs in the world prior to nineteen fourteen, and tell 183 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:32.919 us about the Harrison Act and how we are going 184 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.399 to enter into the one hundred year century of this 185 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:40.720 drug war. Tell us about that initiative to criminalize all drugs. 186 00:09:41.399 --> 00:09:44.000 It's really interesting this, right, it's hard to think about. 187 00:09:44.279 --> 00:09:47.399 Drugs were legal for almost all of human history, right, 188 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:50.600 So nineteen thirteen, if you're an American, you could go 189 00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:53.279 to a local store and you could buy opiates, you 190 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:56.440 could buy cocaine based products. And the way I tell 191 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:59.399 the story of how that changed is really through stories 192 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:01.919 of two people. One there was a doctor in California 193 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.440 called Henry Smith Williams who was nobody's idea of a liberal, 194 00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:10.440 but he treated addicts both before drugs were banned and 195 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:13.960 then after. He was not very sympathetic to addicts. It 196 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:17.120 wasn't a particularly nice man actually to start it, but 197 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:20.320 he noticed something that really struck him. When drugs were legal, 198 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:23.399 he had patients who had addiction problems. They were a 199 00:10:23.399 --> 00:10:27.200 bit like alcoholics today. Their lives were diminished, but most 200 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:30.000 of them had jobs, most of them had lives. Most 201 00:10:30.039 --> 00:10:33.240 of them there were not significant numbers of people dying 202 00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:36.519 of overdoses. Then drugs were banned for reasons I got 203 00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:38.080 back to in a minute, which had nothing to do 204 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:41.480 with protecting the addicts. And what he noticed is suddenly 205 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:45.279 all sorts of problems got dramatically worse. When you bann 206 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:49.519 drugs that don't disappear. They're transferred from doctors and pharmacists 207 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:52.720 to armed criminal gangs. Those armed criminal gangs will fight 208 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:55.519 to control the patch, but more harmfully, even more harmfully 209 00:10:55.559 --> 00:10:58.840 for the addicts themselves. They massively increased the price. They 210 00:10:58.919 --> 00:11:01.840 jacked it up by a foul percent, and that meant 211 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:03.480 that the addicts who'd previously been able to go to 212 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:05.440 the local corner store to get there, to get their 213 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:08.159 drugs at the local dime store, had to suddenly pay 214 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:11.159 this massively inflated price. A lot of the women became prostitutes, 215 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.440 a lot of the men started committeeing property crime. Also, 216 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:18.120 the drugs started to be massively adulterated because criminals you 217 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:20.039 can't set help and say they inspectors in to check 218 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.000 criminals smuggling, smuggling things across the country. So you saw 219 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.399 a massive increase in death among addicts. And Harry Smith 220 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:30.559 Williams was really struck. The doctor in California was really 221 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:33.320 struck by this. He actually started to campaign against the 222 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:35.879 drug warm. We forget that this was a massively contested 223 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.240 thing when it came in. It's not that the drugs 224 00:11:38.279 --> 00:11:41.279 were banned easily. There was a massive protest all over 225 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:44.840 the United States. Twenty thousand doctors had to be rounded 226 00:11:44.919 --> 00:11:48.360 up and arrested in charge because they insisted on carry 227 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:50.919 on trying on giving drugs to addicts, because they could 228 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:54.000 see what a disaster the drug war was. That the 229 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:56.519 mayor of Los Angeles stands in front of the heroin 230 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.360 prescribing clinic and says, you will not shut this down. 231 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.759 In he was a popularly elected mayor. So this is 232 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:05.159 a massively contested film, and which makes you think, well, 233 00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:07.480 why we're drugs banned? Then if it caused such a disaster, 234 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:09.879 why were they ban And what's fascinating is is completely 235 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:11.480 not for the reasons we think of if you'd said 236 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:13.159 to me four years ago, why we're drugs banned? I 237 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:16.159 would have guessed, well, people would give them the reasons 238 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:18.279 that most people would give now. We don't want people 239 00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:20.519 to become addicted, we don't want kids to use drugs. 240 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:23.159 That kind of thing that barely comes up in a debate. 241 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:27.960 The debate is overwhelmingly as they saw it, African Americans 242 00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:32.080 and Chinese Americans were forgetting their place, using drugs and 243 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:36.399 attacking white people. It was a massive race panic. There 244 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:40.240 was a belief that African Americans were using cocaine and 245 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:42.679 attacking white people all over the South. It is, in 246 00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:45.960 fact the reason given why many sheriffs increase the caliber 247 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.720 of the bullets they used is one person said in 248 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:52.399 an official statement, the cocaine N word sure is hard 249 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:55.080 to kill. This seems really odd the way I tell 250 00:12:55.159 --> 00:12:57.000 it this is really hard for me to get to 251 00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:59.080 understand it. So the way I tell it in the 252 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:01.799 book is through the story Billy Holliday and how she 253 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.960 was stalked and basically helped to be killed by the 254 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:08.000 guy who launched the drug war, Harry Anslinger. Yeah, in 255 00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:11.399 nineteen thirty nine, Billy Holliday stands on stage in New 256 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:14.960 York City, and she sings the song Strange Fruit, which 257 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.120 your readers will know, your listeners will know, is a 258 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:19.879 song against lynching. And you got to understand how God 259 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.159 daughter Lorraine Father explained to me. You've got to understand 260 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:24.679 how shocking that was. Right, Billy Holliday wasn't allowed to 261 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:26.440 walk through the front door of that hotel show, to 262 00:13:26.440 --> 00:13:28.879 go through the service elevator. She was African American. To 263 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:30.960 stand in front of a white audience at a time 264 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.519 when most songs were like tweet things like PS I 265 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:37.840 Love you, and to sing a song about lynching was 266 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:42.000 viscerally shocking. And that night, according to Billy's biographer and 267 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:45.320 Julia Blackburn, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics says to her 268 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:49.279 stop singing this song. The man running at Harry Anslinger, 269 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:51.720 I think is the most influential person that no one's 270 00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:54.200 ever heard of. He basically invented the modern drug war. 271 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:57.120 He took over the Department of Olcohol Prohibition just as 272 00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:59.639 ourcohol prohibition is ending, and he needed to find a 273 00:13:59.679 --> 00:14:03.320 new cars and picks drugs. And he was driven by 274 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:06.879 two really intense things hatreds. One was of addicts in 275 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:09.840 the other words of African Americans, and Billy Holiday to 276 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:12.720 him with like the symbol of everything that had gone wrong. 277 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:14.840 And Billy Holliday because she had grown up at Baltimore 278 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:17.440 when it was a divided sixty segregated the city, and 279 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:19.159 she had allowed into a lot of stores when she 280 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.840 was a little girl. She had promised herself when she 281 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:23.480 was a little girl, she was never going to bow 282 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:27.720 her head to any white man. And she basically said, screwzy, 283 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:29.919 I'm going to sing my song. And that's when the 284 00:14:29.960 --> 00:14:32.720 stalking of her that leads to her death begins. 285 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:36.759 Now you talk about you introduce Harry Anslinger, and you 286 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:40.960 call Harry Anslinger part of this three characters of drug prohibition. 287 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:43.759 If it was a Mount rushmore'd be Harry Anslinger. And 288 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:47.480 we'll get to Arnold Rothstein and also Billie Holiday. So 289 00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:50.960 the title of your book is Chasing the Scream. It's 290 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:54.639 very interesting. Tell us about Harry Anslinger in his first 291 00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:58.799 hatred and fear of addiction. So tell us where this 292 00:14:58.840 --> 00:15:01.639 title of this book was derived from and that earliest 293 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:06.279 compulsion that was born in Harry Anslinger. 294 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.799 Yeah, that's fascinating. When Harry Anslinger was a little boy, 295 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:11.639 when he was looked like he was ten or eleven. 296 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:14.240 He's grown up in a town called Altoona, a kind 297 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:18.039 of rural parent in Pennsylvania. And near where he lived 298 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:21.519 there was a farmer and his wife, and the farmer's 299 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:26.960 wife had an opiate addiction. And one day Harry Anslinger 300 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:31.039 goes to this house and the farmer says, the farmer's 301 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:34.799 wife is screaming. And the farmer says, go to the store. Goes, 302 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:36.639 take our horse and cart, go to the store, goes 303 00:15:36.679 --> 00:15:38.879 fast as he can buy the opiates, bring them back 304 00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:42.480 to us. So Harry Anslinger speeds there. He gets there 305 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:46.039 as quick as he can. He comes back, he gives 306 00:15:46.039 --> 00:15:49.240 the woman the opiates, and the woman calms down and 307 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:52.360 she stops screaming. And Harry Anslinger all his life was 308 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:55.559 haunted by this memory, and really haunted by his memory 309 00:15:55.559 --> 00:16:00.240 of that scream. And you know, the tragedy for me 310 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:02.320 is in his belief that he was stopping those screams, 311 00:16:02.320 --> 00:16:05.679 he was actually creating an extraordinarily large number of screams instead. 312 00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:08.200 The other fascinating thing is another thing that Harry Anslinger 313 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:10.399 learned where he was a boy, where he was fritishly prescient, 314 00:16:10.519 --> 00:16:13.279 actually is he worked on the railroads as a young man. 315 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:14.960 He was quite impressive in some ways, and it's from 316 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.960 a pretty poor background. He insisted on working on the 317 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:21.759 railroads and go to school every morning. He and rose 318 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:26.240 up and he worked with Italian railroad workers and knew 319 00:16:26.279 --> 00:16:28.919 that they were terrified at something called the Mafia. And 320 00:16:28.919 --> 00:16:31.039 this is hard to remember now that the Mafia was 321 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:35.399 regarded as a deranged conspiracy theory. Like jae Goehoov denied 322 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:38.000 his whole life that the Mafia even existed, it would 323 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:39.840 be regarded the way we would regard like a kind 324 00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:42.799 of a truth or a Bertha or something. And Ansinger 325 00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:46.559 absolutely assisted on the reality of the mafia. And he 326 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:48.799 was one of the first major American lawyenforce of people 327 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:50.960 to really prove that the Marfia existed. Now, the great 328 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:52.919 tragedy of Harry Ansinger as he believes he's at war 329 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.919 with the mafia, actually he transferred this whole mess of 330 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:58.480 industry to them. He gave the mafia the biggest boast 331 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:00.879 they've ever had in America to roll. The drug trade 332 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:04.680 is incredibly lucrative trade. So there's a kind of irony 333 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:06.640 in that. I mean, Henry Smith Williams, the doctor who 334 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:09.920 he destroyed, saw how much the mafia benefits from it, 335 00:17:09.960 --> 00:17:11.920 and he assumed that Harry Ownslinger must be in the 336 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:14.680 pay of the mafia because the mafia were doing so 337 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:17.920 well out of of Anslinger's policies. Actually, that was that 338 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:20.680 was wrong, and you can understand why hers Smiths and 339 00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:21.319 Llans brought that. 340 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.359 Now. It's also when I talked about his first hatred 341 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:29.799 in his first fear, and you talked to what you 342 00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:33.160 touched on really what people think the War on drugs 343 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:36.039 really was stemmed from. But really, when we talk about 344 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:40.519 Harry and his and his racism towards Mexicans and blacks, 345 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.720 tell us about how he the catalyst the story that 346 00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:48.400 really helped him sell this war on drugs involving Mexicano. 347 00:17:48.440 --> 00:17:50.640 There were lots of stories. I mean one, so he 348 00:17:50.759 --> 00:17:55.279 had initially said that tannabis was not harmful, not addictive, 349 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:59.200 he wasn't bothered about it, but protaine and heroin were 350 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:01.599 really very much here in the United States at the time, 351 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:05.400 so it's kind of hard to sustain a massive government 352 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:09.200 department around this. Harry Anslinger suddenly announces that marijuana is 353 00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:14.240 worse than heroin. People may have seen the movie refer Madness, 354 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:16.119 the kind of which is now regarded as like a 355 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.039 comedy film. That's that's that's based on Ansling as propaganda. 356 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:21.680 He was a big fan of that, and he latched 357 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:24.480 into this case of a boy in Florida called Victor Lacater, 358 00:18:25.079 --> 00:18:29.279 which was a massive story at the time, huge, one 359 00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:31.559 of the biggest stories in America. Basically, Victor Lacarter was 360 00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.079 a young man in his early twenties, I believe who 361 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:40.079 hacked his family to death with an axe and an finger. Announces, right, 362 00:18:40.599 --> 00:18:42.799 this is the result of him having smoke marijuana. We 363 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.720 need to ban marijuana, We need to press on. And 364 00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:48.079 the Hirst Newspapers, which is the kind of Fox News 365 00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:51.839 of its day, massively runs with this story. Years later, 366 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:54.079 as I explaining the point, someone goes back and actually 367 00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:57.200 looks at this guy's psychiatric fast bit to look, there's 368 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:00.200 no evidence he even use marijuana. He had congener troll 369 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:02.319 insanity in his family. His family had actually been told 370 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.759 to put him in a secure unit years before, and 371 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.160 they insisted on keeping him my home. But the hysteria begins. 372 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:14.680 Anslinger is a genius taking the fears that are coursing 373 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:19.000 through a society and really getting them to run through 374 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:21.640 the kind of lightning conductor of his department. And it's 375 00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:24.519 using these fears and these hysterias and these largely full 376 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:28.000 stories that Anslinger builds the modern drug wall. 377 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:33.799 Now Billy Holiday is this other central figure in this, 378 00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:36.440 And so tell us about Billy Holiday a little bit. 379 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:38.400 You talk about it in your book, about her early 380 00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:42.000 life and why she might have chose drugs as some 381 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:46.440 sort of pain soother So tell us about Billy Holiday 382 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:50.400 and now Harry Enslinger and her lives collide. 383 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:53.759 Well, you're totally right, and it was incredibly moving. I 384 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:57.400 tracked down everyone I could find he's still alive, who 385 00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:01.480 knew Billy Holiday. And I looked at the existing work 386 00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:04.079 on her as well, and it was so heartbreaking. Billy 387 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:06.920 Holiday grew up in a part of Baltimore called Pigtown. 388 00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:09.000 It's the last part of the United States to not 389 00:20:09.039 --> 00:20:11.559 have a sewage system. Because she's some sense of what 390 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:14.319 it was like. And when she was ten years old 391 00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:18.279 or eleven maybe I think she was raped and by 392 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:21.720 a stranger, and when the police came, they accused her 393 00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:24.079 of being a prostitute. And the guy who wrote her 394 00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:26.559 was punished that she was punished for longer. She was 395 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:28.799 sent to this reform at Treeby. It would the incredibly 396 00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:32.079 brutal nuns who locked because she was disobedient, locked her 397 00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:35.599 overnight with a dead body. She ran away. She ran 398 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.839 away to Harlem to find her mother. Her mother was 399 00:20:37.880 --> 00:20:40.160 working in a brothel, and Billy Holder, at the age of fourteen, 400 00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:44.519 starts working in this brothel, being raped for money alongside 401 00:20:44.519 --> 00:20:46.720