Speaker 1: It's nice eyes.
Speaker 2: I'm going razy Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ema. Great to hear your voice here on WBZ.
Speaker 1: My name is Dan Ray. I am the host of Nightside,
Speaker 1: heard every Monday through Friday night from Aid and to
Speaker 1: a midnight I will tell you right out front, I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with a little bit of a congested head cold.
Speaker 1: You don't need to necessarily know that. But if I
Speaker 1: sound a little different tonight, that's why. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to get through this show with my pal Noah thought
Speaker 1: to let me who is back in the control room.
Speaker 1: Rob Brooks is off for the holiday. I'm juneteenth, as
Speaker 1: is Marina. We worked with Karen Boussemi today, so we're
Speaker 1: all set. We're ready to go. And I had a
Speaker 1: tough night at the last hour last night. I was
Speaker 1: really coughing, and I apologize for that. But I like
Speaker 1: my job and I like what I do, and I'll
Speaker 1: try to get through it and just work through it tonight.
Speaker 1: That's ed tomorrow night and I can rest over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Go to start off tonight with one of the great
Speaker 1: friends of nights Side, the great Emily Sweeney, reporter at
Speaker 1: the Boston Globe. She runs the Cold Case files. And
Speaker 1: also she's the blater Tales columnist. Emily. I actually remember
Speaker 1: this cold case. It goes back obviously twenty five years tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This is really interesting. Tell us about the disappearance twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago of a young woman named Debbie Mello.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dan, this is one of the cases that really
Speaker 3: really gets to me, and I appreciate you taking the
Speaker 3: time to talk about it and let people know that
Speaker 3: this is still an open case.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Debbie Mello is a mother at two, and she was
Speaker 3: thirty years old when she went missing June twentieth, two thousand,
Speaker 3: so that was twenty five years ago tomorrow. The last
Speaker 3: person who was said that saw her alive was a husband, Louis,
Speaker 3: and he said that they got into a fight in
Speaker 3: Weymouth while they were driving and she demanded to get
Speaker 3: let out of the car and Route eighteen. He said
Speaker 3: he did, and she got out. She left their pocketbook behind.
Speaker 3: He drove a little bit more. When he turned around
Speaker 3: and came back, he says she was gone, and that
Speaker 3: spot a major search up in Weymouth. She lived in Taunton,
Speaker 3: you know, her and Louis lived in Taunton, and searches
Speaker 3: were also conducted there, but she hasn't been seen since.
Speaker 1: Wow. That that is a stumper, because, first of all,
Speaker 1: even if someone was got into an argument with a spouse,
Speaker 1: they were married, correct, Yes, Okay, So if someone you
Speaker 1: get into an argument with a spouse and someone is
Speaker 1: so angry or upset they asked you to pull over
Speaker 1: and they get out of the car but lead their pocketbook,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make a lot of sense because and.
Speaker 3: Ruby eighteen too is a tough spot to be let out.
Speaker 3: You know, it's very busy roadway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and no one else, no one else. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the police probably ran a roadblock for a few nights
Speaker 1: and did what they had to do and ask questions
Speaker 1: if anybody saw it. Did anyone actually see her walking
Speaker 1: along the roadway?
Speaker 3: There was no no sightings of her, which which is
Speaker 3: also strange. And you know there searches were conducted up
Speaker 3: in Weymouth and also down in Taunton, and tomorrow there's
Speaker 3: going to be an event, actually a memorial pac in
Speaker 3: Taunton in her honor. Friends. It's open to the public.
Speaker 3: Family are going to gather and you know, just remember her.
Speaker 3: And you know, again it's great to spread the word
Speaker 3: that this is still an open case. If anybody saw anything,
Speaker 3: knows anything, they can contact Norfolk District Attorney's office or
Speaker 3: the state police.
Speaker 1: So let me come back to the case at hand.
Speaker 1: At what time of night was this argument? Was it
Speaker 1: at dusk? Was it, you know, early in the evening.
Speaker 1: When did mister Mellow say that his wife demanded to
Speaker 1: get out of the car.
Speaker 3: It's broad daylight in the afternoon between three and four
Speaker 3: o'clock and June twentieth was a Tuesday, so it was
Speaker 3: a weekday.
Speaker 1: Good weather conditions, I'm sure you've checked that out. Decent weather,
Speaker 1: typical June weather.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there wasn't any you know, extreme weather or anything.
Speaker 3: And again, it's just it's very odd.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The last another person who saw her alive was she
Speaker 3: went to a doctor's appointment that day and that's where
Speaker 3: Louis kind of picked her up. And again that was
Speaker 3: right on Route eighteen and Weymouth, the doctor's office, so
Speaker 3: she was seen there that afternoon, and what happened to
Speaker 3: her after that is a complete mystery.
Speaker 1: What was the argument over.
Speaker 3: Money? The Globe actually interviewed Louis three days after Debbie disappeared,
Speaker 3: and he said that she flipped out. They were arguing
Speaker 3: about money. Apparently, you know, her family told me that,
Speaker 3: you know, a family member said it was over like
Speaker 3: maybe face cream or something, that she bought a dermatologist's office.
Speaker 1: And wow, any insurance policies cashed?
Speaker 3: You know that I'm not aware of. I know Louis
Speaker 3: ended up getting you know, divorced from Debbie while she
Speaker 3: was you know, still missing, and you know, ended up
Speaker 3: getting remarried.
Speaker 1: And is he still living? Is he still living in
Speaker 1: the area.
Speaker 3: As far as I know, he's still living in the
Speaker 3: same house. I called him for comment and he told
Speaker 3: me to f myself and hung up.
Speaker 1: That's pleasant. Wow, well, Emily, that sounds like one that boy,
Speaker 1: the fact that that no one, uh, this is like
Speaker 1: disappearing into thin air. This is a real tough one.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty recent in terms of I mean, you
Speaker 1: do some cases that go back fifty years where there's
Speaker 1: probably no hope, but maybe there's some hope here. Did
Speaker 1: she have? Did Debbie? I know I'm asking you questions
Speaker 1: that I probably don't have the right to ask, but
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to put on trying to put my no.
Speaker 1: I know that, and you'll probably be able to answer
Speaker 1: most of it, because I'm sure there's nothing I could
Speaker 1: ask you that you wouldn't have anticipated. Did she have
Speaker 1: any close friends that that that she that the police
Speaker 1: have talked to or talked to at the time, Because
Speaker 1: if she did, let us say, get out of the
Speaker 1: car and just was fed up and decided that she
Speaker 1: was going to go off and do some other life,
Speaker 1: I got to assume that she would have she had kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, the kids couldn't have and she's twenty five.
Speaker 1: The kids couldn't have been that old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, her she had two young kids that she
Speaker 3: absolutely adored, absolutely adored, and that that was one thing
Speaker 3: that that's come up again and again. And her mother,
Speaker 3: who sadly passed away, you know, before knowing you know
Speaker 3: what happened to her daughter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, her mother.
Speaker 3: It was very adamant that Debbie wouldn't have left gone
Speaker 3: anywhere without the children, her two kids. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of tragedy has followed the family too,
Speaker 3: since her stepfather was beaten to death and it actually
Speaker 3: got into a fight with a guy over Debbie's disappearance,
Speaker 3: like an argument. He ended up dying and her mother
Speaker 3: passed away, and also her son, Louis Junior, passed away
Speaker 3: not too long ago as well. So it's a really
Speaker 3: sad story.
Speaker 1: Louis Junior natural causes or.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. So I had just to respect the
Speaker 3: family's privacy, but I get that he was hot broken,
Speaker 3: you know, really sad case. And if anybody you know
Speaker 3: is in the Taunton area that wants to participate in
Speaker 3: the vigil, you know, tomorrow night, it's happening from six
Speaker 3: to eight at Memorial Pack And you know, if anybody
Speaker 3: has any information at all, maybe you remember something, maybe
Speaker 3: you saw something on Root eighteen or something in Taunton
Speaker 3: or anything, you know, please contact authorities. And also too,
Speaker 3: if you don't mind me giving a shout out to
Speaker 3: the Globe Case Cold Case Files newsletter.
Speaker 1: Sure absolutely we're going to be.
Speaker 3: You know, putting Debbie's story out there on the newsletter
Speaker 3: and you can sign up for it at Globe dot Com.
Speaker 3: Forward Slash Cold Case Files.
Speaker 1: Do that one a little more slowly so everybody can
Speaker 1: take advantage of it.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Emily, Okay, so it's Globe dot Com Forward
Speaker 3: Flash Cold Case Files.
Speaker 1: I never know the difference between a forward in a
Speaker 1: backwards slash. They all look the same to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but you know those URLs, you know.
Speaker 1: No, no, I get it, but I've they look to
Speaker 1: me like it's angled from northeast to southwest all the time.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's the full to the backward,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen anything that goes in any other direction,
Speaker 1: So I just say slash anyway. Emily, thanks for the
Speaker 1: work you do, and I'm just hoping that someone can
Speaker 1: can you know, for the sake of the family, and
Speaker 1: for the sake of her child that has left, and
Speaker 1: for her husband, that this case can get solved. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, deep appreciate it very much. Okay, we love
Speaker 1: having you on the show, trust me, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you in a couple of weeks and we'll talk to you
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: Sounds good, Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks, And if I don't talk to you, have a
Speaker 1: great fourth of July. Okay, have fun, Oh you too,
Speaker 1: Thanks Emily. When we get back, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: with a very famous archaeologist. He's an Egyptian archaeologist, former
Speaker 1: Minister of and Antiquities in Egypt, doctor Zahi Hawaas. This
Speaker 1: is going to be a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And he's going to be speaking in Boston next month
Speaker 1: on July ninth at the Western Seaport, So I think
Speaker 1: you'll be very interested to hear what he has to
Speaker 1: say back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 2: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Night Side Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to welcome doctor Zahi Hawas. He is an
Speaker 1: Egyptian archeologist. He's an Egyptian pologist and former Minister of
Speaker 1: Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt. That's quite a title, doctor Haas,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Nightside. How are you tonight?
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I'm fine. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So you were coming to Boston. You you've been to
Speaker 1: Boston before, but you are coming back. You're on a
Speaker 1: tour of about thirty may cities in the United States
Speaker 1: and three cities in Canada. You'll be in Boston on
Speaker 1: July ninth. We'll talk about that later, but this is
Speaker 1: a tour in which you basically bring archaeology to life.
Speaker 1: You are considered the world's most famous archaeologist. I know
Speaker 1: this is a foundational question, but have you spent your
Speaker 1: entire life exploring and discovering archeological sites.
Speaker 4: It's fifty fifty eight years now working inside the pyramids
Speaker 4: and the Kings, making major important discoveries that I'm here
Speaker 4: now to reveal it to the public for the first time.
Speaker 1: I'd love to ask you a question to which I'm
Speaker 1: sure there is not a simple answer, but it's one
Speaker 1: that has always intrigued me. I have never been to Egypt,
Speaker 1: but I'm fascinated by the ancient history from my day
Speaker 1: is as a high school student. Can you explain to
Speaker 1: me in layman's terms, how these pyramids were ever built,
Speaker 1: both from a construction point of view, how they could
Speaker 1: have been built at that time without the machinery that
Speaker 1: we have today with such precision.
Speaker 4: You know, you have to understand one important thing that
Speaker 4: the pyramid was the national project of the whole nation.
Speaker 4: The three millions who lived in Egypt participated in building
Speaker 4: the pyramid to make the king as a guid then
Speaker 4: the households an upper and lower Egypt sinned workforce and
Speaker 4: food to help be the king. We have an important discovery.
Speaker 4: I found the tombs of the pyramid builders that tills
Speaker 4: us important facts. Number one, the pyramids built by Egyptians
Speaker 4: and number to the real slaves. And the most important
Speaker 4: discovery that we made is the Wedding Rezorf papyri. Written
Speaker 4: evidence for the first time tells us about building the pyramid,
Speaker 4: how they cut the stones, how they transported the stones,
Speaker 4: how they built the case of stones. Then what we
Speaker 4: discovered until now that the base of the Greek pyramid
Speaker 4: were cut down in the solid rock to be about
Speaker 4: twenty eight feet of solid rock. All the stones for
Speaker 4: building the pyramid came from the south side, one thousand
Speaker 4: feet from the south of the base of the pyramid.
Speaker 4: Means that many people thought that stones came from Torah,
Speaker 4: twenty five miles to the east. No stones came from
Speaker 4: Gisa plateau next door to the Great Pyramid, and the
Speaker 4: egypt established to transport the stones, and we discovered remains
Speaker 4: of this ramp from the quarry located to the south
Speaker 4: west corner of the Great Pyramid of Kufu.
Speaker 1: Give me an understanding, doctor howas and again, I know
Speaker 1: I'm asking questions that we don't script questions here, but
Speaker 1: all of us have in our minds. You know how
Speaker 1: old the United States is, and we we believe that
Speaker 1: those of us who happened to be Christian believed that
Speaker 1: Jesus walked the earth two thousand years ago. We believe
Speaker 1: the earth is five billion years old. On a timeline,
Speaker 1: when were the pyramids built? I'm sure that there's not
Speaker 1: a calendar per se, but what is the best guest
Speaker 1: estimate if you will are estimate.
Speaker 4: We we do have the exact date or building the pyramid.
Speaker 4: It's six hundred BC, thousand and eight, six hundred years ago.
Speaker 4: And you have to know that the Gate Pyramid is
Speaker 4: not the only pyramid in Egypt. We have one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty pyramids in Egypt. And in my lecture I
Speaker 4: talk about the secrets that I revealed inside the Gate
Speaker 4: Pyramid using very sophisticated techniques. We found voids inside the pyramid,
Speaker 4: Big voice one, vomid above the grand gallery inside Kufu
Speaker 4: Pyramid the size of two tracks, Big one. We found
Speaker 4: a corridor by them, an entrance masuor important discoverages happened
Speaker 4: for the first time using very sovestigated techniques. Technology reveals
Speaker 4: lots of secrets about Kufu Pyramid. And this what I'm
Speaker 4: talking in my lecture tool about how I revealed the
Speaker 4: secret and the things.
Speaker 1: Now, I believe it or not, our radio station has
Speaker 1: heard literally across America. So I know this weekend you're
Speaker 1: speaking in Pittsburgh, and then you're going to be going
Speaker 1: to Columbus, Ohio, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and you'll be
Speaker 1: in Boston on July ninth, and then you'll be down
Speaker 1: in Baltimore after Boston. So for anyone who's anywhere, certainly
Speaker 1: on the East Coast, it looks to me as if
Speaker 1: you're going to be in Virginia Beach, Virginia, New York, Philadelphia, Washington,
Speaker 1: DC before you go to Canada Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal,
Speaker 1: and we have listeners in those cities as well. How
Speaker 1: can people get tickets? Not only for Boston, which sold out, They.
Speaker 4: Go to that, They go to the Lecture dot Com,
Speaker 4: the AHI lectures dot com. And I think today my
Speaker 4: lecture on Saturday in Pittsburgh, yes, will be number twenty.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, you're you're you're moving, you're getting You're
Speaker 1: a little past halfway through. But it's been an ambitious series.
Speaker 1: You You've spoken on the West Coast, in Texas, in Florida,
Speaker 1: uh and as they say, you're going to hit the
Speaker 1: Great Upper Midwood West. You're out in the Portland and
Speaker 1: Seattle early on Phoenix, Los Angeles. So I don't know
Speaker 1: how many people you're going to speak before, but you're
Speaker 1: going to speak before thousands at these thirty you know.
Speaker 4: At least in every lecture, I get like one thousand
Speaker 4: and five hundred people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're going to pay.
Speaker 4: We got like one hundred VIPs that I meet them
Speaker 4: to take photos with them and answer all the questions
Speaker 4: that they have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you you you sort of Yeah. People think of
Speaker 1: you as a modern day Indiana Jones.
Speaker 4: And you know when we when we do the investigation
Speaker 4: inside the Great Pyramid, we are thinking to do it live.
Speaker 4: And you know whom I wanted to be with beside me?
Speaker 4: Who you do this? Addison Harrison Ford.
Speaker 1: Well, Harrison Ford is still around, and I'm sure that
Speaker 1: he would love that opportunity. And uh, and I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope that comes to pass, Doctor Hawas. I just
Speaker 1: again want to thank you again. It's ZAHI Lectures, z
Speaker 1: A h I Lectures Plural dot com UH is your
Speaker 1: is the website UH and you can sign up and
Speaker 1: as they say, we have listeners all over.
Speaker 4: The United States.
Speaker 1: Powerful radio station Aer and I hope that someone some
Speaker 1: of the folks who might get up to see you
Speaker 1: in the next few days will say I heard you
Speaker 1: on night Side with Dan Ray at w b Z
Speaker 1: in Boston.
Speaker 4: Very much. They hoped in eypt one day I.
Speaker 1: Would be honored. I would be honored Doctor Zahi Hawas,
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, I honored you. You be well. I thought,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting man. That is an interesting man. When
Speaker 1: we get back, we are going to talk some medicals
Speaker 1: issues about long term use of cannabis, which can be
Speaker 1: a problem. We'll talk about that at the other side
Speaker 1: of the news, and then we'll go to the other
Speaker 1: side of the news at the bottom. They are also
Speaker 1: talk with the Massachusetts based author about what impact will
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence have on writing, particularly writing of people who
Speaker 1: are novelists. We'll get to all of that. Remind you
Speaker 1: to pull down our our new and improved iHeart app.
Speaker 1: It's a marvelous device. It's free, it's available to you.
Speaker 1: You can put it on any of your devices, on
Speaker 1: your desktops, on your laptops, on your phones, your tablets.
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Speaker 1: you get that and you put it on, make it
Speaker 1: make WBZ obviously your preset, your first preset, so we're
Speaker 1: only a fingertip away whether you're exploring the pyramids in
Speaker 1: Egypt or your back home sitting listening to Nightside on
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Speaker 1: You can leave us a thirty second message and tell
Speaker 1: us what you don't what you like about the show.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you can even tell us what you don't like
Speaker 1: about the show and what you'd like to hear more of.
Speaker 1: We're looking for you to be able to reach out
Speaker 1: to us, not only as phone calls. We always want
Speaker 1: to his phone calls, but we also want you to
Speaker 1: send us emails, information, ideas, suggestions. You're as much a
Speaker 1: part of this show as I am. I've said that
Speaker 1: for years, and I truly do believe it. Back on
Speaker 1: Nightside with more conversation, we will be heading after nine
Speaker 1: o'clock looking for phone calls because we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about a stunning, stunning poll that was released early
Speaker 1: this morning of potential jurors in Norfolk County. I think
Speaker 1: the bottom line on this pole, when you look at it,
Speaker 1: the prosecution never had a chance in this case. It
Speaker 1: was overcharged. It was an overcharged prosecution from day one,
Speaker 1: and I think that the Norfolk County District Attorney will
Speaker 1: pay a pay a political penalty there. We'll get to
Speaker 1: all of that, I promise, and later on we'll talk
Speaker 1: about perhaps the most important decision Donald Trump will ever
Speaker 1: make his president and what he does regarding Iran. We'll
Speaker 1: get to all of that tonight. It's gonna be a
Speaker 1: great show coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 2: It's night Side with Dan Ray. Hey, Dann BZ Boston's
Speaker 2: news radio. If you're on night Side with Dan Ray
Speaker 2: on WBZ, Boston's news radio, Well.
Speaker 1: If you been smoking some weed lately. With the mysterious
Speaker 1: illness on the rise for long term cannabis uses, its
Speaker 1: called cannabinoid hyper emesis syndrome CHS and can affect essentially
Speaker 1: anyone using cannabis. My guest is doctor seusshut Jaghi, Doctor
Speaker 1: guys John JUNGI. I hope I'm getting close on that pronunciation. Doctor.
Speaker 1: How are you tonight?
Speaker 5: That's pretty good? Yeah, thanks for inviting.
Speaker 1: Me, so tell us about that. I know that one
Speaker 1: of the TV stations in Boston is doing a big
Speaker 1: series this week. Actually, it's Channel five on the potency
Speaker 1: of the marijuana that people are being exposed to these days.
Speaker 1: As they they say, it's it's it's it's not your
Speaker 1: parents marijuana in terms of impact. Does this have anything
Speaker 1: to do with the new and improved marijuana that is
Speaker 1: out there these days or is this something that has
Speaker 1: always been around.
Speaker 5: No, I think you're right, I think this is something new. Basically,
Speaker 5: cannabis products, including marijuana, have gotten more potent over the
Speaker 5: past couple decades. Yeah, that's because of the amount of THHC,
Speaker 5: which is the active sort of psychoactive ingredient, has gotten
Speaker 5: more and more potent.
Speaker 1: And can just ask you real quickly before I got
Speaker 1: to ask this, ques, I am not a smoker, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not a smoker of cigarettes. Nothing, okay, But has
Speaker 1: has the marijuana been developed scientifically to be stronger or
Speaker 1: has it become stronger naturally? I hear it all the
Speaker 1: time that it's more potent, But I'm wondering if that
Speaker 1: has been scientifically induced or if it was just a
Speaker 1: normal development.
Speaker 5: I think the potency has been increasing for commercial reasons
Speaker 5: to make it more syllable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, kind of what I thought just wanted to
Speaker 1: make just wanted to make it clear. Go ahead. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to have interrupt you. I'm listening.
Speaker 5: So what you said initially is correct that this is
Speaker 5: actually a new disease that we're seeing called CCHS. The
Speaker 5: first description of it was back in two thousand and five,
Speaker 5: so it's overall pretty new disease. And CHS stands for
Speaker 5: cannabinoid hyper emesis syndrome, which means hyper emesis is vomiting,
Speaker 5: recurrent vomiting as a consequence of using cannabis. So patients
Speaker 5: who develop SHS usually have episodes of belly pain, nausea,
Speaker 5: and vomiting that they can't stop. It just keeps coming back.
Speaker 1: Now if they stop smoking. Is this something that once
Speaker 1: you get it, you can't get rid of it? Or
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't sound like a pleasant experience if
Speaker 1: you get my drift.
Speaker 5: No, it's not. And I see some of these patients
Speaker 5: in my clinic. So you know, the difficult part of
Speaker 5: this disease is that you know, for a lot of people,
Speaker 5: cannabis actually gives relief from nausea at low doses, but
Speaker 5: it's once you start using it chronically, so you know,
Speaker 5: multiple times a day, for at least a year, then
Speaker 5: you start to develop this syndrome. So some people start
Speaker 5: to use more cannabis once they start getting sick, thinking
Speaker 5: it's going to cure them, but that sets them up
Speaker 5: into this kind of endless cycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sort of like going from two packs a
Speaker 1: day to three packs a day of un filtered on
Speaker 1: camels because you someone think that will reduce your chances
Speaker 1: of getting one cancer, that's right.
Speaker 5: And then people people can kind of self cure this
Speaker 5: once they stop using any kind of cannabis. So it
Speaker 5: usually can take as long as six months of cessation
Speaker 5: from cannabis, so stopping the drug for more than half
Speaker 5: a year before the symptoms go away.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now my question is this, how can you
Speaker 1: function if you're if you're stoned, you know throughout most
Speaker 1: of the day. It sounds to me like you've got
Speaker 1: to And I don't want to encourage anyone to start,
Speaker 1: but it sounds to me like you've got to be
Speaker 1: a pretty heavy user for a period of time before
Speaker 1: before this hits you. Right, is what I heard you say?
Speaker 1: Am I right? Am I missing? Yeah? Bad?
Speaker 5: We tend not to see the condition in real casual
Speaker 5: users of cannabis. So if you're using it, you know,
Speaker 5: sporadically occasionally, it's unlikely to happen. Yeah, but we do
Speaker 5: see it in people use it once a day or
Speaker 5: once every other day for a sustained period of time.
Speaker 5: So you don't have to be someone that's you know,
Speaker 5: smoking pot like four or five times a day to
Speaker 5: get it.
Speaker 1: I think I read that or I heard on this
Speaker 1: Channel five report, the report of Mike Boydette is doing
Speaker 1: it just to give him, you know, journalistic credit. I
Speaker 1: think you said that the cannabis industry in Massachusetts is
Speaker 1: now an eight billion dollar industry. Our state budget is
Speaker 1: sixty two billion dollars. That's that's a pretty good size industry.
Speaker 1: I mean that true. There's gotta be a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there token it up, and any idea how
Speaker 1: many people have displayed these symptoms on a quantitative basis.
Speaker 1: You're a gastro Enterology is a tough medical center. Is
Speaker 1: there anyone in the public health department that's trying to
Speaker 1: keep track of this? We know how many people die
Speaker 1: of COVID every week. We know how many COVID cases
Speaker 1: the are every week.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well that's a good question. Yeah, So we did
Speaker 5: in our study, we actually looked at about fifteen million
Speaker 5: ED visits between twenty twelve and twenty twenty one. And
Speaker 5: across those fifteen million ED visits, we saw that by the.
Speaker 1: Way, you're you're talking there about emergency department, not the
Speaker 1: other ED.
Speaker 5: Right, go ahead, no, correct, emergency department visits. So we
Speaker 5: looked at basically over fifty emergency departments across the state
Speaker 5: and between twenty twelve and twenty twenty one, we saw
Speaker 5: a tenfold increase in zhs over this time period. So
Speaker 5: it's a pretty significant change.
Speaker 1: Wow. And if that is true, that means that a
Speaker 1: lot more people are smoking and also probably driving on
Speaker 1: our roadways, which is uh, which is another problem that
Speaker 1: that we need, that we need to be concerned about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this whole cannabis experiment. It might be fine for
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people, but boy, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a certain group who just can't get enough until they
Speaker 1: are people able once they they they get this. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you if you call it a disease
Speaker 1: or a condition, I guess you call it a syndrome.
Speaker 1: Are most of them? It seems to me that people
Speaker 1: who are suffering from this once they're convinced that the
Speaker 1: cause of it is the the cannabis use that that
Speaker 1: they would just want to back away or or is
Speaker 1: this such something that people can't back away from.
Speaker 5: Well, you know it. It can be very hard to
Speaker 5: stop using cannabis once it becomes a habit. And you know,
Speaker 5: I have a lot of sympathy for people who are
Speaker 5: trying to stop. Sure, once once it becomes a part
Speaker 5: of your routine, like anything, it can be hard to quit.
Speaker 5: So we do have ways to try to help people
Speaker 5: quit if they want to, and that can include things
Speaker 5: like talk therapy or you know, setting people up with therapists,
Speaker 5: and sometimes we use certain medications that can help you
Speaker 5: kind of kick the habit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I have friends of mine who have been
Speaker 1: strung out on hard drugs okay, you know, heroin, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, artsy content and things like that, and they're
Speaker 1: dear friends of mine who have beaten it. But I'll say,
Speaker 1: anybody who can beat beat an addiction like this or
Speaker 1: any addiction, alcohol or whatever, my hat's off to them.
Speaker 1: I'm very sympathetic. But by doing this interview, hopefully, hopefully
Speaker 1: there's maybe one person out there who's going to back
Speaker 1: off their usage at least and avoid experiencing the symptoms
Speaker 1: that you have so eloquently described. Doctor, I hope says
Speaker 1: you taking the time tonight. Doctor, thank you, Jacques Junkie.
Speaker 1: Give give me the correct pronounce case. I want to
Speaker 1: make sure.
Speaker 5: It's it's Junie. It's not an easy name to say.
Speaker 1: That's okay, should Junkie? Okay?
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: They give me pronounces sometimes and the pronouncers aren't all
Speaker 1: that great, but thank you. Thank you for what you do. Doctor.
Speaker 1: I really mean that. And I keep in contact with
Speaker 1: you on this and if the situation gets worse, we
Speaker 1: can do it again. If it gets better, we can
Speaker 1: do it again.
Speaker 5: Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. Doctor. We'll gonna come back when we
Speaker 1: get back on and talk with Massachusetts based novelist Lori Gold.
Speaker 1: She's concerned about what role will artificial intelligence have in
Speaker 1: the writing industry for authors and aspiring authors. We'll talk
Speaker 1: with Lori Gold right after the break here on Nightside, Night.
Speaker 2: Side with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio. It's
Speaker 2: night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1: You know those questions to which there's really no answer daddy.
Speaker 1: Why is the sky blue? What's the meaning of life?
Speaker 1: Here's another one. Would you read a novel written completely
Speaker 1: by artificial intelligence? That's what author Laurie Gold has been
Speaker 1: asking audiences at her book events, and it's something that
Speaker 1: writers have to think about because writers are artists and
Speaker 1: AI does create can create books. Matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: recently read that there was a site where you could
Speaker 1: go when you could write a book about someone with AI,
Speaker 1: which sounds crazy, but AI's coming, said train coming down
Speaker 1: the track, and we either got to deal with it
Speaker 1: or get out of the way with us. As Lori
Speaker 1: Gold her latest novel, Romantic Friction, based on that concept, Laurie,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Nightside. How are you hello, Laurie?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 3: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: I can hear you?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: What sort of a headset are you on?
Speaker 6: I am on just a normal iPhone headset? Is it okay?
Speaker 6: I can take it out if that's well.
Speaker 1: Headsets don't really work for us, but let's try to
Speaker 1: try to work with it. There can be a delay,
Speaker 1: which I think maybe we just experienced. So tell us
Speaker 1: as an author, obviously, you have a new book called
Speaker 1: Romantic Friction based on the concept, and make it very
Speaker 1: clear you did not use AI in writing this book,
Speaker 1: but your main character faces this dilemma. Explain to my audience,
Speaker 1: most of whom are not authors or writers, Explain why
Speaker 1: this is so important to writers.
Speaker 6: Well, I think AI in the creative space is very
Speaker 6: different than the uses that many people in business are
Speaker 6: using AI for. So if you use AI to help
Speaker 6: you with math, or to better design the furniture on
Speaker 6: your deck, or to do some coding, or to help
Speaker 6: you design a web site, it's it's not necessary that
Speaker 6: it's doing road tasks, but it's doing tasks that don't
Speaker 6: come from a creative bent, from a creative soul. And
Speaker 6: I think we associate all forms of art really, whether
Speaker 6: it's writing, painting, photography, movies. You know, AI could write
Speaker 6: a movie script, but we associate forms of art with
Speaker 6: human intention, with trying to get across a message or
Speaker 6: a theme, or experience an emotion and have others have
Speaker 6: it resonate to others. And I think it's very hard
Speaker 6: to think of a machine doing what we humans do
Speaker 6: when it comes from a place of emotion.
Speaker 1: Well, we know that AI is going to put a
Speaker 1: lot of people's jobs on the sidelines sadly, but that's
Speaker 1: the reality. Just like those those guys that used to
Speaker 1: shoe horses. Before the arrival of the automobile, there were
Speaker 1: there were a lot of blacksmiths out there, not as
Speaker 1: many today. How can authors fight back? I mean, if
Speaker 1: let us say someone assumes a pen name and secrecy
Speaker 1: and privacy and anonymity or some non de plume, and
Speaker 1: we can't tell if they are an actual writer or
Speaker 1: if they have some all been able to manipulate AI.
Speaker 1: We can't outlaw this practice. How do authors fight it? Well?
Speaker 6: I think what's interesting with what you said is what
Speaker 6: you're saying is the basis of people being opposed to it.
Speaker 6: And I think that's the biggest fear that we have
Speaker 6: as creators and as authors. Will the marketplace just accept
Speaker 6: a book written by AI. In my book Romantic Friction,
Speaker 6: another author uses AI to write in the style of
Speaker 6: my main character, Sophie Wilde, and it's not canceled, it's
Speaker 6: embraced by the media, and she's called innovative, and she's
Speaker 6: trending on the press. And I wonder if that is
Speaker 6: the future, if people will just accept written books written
Speaker 6: by AI. But if that's not the case. You know,
Speaker 6: the marketplace can decide based on their dollars and what
Speaker 6: books they buy and what books they don't buy. Right now,
Speaker 6: what's going on in terms of fighting it is there
Speaker 6: are many lawsuits against AI companies, both led by journalists
Speaker 6: and was led by authors against the companies that have
Speaker 6: used creative works to train their AI, and it's now
Speaker 6: in the courts to decide it is copyright infringement. So
Speaker 6: this is the first step that's going on right now,
Speaker 6: including a very big case against Meta, which is the
Speaker 6: owner of Facebook and Instagram authors alleging that Meta used
Speaker 6: pirated books to train its AI, knowing they could have
Speaker 6: purchased those books to train their I, and decided to
Speaker 6: take them from an illegal, pirated database of books and
Speaker 6: use it to train their AI. And this is what's
Speaker 6: in the course right now.
Speaker 1: So wait a sec. So what you're saying is that
Speaker 1: the fact that they pirated these books, if they had
Speaker 1: gone to a bookstore or to Amazon and purchased the
Speaker 1: books and use the books for the same purpose to
Speaker 1: train AI, that they would have been exempt from a lawsuit.
Speaker 6: I do not think they would have been exempt. It
Speaker 6: would have been better had they actually paid for it
Speaker 6: because the issue is allegedly they have used these books
Speaker 6: without permission and without compensation. So it's a duel, many
Speaker 6: faceted lawsuits. But at least if they had paid for it,
Speaker 6: it would have combated one issue of taking the books illegally,
Speaker 6: and there are court documents that say they knew they
Speaker 6: took the books illegally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the other thing. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing a lot of people probably don't realize that is
Speaker 1: that copyrights actually run out, so high school teachers can
Speaker 1: teach William Shakespeare and Shakespeare and his heirs have no no,
Speaker 1: no cause of action for that because you copyrights expire.
Speaker 6: Sure, but we have a long time. My belief is
Speaker 6: it's like one hundred years or so. So all of
Speaker 6: the books that were many of the books, I will say.
Speaker 1: To the majority, I understand that, I understand that.
Speaker 2: AI.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else writers on masks can do.
Speaker 6: I think it's making it aware, you know, being able
Speaker 6: to talk to people like you and have this discussion
Speaker 6: out in the open and put it in front of
Speaker 6: the people who consume our entertainment. It's part of why
Speaker 6: I wrote Romantic Friction to you know, have this conversation
Speaker 6: in front of the people who care about books and
Speaker 6: care about reading the future of our entertainment. So I
Speaker 6: think it's time to just start having these discussions with
Speaker 6: one another and see where do we draw the line.
Speaker 6: You know, it's not a question of what the technology
Speaker 6: can do, it's a question of what we should do
Speaker 6: with it. And these are more moral and ethical questions
Speaker 6: that I really want to be having people spark the
Speaker 6: conversation about and be talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing is that different levels of literature
Speaker 1: appeal to different people. I mean, there are some people
Speaker 1: who will sit and read you know what, I hate
Speaker 1: to used this word, but trashy novels, and that's that's
Speaker 1: their thing. Someone else might want to read historical novels,
Speaker 1: which are a little more highbrow and very much the
Speaker 1: marketplace will decide that. And if there is a trashy
Speaker 1: ai novelist out there who gains a foothold, who gains
Speaker 1: a following, that could be a real that could be
Speaker 1: a real problem for for for potential novelists who like
Speaker 1: to write, you know, books that are kind of you know,
Speaker 1: at at a base of the reading pyramid. If I
Speaker 1: can use that.
Speaker 6: Metaphor, absolutely, But I also think like technology is continuously improving.
Speaker 6: When I started writing this book in twenty twenty three
Speaker 6: and I plugged into play what could AI do?
Speaker 3: It was not very good.
Speaker 6: Two years later I played with it, It's gotten better.
Speaker 6: So you know the level of writing for it will
Speaker 6: only get better and better and approach what humans can do.
Speaker 6: I have no doubt for that, and I think you know,
Speaker 6: at some point we just have to start deciding do
Speaker 6: we want it labeled as such? And that's another part
Speaker 6: of the conversation when you ask what authors could do
Speaker 6: right now? There aren't parameters. My publishing contracts with Harpercollums
Speaker 6: didn't have me sign anything. Let's say I wrote this
Speaker 6: and AI didn't. But those are probably some of the
Speaker 6: past we need to go down. And is there a
Speaker 6: level of transparency that needs to happen, especially as the
Speaker 6: technology gets better and better?
Speaker 1: All great questions to which there are no answers as
Speaker 1: of this moment. We'll have to have you back when
Speaker 1: some of the answers appear. Massachuset based author Lori Gold
Speaker 1: her book Romantic Friction. That might be something you might
Speaker 1: want to put in the summer reading list because it
Speaker 1: might portend our future. Laurie appreciate your time tonight. You're
Speaker 1: very thoughtful, very thoughtful.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me you very well.
Speaker 6: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Good Night you too,