The Green Rush

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2019

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It was just seven years ago that Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Today the drug is legal in eleven states and counting, with polls showing that sixty per cent of Americans support its legalization. How did that happen so fast? This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour looks at the end of reefer madness—and the early days of corporate cannabis. Bruce Barcott talks about the politics and the public-health aspects of legalization; Jelani Cobb looks at how legalization tries to undo the decades of harm that marijuana prohibition has done to communities of color; Sue Halpern drives around Vermont, where weed is the new zucchini; and Jia Tolentino shares the joy of watching David Attenborough under the influence.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
0:11.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:15.1	Look at this little tent. It's like for baby growers.
0:18.4	For propagation. For the seedlings.
0:21.6	Yeah. And then there's like a lot of paraphernalia.
0:24.6	It's a Tuesday morning in the summer in Vermont.
0:27.6	And our contributor Sue Halpern is checking out supplies at the gardening shop, Green State Gardener.
0:34.6	So show us around. I know there's a lot of fertilizer. I'm looking at something
0:39.6	called the Magic Bubble washing machine. It's not really for washing clothing. No. That's how it's
0:46.0	marketed. Oh, oh wow. Okay. What is it for? That is for essentially knocking the tricomes off of the flowers in order to make cash.
0:57.0	Okay, I don't even know what any of that means.
1:00.0	Vermont is one of 11 states where it's legal to get high, and 33 states allow medical marijuana.
1:08.0	Nationally, 60% of Americans now support legalization and the pace of change
1:12.3	on this issue is incredible. So this week, my colleagues and I want to dig in and understand
1:18.4	the ramifications of this sea change in American life. Sue Halpern will show us how Vermont's
1:23.5	unique DIY approach to pot works, and I'll talk with Jelani Cobb about how the legalization
1:29.0	movement is trying to undo decades of damage that the war on drugs has done to communities of color.
1:35.5	To explain how this movement accelerated so quickly, I wanted to start with Bruce Barkott.
1:41.1	His book, Weed the People. That's Weed the People, is about how the state of Washington
1:47.0	and Colorado first legalized recreational use. I think you have to say that 30 years ago,
1:55.1	if you had told me that We'd See the Day when marijuana was legal and maybe on the way toward national legalization,
2:02.7	I wouldn't have believed it.
	...

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