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The Current Transcript for February 22, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

So this is to every lawmaker out there. No longer can you take money from the NRA. No longer can you fly under the radar doing whatever it is that you want to do. Because we're coming after you. We're coming after every single one of you and demanding that you take action demanding that you make a change.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: One by one they took to the podium still raw, still grieving for their friends and teachers but every one of them a teenage survivor, defiant, angry, done. Exactly one week after 17 Florida students and teachers were gunned down by a former classmate armed with an AR 15 assault rifle. Busloads of students converged on the state capital and their message to state and federal legislators to their president is that adults have failed them and that gun control is now their political fight. Could this be the movement that finally forces change in America? In a moment we'll hear from students from Florida and beyond. Also today you think teens can't influence a change in laws

SOUNDCLIP

I can only talk from my own experience, but the number of kids that I have met, that take grass, is just phenomenal, you know, like athletes too.

[Laughter]

Like supposed straights are like doing grass now.

AMT: That's from a CBC show in 1969. Marijuana had been banned since the 20s but teenagers and other young people defied the laws and the rhetoric. Some would later spend decades fighting for change. As Canada moves toward a future of legalized recreational marijuana, we're looking back at the scaremongering and the politics that kept it criminal for so long. Hear that in half an hour. And a place where children cannot grow up and cannot be children.

SOUNDCLIP

The people we were delivering this food to told us Look 'we're going to have the split each ration into five different portions so that we can cover the maximum number of vulnerable families possible. So people are very hungry.

AMT: Seven years into a brutal war, months after the defacto defeat of ISIS, Syrians still spend their days counting the dead and trying to help the living. And now battles are shifting allies become enemies and all the visions are renewed. In an hour, we are looking at the competing conflicts that continue to slaughter Syrian civilians. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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'Blame everything but a gun': School-shooting survivors say political response is just crocodile tears Deck

Guests: Leonor Munoz, Mallory Muller, Jake Fales

SOUNDCLIP

They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say that no laws could not have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies is that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids do not know what we are talking about that we are too young to understand how the government works. We call BS. If you agree, register to vote. Contact your congress people. Give them a piece of your mind. [Cheers]

AMT: A passionate rallying cry from a student after a massacre that's Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida calling for change at a weekend gun control rally after 14 students and three teachers at her school were killed by a gunman. From Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook and dozens of other school shootings, the US has seen this grim scene play out over and over again. The thoughts and prayers from politicians, the grief and the funerals. But now these young people who have grown up in the shadow of Columbine are vowing never again. Yes release students from Parkland took their message to legislators in Tallahassee, Florida state capital. Senior Delaney Tarr took politicians to task for their platitudes.

SOUNDCLIP

Coming here today as a teenager full of passion was very disappointing. We've been to many rooms. We've spoken to only a few legislators and try as they may, the most you've gotten out of them is 'we will keep you in our thoughts. You are so strong. You are so powerful'. We've heard enough of that. We've heard enough of we are so strong, we are so powerful because that is not why we're here today. We are not here to be patted on the back.

AMT: Students across the United States have taken up the cause for stricter gun laws, planning local actions, country wide walkouts and a Washington rally for gun control in March. Today we have brought together three such students to talk about the change they want to see and how they're going to make sure it happens. Mallory Muller is a 17 year old student Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School the site of last week's mass shooting in Florida. She is with the Never Again movement as is Leonor Munoz also a senior at that high school. They are both in Parkland, Florida. Jake Fales is in his final year at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan. He's a member of a group called Michigan Students for Gun Legislation and he is in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hello to all of you.

MALLORY MULLER: Hello.

LEONOR MUNOZ: hi.

JAKE FALES: Good morning.

AMT: Leonor Munoz. That's your friend, Emma who we heard at the beginning there

LEONOR MUNOZ: Yes it is

AMT: The two of you were hiding together that day.

LEONOR MUNOZ: We were, we were. Right before what happened we were in the auditorium together and when we ran out and heard the code red, shooter run inside, we just grabbed hands and ran inside and held hands through the experience and tried to calm each other down

AMT: What changes do you want to see now?

LEONOR MUNOZ: Now? I want to legislators actually do their job. I want to see although listening to their constituents instead of the NRA because our voices and our votes so much more than the money they get from the NRA's money. The NRA's money can't do a thing, if they are not in office. And if they keep voting the way they are they will not be in office much longer.

AMT: Mallory Muller you were in Tallahassee yesterday. What did you tell the politicians?

MALLORY MULLER: We told them exactly what she just said. Basically our goal is not just to protect school. Our goal is not to speak for our friends and their families who have just [unintelligible] the most tragic laws, but to protect all students of America. Our goal is to make this never happen again. You know.

AMT: And so what specific changes to the law are you looking for, Mallory?

MALLORY MULLER: Of course stricter gun control, preferably the ban also - rifles, when speaking to a lot of the Republican, senators none of them could find a good reason as to why you would even need an assault rifle. But it is baby steps we are taking. We're definitely wanting to raise age restrictions, restrictions on purchasing and definitely increased school security for sure.

AMT: And what kind of things did the politicians you met with yesterday say to you?

MALLORY MULLER: It was a lot of crocodile tears. They took this as a field trip actually quite specifically one senator called this a field trip. That was really hurtful but you could tell that they do not see eye to eye with these students even though we believe so passionately that there needs to be a change. We spoke to Governor Rick Scott. He was jotting down ideas as to how we can change this. We are just at this point hoping for the best and we know that we're gonna go back up to Tallahassee as many times as needed.

AMT: Jake Fales your group is heading to Michigan State capital in Lansing, right after our interview today. What were you doing there?

JAKE FALES: So we will be speaking at a pro-gun-control rally and afterwards we'll be talking to some [unintelligible].

AMT: And you have a petition as well what's the name of that petition?

JAKE FALES: Petition's name is Students Fighting Guns Since Adults Won't.

AMT: And that kind of sums up how you feel, isn't it?

JAKE FALES: Yes. It sums up perfectly.

AMT: Okay well I've got some clip I want to play for all of you to get some reactions and I want to start with - there is a town hall last night on CNN and there was a question to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Let's listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Senator Rubio, can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA in the future [cheers].

VOICE 2: The answer is that people buy into my agenda. And I do support the Second Amendment. I also support the right of you and everyone here to be able to go to school and be safe. And I do support any law that would keep guns out of the hands of a deranged killer.

AMT: Senator Rubio says that he would not say that he would stop refusing money from the NRA. Mallory Muller, how do you react to that?

MALLORY MULLER: Yes, I just saw that this morning. My hopes because - for those of you who don't know - he does have two daughters, two young daughters, is that he will take what we have said to heart because these are students speaking out so quickly after this has happened. We’re hoping he said that not out of spike but out of knowing that he needs to make a few phone calls first. We are hoping he'll be able to come to terms with us and figure out how he can do this, how he's going to be able to stop accepting their money. Because we have so many students and parents who will support him if he agrees to ban assault rifles.

AMT: I also have another clip from that same town hall and this is Dana Loesch of the NRA. Let's listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

This individual was nuts and I - nor the millions of people that I represent as a part of this organization that I'm here speaking for - none of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others getting their hands on a firearm.

AMT: Leonor Munoz, what you think of what she says?

LEONOR MUNOZ: I think it was a cop out really. I mean thing is a lot of these shootings happen and always it's the NRA tries to blame it on mental illness or terrorism or literally anything. But the common thread is always guns because yes mental health is an issue that we as a nation need to address. But guns escalate that issue. Mental health is definitely important, but mental health alone does not take away 17 lives. Guns allow for that level of damage and destruction. They allow for the 3000 students who were at Marjory Stoneman Douglas to have [unintelligible] amounts of of PTSD and trauma. And if he had not had a gun - I don't care about the mental illness - had he not have a gun he would not have been able to kill those 17 and it's really just a cop out.

AMT: And Jake Fales what do you think?

JAKE FALES: 'I agree completely. I think of course mental health is a massive issue in the United States and really needs to be addressed but when it comes down to it, these guns shouldn't be in the hands of any 18 year old. They shouldn't really be on the streets at all. They're allowing this to happen. Sure mental health is part of it, but ultimately the guns are the common threat.

AMT: And Jake there was a shooting into your 2016 in Kalamazoo where you live. Six people were killed. What is it about the Parkland shooting specifically that changed things for you?

JAKE FALES: So well seeing the video, hearing the video it really puts it into perspective - in our perspective when we're in school. Because it's the classrooms, the hallways, they are just like our classrooms and hallways. The students are just like our students. Putting them in perspective it really hits home because we are at school six, seven hours a day and we expect to feel safe here. We expect to get an education without fearing for our lives.

AMT: So it was the way it was brought home to you in a way that others have not been, other shootings in America.

JAKE FALES: Right, yes. So seeing the video did make it connect with us more at home and also another part of it is in 2016 I think at that we were younger, we still feel like adults are going to do something about it, that someone will do something about it. But over the years it's been increasingly apparent that they are not doing anything about it. We need to step up. We need to voice our opinions. We need to get heard so that we can make the change.

AMT: Okay well let's go to another politician now. President Donald Trump now with some families and young people affected by school shootings at the White House yesterday. This is some of what he had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

We are going to be very strong on background checks. We will be doing very strong background checks. And we are going to do plenty of other things. Again, next week the governors are coming in from most of the states and we are going to give a very serious talk about what's going on with school safety and we are going to pick out the strongest ideas, the most important ideas, the ideas that are going to work and we are going to get them done. It's not going to be talk like it has been in the past.

AMT: Jake Fales what do you make of what the President had to say?

JAKE FALES: Well, it sounds to me like he is blaming pretty much everything but a gun. I think you need to come out and say, in some level, that it's having these guns, these assault weapons on the streets, is part of the fault, of what's happening here. And it seems like he's scruting around that issue.

AMT: Mallory Muller we've seen the push for gun control fail in the United States before after other shootings. Do you think this will be different?

MALLORY MULLER: A hundred percent. I mean I agree completely with Jake, a lot of representatives are trying to avoid the whole gun control issue but we are trying to bring it back up. I mean are we supposed to see that this is normal, that if we don't put stricter gun control that we're supposed to just you know every now and again suffer these horrible tragedies? This is not right. This is not how we are supposed to live. Student have the right to life instead they're pushing for the rate for a second amendment and it's not fair. It's not fair that students, because we can't trust where we go, whether it be to a mall, a movie theatre, a school, no one feels safe anymore.

AMT: Leonor Munoz, are you inspired by any protest in the past, anybody else that you have seen make change?

LEONOR MUNOZ: I am actually. A couple of years ago I remember reading Malala Yousafzai's book and honestly right now it seems to resonate even more strongly with me. When she was also a young girl in school who was shot at. And she was in a situation where everyone thought that no one would listen to her. Again a young teenage girl still in school, but she made herself heard. And the thing that she showed us that even in the worst situations, even when everything seems against you, you can still be success. I hope that we can emulate that. I hope that we can do that on a large scale here in the United States.

AMT: And you know that not all students from, even from your own high school, want to see stricter gun laws after that shooting last week. I have got a clip here of a student talking to MSNBC right after the shooting. This is Brandon Minoff.

SOUNDCLIP

If you were a lawmaker, an adult in a decision making position, how would you stop, do you think, the kind of thing that happened today; day a kid who'd been thrown out comes back with a weapon and takes out whatever grievance he's been walking around with in his head?

Gun-wise I do not think there is anyway to prevent it. You outlaw guns, it just creates higher demand for it. I think it has to do with mental health. If he's been expelled three different times and different schools I think he should be helped out.

AMT: Leonor, how do you convince kids your own age who still think that gun laws aren't the issue?l

LEONOR MUNOZ: I mean obviously we're not going to be able to convince everyone. I mean again there's 3000 kids in that school. Everyone has differing opinions. I think that most of us still realise that we were in a situation that really guns were putting our lives in danger. And as for how to convince them, honestly I'm only able to get everyone. But I do hope we can convince our legislators because they are the people who are you know making sure that the laws that protect us are in place. I don't think that we will be able to get to absolutely everyone.

AMT: I want to play one more clip because I want all of you to react to it and you've heard some of this. Some conservative pundits are questioning the integrity of the Never Again movement of which you are part. This is a former Republican Congressman Jack Kingston on CNN suggesting interest groups are orchestrating the meeting you had with Florida lawmaker's and they're orchestrating next month's march in Washington.

SOUNDCLIP

JACK KINGSTON: I think it's a horrible tragedy and I am heartbroken that young people have gone through this and I hope that it never happens again. But I also know that their sorrow can very easily be hijacked by left wing groups who have an agenda

HOSTESS: But do you think it has been?

JACK KINGSTON: Well let's ask yourself do we really think that - I say this sincerely - do we really think 17 year olds, on their own, are going to plan a nationwide rally? They probably don't have the logistical ability to plan a nationwide rally

HOSTESS: Jack this is just silly.

JACK KINGSTON: Without it being hijacked by groups that already had this pre-existing.

HOSTESS: It's just silly.

JACK KINGSTON: They have the money for the boss and they're ready to go. I mean I just have a hard time believing it.

AMT: Mallory Muller what do you say to that?

MALLORY MULLER: You know I wish I could say I hundred percent disagree. But it is true, unfortunately in life adults would take that opportunity when we feel so passionately about this. Even yesterday a few Democratic Senators did take that opportunity to kind of maybe change our views, or get them on their side or campaign for them. You know it's sad because this is so raw. This happened so recently. We are just trying to make a change here for this specific issue. Don't use us. We are children. We are not tools. We have been through one of the most tragic things one will ever experience. Don't take advantage of us.

AMT: There are big donations coming in now from Oprah, George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, all Democratic Party supporters. Do you worry that will divide people in partisan lines, Leonor?

LEONOR MUNOZ: This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of protecting our schools, our children. This is not something we can allow to be Democratic or Republican. Democrats and Republicans already have issues on which to argue on. But this is our lives and even Republicans if they want to make this a Democratic-Republican issue, they have children who are in school. This - what happened at Stoneman Douglas, it could happen at any school. It could happen at senator schools and I don't anyone to experience that. I don't want that to happen. So we as [unintelligible] are trying not to make it a partisan issue because then we know nothing will get done. You don't need be a Democrat or Republican to realize that our lives are at stake and that is not okay and something needs to change.

AMT: Are you all able to vote in the next election?

LEONOR MUNOZ: By November 2018 yes

MALLORY MULLER: I am not unfortunately.

JAKE FALES: Yes. I will be able to vote yes.

AMT: So a lot of you who were just dismissed in that last clip will be able to cast a ballot.

JAKE FALES: Right.

LEONOR MUNOZ: Absolutely.

AMT: And I guess that's the last word. Thank you all for speaking with me today. Thank you very much.

MALLORY MULLER: Thank you.

JAKE FALES: Thank you for having us.

LEONOR MUNOZ: Yes thank you for having us.

AMT: I've been speaking with Mallory Muller and Leonor Munoz. They're both students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people, three of their teachers, 14 of their fellow students were shot to death last week. They are in Parkland, Florida. Jake Fales is in his final year at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan. He is a member of a group called Michigan Students for Gun Legislation. The other two part of the Never Again movement that has begun amongst students across the U.S. Let us know what you think you can find us on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or on Facebook or go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us. The news is next and then we're looking back at marijuana legislation.

Back To Top »

The ban on cannabis in Canada is ending — do you know how it started?

Guest: Geoff Turner

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come the latest in the intractable war in Syria. But first out of a smoky past the Canadian experience with marijuana.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: If all goes according to plan recreational marijuana will be legal in Canada sometime this summer. That will mark the end of 95 years of cannabis prohibition. Geoff Turner as the host of the CBC original podcast On Drugs. His latest episode examines the long road from prohibition to legalization. Geoff Turner joins me to tell us about the little known origins of this story. And for some insight into why prohibition lasted nearly a century. Hello.

GEOFF TURNER: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: So we're just months away from legalization and while everyone is talking about the end of an era and looking for the future you're looking back investigating the roots of cannabis prohibition.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes I am. Because I think even if people have a sense of why pot is being legalized now, the story of why it was prohibited in the first place is not as widely known.

AMT: So how did cannabis come to be outlawed in the first place?

GEOFF TURNER: Usually I think when governments go to the trouble of making something illegal, like say lawn darts, it's because that thing is creating problems like poking out eyes.

AMT: Lawn darts. What? They were banned what, in the eighties, after a bunch of injuries.

GEOFF TURNER: Sometimes governments want to signal something politically to register concern or revulsion. But in this case as near as anyone can tell at the time cannabis was added to the list of banned substances in 1923, it was a non-issue as a recreational drug in Canada.

AMT: And what do you mean a non-issue?

GEOFF TURNER: According to the historians I spoke to, most Canadians had probably never heard of it and they certainly had no access to it as a drug.

AMT: So why was it banned?

GEOFF TURNER: .And there are a couple of different versions to this story. One that's been popular for a long time among marijuana activists especially, gives the credit or blame to a woman named Emily Murphy.

AMT: The Canadian suffragette Emily Murphy.

GEOFF TURNER: The very same Emily Murphy. She's finally remembered as one of the famous fine of a group of Canadian suffragettes. In 1929 they fought and won the right to have women declared persons under the law. She's also believed to have been the first female judge in the British Empire. So on the one hand she's this accomplished credible person.

AMT: And there is always a but.

GEOFF TURNER: Murphy is less fondly remembered for her support of eugenics and forced sterilization. She also wrote a very problematic book about drugs called The Black Candle.

AMT: Why problematic?

GEOFF TURNER: Well the book was essentially a collection of articles about drugs that had already been published in McClain's magazine over the previous decade. There was stuff about cocaine and some other drugs but most of it dealt with the scourge of opium and her fears about that drug were all bundled up with some pretty racist depictions of the role of Chinese Canadians in the drug trade, worries about white slavery and the idea that white women were especially vulnerable to the nefarious Chinese pushers.

AMT: What did she have to say about marijuana?

GEOFF TURNER: Well not very much actually. There is one seven page chapter on cannabis titled Marijuana the New Menace and I'll read you a choice passage from that. This is a quote that Murphy attributes to the then chief of Los Angeles police who said: "Persons using this narcotics smoked the dried leaves of this plant which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Well in this condition they become raving maniacs who are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons using the most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility".

AMT: And this about marijuana?

GEOFF TURNER: Yes. Does that sound at all familiar to you?

AMT: She's writing this in what year?

GEOFF TURNER: 1922.

AMT: What does the public conversation about marijuana at this point?

GEOFF TURNER: Well more or less non-existent. So the popular history is that Canadians including policymakers get hold of this sensational book by Emily Murphy and they all rush out to ban cannabis.

AMT: Is that true?

GEOFF TURNER: Well according to University of Guelph Historian Catherine Carstairs the truth is probably a little more dry and bureaucratic than that.

SOUNDCLIP

Certainly she spearheaded a moral panic about drug use. But it was a 400 page book and this one seven page chapter about marijuana in it. I don’t think that was the deciding factor. What happened was cannabis discussion at international meetings that were being held and I think Canada came away from those meetings and that 'well, okay, this might not be much of an issue in Canada but clearly there is a problem elsewhere and so we'd be better off just adding it to the schedule now'. So there is virtually no discussion or debate around cannabis to the schedule of restricted drugs.

GEOFF TURNER: So Anna Maria as much as I love the story of a dodgy piece of propaganda capturing the hearts and minds of Canadians and their leaders. It actually doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

AMT: Too bad the facts massing up a story do that.

GEOFF TURNER: I know.

AMT: So interesting. So what sort of effect did prohibition have?

GEOFF TURNER: Well funnily enough when you ban something that nobody is actually using, nothing much happens. In fact the first conviction for cannabis possession wasn't until 1937, so 14 years after the drug was criminalized. And for even four decades after that there were rarely more than a couple of dozen cannabis arrests in a year. As late as 1961 there were only 21 police reported cannabis offences in all of Canada.

AMT: But we know it didn't stay that way forever. So what changed?

GEOFF TURNER: Well one thing that really changed is the policy on the south of our border. From 1930 on the US was at war against cannabis Harry J. Anslinger was the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics for 32 years and he was kind of obsessed with the stuff. He fed the media these lurid and violent stories of marijuana users gone wild.

AMT: And you've got examples of that?

GEOFF TURNER: Well he favoured tales that implicated Mexican migrant workers or anything that had any kind of undercurrent of interracial sex. These stories get really wide play in American papers and magazines. This is also the era of films like Reefer Madness and Assassin of Youth films that we know played in Canada and got the tacit support of Anslinger and his crew. And here's a little bit of the theatrical trailer for Reefer Madness.

SOUNDCLIP

These high school boys and girls are having a hop at a local soda fountain. Innocently they dance - innocent of a new and deadly menace lurking behind closed doors: Marijuana, the burning weed with its roots in hell.

AMT: The burning weed with its roots in hell!

GEOFF TURNER: It's a really subtle approach. And in case people think that this picture of marijuana use was just a product of an American propaganda machine, I want to play a little clip from CBC Radio. This was originally broadcast on February 13th, 1959 on a program called Assignment and I want you to pay special attention to the framing of this first question.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Well now the beatniks of San Francisco and New York have frequently been damned as the worthless riffraff of the farther out bohemians rather lazy wastrels who smoke marijuana and indulge in orgies, this is the popular concept, is this at all true?

VOICE 2: Oh yes certainly.

AMT: Well that is a loaded question, eh. That is on CBC, 1959.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes. I think the T-test not to frame questions in quite that way, these days.

AMT: And to call people lazy wastrels, yes.

GEOFF TURNER: I find that clip fascinating for a couple of reasons. Obviously that question is a zinger for one but you also hear marijuana being associated with a counter culture and a rejection of conventional values. That tape from 1959 so we're about to enter the decade when everything changed and for a sense of that I talked to Susan Boyd. She's the author of Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

I think you could say that it was in some ways a rejection of consciousness or what would be called conventional consciousness and an exploration of altered states of conscienceless.

GEOFF TURNER: And Susan Boyd says that that desire for altered consciousness went along with some other big factors. People were travelling internationally in large numbers for the first time and having exotic experiences abroad, maybe bringing a little something home with them like drugs. And of course you have this huge generation of young people, the baby boomers with time and money on their hands. So nearly 40 years after it is outlawed Canadians started to actually discover marijuana.

AMT: And how did the law respond to that?

GEOFF TURNER: \Well at last there was enough marijuana actually being used to make use of the law. As late as 1964 there were only 39 arrests for cannabis possession in all of Canada but by 1967 that number was up to 431 and by 1971 there were 8,389 police reported incidents involving cannabis.

AMT: So some would see that as a late vindication of prohibition.

GEOFF TURNER: Right, depending on how you view the social cost of marijuana. Absolutely and those cannabis related arrest numbers might have been broadly seen as an appropriate response, except for who was getting arrested.

AMT: And who was getting arrested?

GEOFF TURNER: Well if these were in fact the murderous sex fiends that Emily Murphy and Harry J. Anslinger imagined that would be one thing but according to Susan Boyd that's not at all who was getting busted.

SOUNDCLIP

I think eventually parents across Canada felt that their children were being treated unfairly. I mean these are families that had never heard encounters with criminal justice before and it frightened them at that time that their child for one joint to two joints of cannabis could be sent to prison.

GEOFF TURNER: Keep in mind that up to this point a lot of anti-marijuana propaganda associated the drug was socially and racially marginalized people.

AMT: That's really important. So it's one thing when it's dangerous beatniks and people love colour. And another thing when it's the good white kids from the so-called nice families.

GEOFF TURNER: Essentially, yes. I found something again in the CBC archives that demonstrates how this reckoning was going on in public. This is from 1969.

SOUNDCLIP

The CBC explores controversial areas of education, visiting Canadian high schools. Today from York Mills Collegiate, Willowdale Ontario, our topic is drugs and the teenagers, with It's Debatable regular moderator Elwi Yost.

[Applause]

Kate Levitt is the use of drugs is really widespread or not among teenagers, particularly high school teenagers?

The opinions range from about 40 percent to 60 percent of high school students have tried marijuana once and are perhaps regular users.

I can only talk from my own experience but the number of kids that I have met that take grass is just phenomenal. Like athletes too. [Laughter] Supposed straights are like doing grass now.

AMT: I don't know where to start with one Geoff, the [unintelligible] and on the CBC so serious have had those bad teenagers.

GEOFF TURNER: Amazing isn't it.

AMT: Really.

GEOFF TURNER: Remember the contrast with that tape about the beatniks how that place marijuana use way at the fringes of society. Here we are 10 years later, York Mills Collegiate and we're trying to get a handle on just how many middle class kids are smoking weed.

AMT: So how did policymakers respond to all of this?

GEOFF TURNER: Yes well almost immediately the government of Pierre Trudeau moved to address what they saw as a big problem. The same year that clip from York Mill's collegiate 1969 the government formed the Commission of Inquiry into the none medical use of drugs which we now know better as the Ledain commission. This was a response to the general explosion of drug use among young people, LSD, speed, heroin, cocaine but a lot of the attention was paid to cannabis. The commission published several interim report but the one from 1972 really created a stir.

AMT: So what were the findings from that commission?

GEOFF TURNER: Well I read from the list of recommendations on cannabis because that's what's important to us here. It read: "The cost to a significant number of individuals, the majority of whom are young people into society generally have a policy of prohibition of simple possession are not justified by the potential for harm of cannabis and the additional influence which such a policy is likely to have upon perception of harm demand and availability. We therefore recommend the repeal of the prohibition against the simple possession of cannabis". So that's not legalization in the sense that we're about to see in Canada in 2018 but that was pretty bold language in 1972.

AMT: Sure sounds like it. The government gets this report with that language, how does it respond?

GEOFF TURNER: Well in the grand Canadian tradition the government thank the commissioners for their excellent work and then they put the report on the shelf and they basically ignored it.

AMT: So nothing changed.

GEOFF TURNER: Nothing significant. And for many marijuana to us this marks the beginning of the dark ages. So you remember in 1971 there were a little more than 8000 police reported cannabis offences. Well six years later the number was 50,168. And except for a dip towards the late 80s and early 90s that's roughly around the number that it would remain per year up to the present day.

AMT: So how do we get from that to the verge of legalization now in 2018?

GEOFF TURNER: Well I have to narrow it a little bit here and it would be very hard to tell this story quickly without giving short shrift to a lot of people who have been fighting for legalization for a long time. But there are two people that we have to hear from. One of them is the BC lawyer John Conroy. One of his colleagues told me that he has probably argued more marijuana cases than any other Canadian lawyer. I can't verify that but I know he's done a lot.

AMT: And when does John Conroy enter the picture?

GEOFF TURNER: Well coincidentally he started practicing law in 1972, the very same year the Ledain commission recommended the decriminalization of possession of cannabis and pretty quickly he started taking a lot of cases of young people in trouble for pot.

AMT: And so he becomes an activist.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes. And in 1978 he helped charter the group NORML Canada the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And the stated mandate of the group is to eliminate all civil and criminal penalties for private marijuana use through government lobbying, public education, research and legislative and judicial challenges.

AMT: And I think I know the answer to this but how successful were they?

GEOFF TURNER: Well it's hard to calculate the incremental effect of what they were trying to do but on a case by case basis it was a very tough slog. He wound up having to find novel legal arguments including this one involving the 1993 arrest of a BC man that made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

SOUNDCLIP

A fellow called Randy Caine approached me and he had been at the beach at White Rock with a friend and they got in the car, and an officer came to the side of the car and because he'd seen him smoking a joint and busted in for simple possession. So Randy came to me and wanted to challenge the law. So we said well John Stuart Mill said that you know you shouldn't be - I am paraphrasing - using the criminal law, the big stick for something that's not causing any harm to others. You should reserve the criminal law for important serious things. Unfortunately at the end of the day the Supreme Court of Canada didn't agree so they upheld the constitutionality of the law. But they made it pretty clear in their judgement. They've summarized of the lack of evidence of and work there was and what there was in turn also repeated a couple of times you know Parliament can easily undo this.

GEOFF TURNER: So basically Anna Maria the majority opinion said nice try with your fancy John Stuart Mill references but it's really up to Parliament to decide what kinds of harms are tolerable in society.

AMT: So what changed the political calculation for Justin Trudeau and the liberals?

GEOFF TURNER: Well this is where it gets really interesting to me because it's at least partly thanks to a teenage girl from West Vancouver named Hilary Black. In the early days she just wanted to be a dead head.

SOUNDCLIP

My dad made me promise that I would wait till I graduated high school before I went away on Grateful Dead to her and as soon as I graduated from high school I took off and went to a bunch of Grateful Dead shows and I learned about hemp and about how hemp could save the planet. Hemp for fuel, hemp for fiber, hemp for fun, hemp for nutrition, hemp for medicine.

GEOFF TURNER: So Hillary was keen and when she came back from a tour she started hanging around hemp B.C a store which had just opened in 1995 and she hung around there until they hired her and it was during this time that Hillary made a crucial connection.

SOUNDCLIP

There was a older women who used to call the store all the time with her questions about medical cannabis and she was bed ridden with pretty serious arthritis and eventually she wanted to try it. So she was the first person that I ever really gave cannabis to. And I went over to her apartment and she buzzed me in and then I climbed up on her bed with her and I rolled a joint and we smoked it together. She was like a block and as the effects of the joint sunk in she became like a cat, like a cat stretching is what I mean. And in that moment I saw like a big wall and one side is this plant and on the other side is this ocean of people that are suffering and that their suffering can be affected by breaking down that wall.

GEOFF TURNER: So Anna Maria I don't want to get into the relative merits of medical marijuana here, that's a whole other complicated question. Lots of debate to come. But Hillary black just describe what many people advocate as the therapeutic use of cannabis.

AMT: Hmm. And that becomes the political driver.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah and it's not completely obvious at first but at this point very few people are talking about the possible health benefits. It's 1996 and Hillary does some hemp related travel to Amsterdam in California and she comes home with a fire in her belly about the potential for marijuana as medicine. And in this next clip you're going to hear an important word that I want you to listen for.

SOUNDCLIP

Back then in the mid nineties HIV and hepatitis C were being transmitted at epidemic rates in Vancouver and probably the first 100 or 150 people that I was distributing cannabis to were mostly all from the HIV and AIDS community. So they would take me out to their events and pass out my flyers and introduce me to whatever politicians were out at the events that they were taking me to and I remember my like four differing big jars of cannabis, then I officially opened my doors and that was May 1st, 1997.

GEOFF TURNER: So Hillary is describing the origins of the Compassion Club the first medical marijuana dispensary in Canada. And you probably caught the important word in there Anna Maria.

AMT: I think it's the word politicians.

GEOFF TURNER: Exactly. So right from the beginning, barely out of high school Hillary black recognized that whatever the social and medical implications of the Compassion Club it was fundamentally a political endeavour. Then for a long time some people thought that what she was doing was weird but then she noticed attitude started to change.

SOUNDCLIP

So my grandma when she would go to the yacht club or go to bridge her friends would say to her 'oh I saw that pot dealing granddaughter of yours in the newspaper again,' and there was some stigma around it and then David Suzuki and The Nature of Things did a special on my Compassion Club. And that was a absolute landmark moment for us in terms of shifting the acceptance and the stigma around the work that were doing. Now my grandma's friends were saying to her 'Ah! I saw your granddaughter on The Nature of Things with David Suzuki.

AMT: Oh my goodness so the interviews change on the CBC [laughs].

GEOFF TURNER: Yes and the next thing you know Hillary has members of the Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs touring the Compassion Club.

AMT: So suddenly she's getting the political attention that marijuana activists have been longing for.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes and so where most of the big court battles for marijuana rights had gone nowhere, for proponents of medical marijuana it was one legal victory after the next. And I should mentioned also that John Conroy who was involved in a lot of these battles as well. He was actually Hillery's go to lawyer and he chartered the Compassion Club.

AMT: So eventually these winds around medical marijuana shift the political landscape.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes. Hillary and others normalise the idea of cannabis as medicine and the courts affirmed that.

AMT: But still that was 20 years ago, Geoff.

GEOFF TURNER: That's true but you may remember Paul Martin's government had plans for decriminalization that died when parliament was dissolved. So they got close. And even under Stephen Harper's Conservatives who were opposed to legalization, the legal momentum for medical marijuana just kept building.

AMT: To the point where Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party actually campaigned on a promise to legalize marijuana when they get to power.

GEOFF TURNER: And Canadians elected them and here we are. This legislation that were we're looking at now is essentially based on the same calculation that the Dean commission arrived at 45 years ago that the harms associated with marijuana don't warrant criminal penalty.

AMT: So you've given us a picture of a couple of key players on the road from prohibition to legalization. What happens to them once the legal battle is no longer there to fight?

GEOFF TURNER: The people that I spoke to have certainly landed on their feet. Hillary Black is now the director of patient education and advocacy at Canopy Growth. If that name sounds familiar it's because Canopy is Canada's biggest licensed marijuana producer. Just for perspective, Constellation Brands this is the company that owns Corona beer and my Modelo beer, they bought a 10 per cent stake in Canopy for 245 million dollars.

AMT: Big business now. What about John Conroy? Doesn't legalization mean that he's essentially fought himself out of a job?

GEOFF TURNER: You would think so. Not according to him. When John and I parted ways he gave me his card which now reads International Cannabis Consultants Ltd. He'd recently been to a cannabis Expo and after seeing the vast array of vendors he thinks the future is bright.

SOUNDCLIP

This is really the sort of interesting quote from the days of coming in from Los Angeles, bringing in a couple of kids was the Arlo Guthrie line if you remember to walking around in there is these booths and there is all of these products; pet treats and all these things. A huge industry. There are going to have to somehow be brought in and they're going to need lawyers like me to help them do it [laughs].

AMT: It sounds pretty optimistic about their job prospects there but it really does underline how big an industry it already has.

GEOFF TURNER: Yes and I think he's well positioned for that. It's a brave new world and he's been a part of that for a long time.

AMT: So fascinating Geoff Turner thank you.

GEOFF TURNER: My pleasure Anna Maria.

AMT: Geoff Turner host of the CBC original pod cast On Drugs. You can hear more about cannabis prohibition in his latest episode. Subscribe at our podcast or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Let us know what you think of what he's dug up from the history of marijuana. You can tweet us. We are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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AMT: In our next half hour we go to Syria where the war is escalating they say, yet again although it sounds as if it just keeps on escalating, keeps on getting worse. Talking about Syria when we come back I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

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As civilian deaths in Syria continue to rise, proxy conflicts are making it worse

Guests: Marwa Awad, Bessma Momani, Murtaza Hussain

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. It's been another devastating few days in the seemingly never ending war in Syria. The Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta is the latest flashpoint. It's a rebel held on clay that was once known as the breadbasket of Damascus. And it is under siege by Syrian government forces. It's being reduced to rubble by air strikes. Residents and insurgents in that area say the firepower is coming from Russian jets and Syrian helicopters. Everything appears to be a target. Doctors Without Borders says 13 hospitals and medical clinics have been damaged in the shelling. The Syrian American Medical Society says at least 260 people have been killed, 500 have been injured in the latest bombings and survivors are pleading for help.

SOUNDCLIP

MOHAMMAD: Hello I am Mohammad Najem from Eastern Ghouta. I am 15 years old.

RAGHAD: Hi I am Raghad. I am 13 years old. I am a child under the siege of Eastern Ghouta. We have suffered a lot. We have lived seven years of war.

MOHAMMAD AND RAGHAD: We want to live in peace.

AMT: Hard to hear there. That is a 15 year old named Mohammad Najem and his cousin Raghad calling for an end to seven years of bloodshed. 'We want to live in peace' they say at the end. Both live in Eastern Ghouta. Mohammad has been posting videos to social media during the siege.

SOUNDCLIP

The humanitarian and medical situation in Eastern Ghouta was difficult to describe with words. What is happening now is genocide.

AMT: Last week the World Food Program had managed to get into Eastern Ghouta but it was only able to deliver a tiny fraction of food and medicine needed for the area's 400,000 residents. And while Eastern Ghouta remains cut off and under assault, the U.N. agency has found a little ray of hope. It's in Deir Ezzor in Eastern Syria which the Syrian army recaptured from ISIS last fall. The World Food Program has been able to return there. Marwa Awad was among those who went to Deir Ezzor just last week. She is the World Food Program's communications officer in Syria. And we've reached her in Damascus. Hello.

MARWA AWAD: Hi there.

AMT: Tell me what you saw as you drove in. What does the city look like now?

MARWA AWAD: So yes last week we drove in it was a milestone mission for the U.N. in Syria. We went in as an assessment mission to check out the food security situation and talk to the people there after the lifting of the siege and see what the situation was like. The city is nearly devastated completely decimated except for about 20 percent of the area, maybe two or three neighborhoods where most people are now gathered and living there, over 100,000 people. This area was under siege and split in half. We visited the section on the western side that was still within government control. The buildings are still standing however, too much congestion, a lot of people living in one area and desperately trying to make a living selling scraps that they're collecting from the other side of the city on the eastern side which was actually held by ISIS fighters.

AMT: And how much of the infrastructure is actually working?

MARWA AWAD: Very little. Actually there is no electricity. People are buying electricity or getting electricity through generators. And one family told me they pay 6000 Syrian pounds which is around 12 dollars a week. That's a lot of money for electricity. They only get there for five hours per day. The water is not clean. The lucky ones live on the first floor can get a good flow of water through the faucets but the majority of people - We met actually several families who told us that they're living with other families in one or two rooms. So the water is not enough for those folks as well.

AMT: So you're making the point there are three neighborhoods that they've sort of congregated in and some are squatting. How much of the city was actually destroyed?

MARWA AWAD: About 80 percent. I think we can confirm that. 80 percent of it was completely wiped out. And we're talking rubble, mud. You can't just live in these areas anymore. One guy that I met who actually almost moved me to tears, I was very upset to be speaking to him- We met him on one of the streets that was held by ISIS fighters. His name was Ali and he told me, "Look I used to live here and my home just over there," and he pointed across the street had been demolished or you know reduced to rubble. I ask him what he's doing now because I was curious he was rummaging around looking for stuff and he said "now I'm collecting scraps and I make four dollars a week to provide for my family of five people". His wife and four children. So it's very sad to see that a lot of people have lost their livelihoods and their homes. Not only that but now they have to try and pay high rent to survive and to live on a day to day basis.

AMT: And you're making the point that the road is now open to Deir Ezzor which means humanitarian aid can get into the city. How significant is that, Marwa?

MARWA AWAD: Well it's very significant and it's a milestone because we're trying to tell the world that look when you are living under siege or you're living in besiegement you're a prisoner to outside circumstances. You can't do anything. You can't provide food for yourself. You can't take your children to school. You can't take your loved ones to the hospital. You're constantly under siege. Once that siege is lifted, once there is access, then there is that ray of hope as you noted. We can roll in the trucks, bring in that lifesaving humanitarian assistance, save lives and rebuild them.

AMT: How was food getting in before?

MARWA AWAD: So before it was through airdrops, high altitude air drops from the height of 17 feet high. We would drop food and other humanitarian assistance on behalf of the entire U.N. community here, five days a week. There was a drop zone that our evolution officers had ensured that they were safe and we could stop the food in there so that our local partner on the ground can then collect the food and give to the people. And it was actually one of the things optimistic angles so this mission, is that when I went there I met with the people who were receiving our airdrops and they said "oh you're the people who were running those airdrops. Thank you very much." So it just gave us an understanding of how much such aid can save lives. And this is why we're calling on all the, you know, the Syrian government as well as all parties to the conflict to allow for a cessation of hostilities so that we can save other lives elsewhere across Syria.

AMT: And of course we're seeing a lot of hostility right now with Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. A small world food program convoy got in there last week, what are conditions like there?

MARWA AWAD: Yes well we're witnessing the worst escalation in violence and fighting in the past two years. You have violence on multiple fronts you've mentioned Eastern Ghouta. There's also Edlib and Effrin and there is also retaliatory fire that's coming into Damascus as well injuring and killing a few people. The situation is dismal. We were only allowed to bring in food for 7200 people. This is two and a half percent of the total needs inside. The people we were delivering this food had told us Look 'we're going to have to split each ration into five different portions so that we can cover the maximum number of vulnerable families as possible'. So people are very hungry and extremely malnourished, especially children.

AMT: So how many people in Syria are in need of humanitarian aid at this point?

MARWA AWAD: So in terms of humanitarian aid you're looking at 13.5 million specifically food insecure people that's six point five million. So we are warning that the fighting needs to stop so that we can cover all those needs. Right now we're covering the needs of three million people across all 14 governments of Syria.

AMT: I'm wondering what it's like for you when you finally get into one of these places as you did last week and you see it up close because you had to deal with it so like from a distance because it was under siege? What goes through your mind? Do you think? How do you react?

MARWA AWAD: Well Deir Ezzor was reaffirming to me and to my team members who were there because we were here since the siege time of the siege. We saw how difficult it was for people and yet we couldn't reach them. We couldn't speak to them. It was it was just airdrop after air drop. But when we went in I just saw how important humanitarian workers are in areas of conflict because you bring hope to people. Yes it's true that access sometimes is hindered and we're seeing this happening in Eastern Ghouta but this is where we come in and we say look or we have recommendations and we put call upon call for a stop the cessation of violence. But once that stops then we know how it can save lives.

AMT: Well it's quite extraordinary to see the pictures coming out now and to hear just how many people are still in need of a great deal of help. Thank you for speaking with me today.

MARWA AWAD: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Marwa Awad, a communications officer with the World Food Program in Syria we reached her in Damascus. Well it does seem to be a war without end and one that is fuelled by outside power supporting proxy combatants. The United States, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Isreal are now stirring the cauldron and armed groups such as Hezbollah and Kurdish militias are also contributing to the bloody mix. To discuss why this conflict is expanding and escalating I'm joined by Bessma Momani. She is a professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She joins us from Waterloo Ontario. And Murtaza Hussain as a reporter with The Intercept the online investigative news publication. He joins us from New York City. Hello.

BESSMA MOMANI: Hello.

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Hello.

AMT: Bessma Momani, let's start with you. Marwa just makes the point that this is like one of the worst escalations in fighting in two years. In a war that's seen so many deadly flash points, how bad is what we're seeing right now?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well I think we were looking at Ghouta in particular it's the scale of the people involved and we're looking at 400,000 civilians in a very small cramped quarter completely surrounded by regime forces where there is a starvation, basically a technique to starve these people to submission. And we had horrible images and I think many people were mortified with what happened with Aleppo last year. When we were talking about you know 30 to 40 thousand people trapped in Aleppo, this is at a scale we've never seen before. So I think you know Ghouta is something that is going to come at a time when frankly the world is kind of fatigued with hearing about Syria but really is at the scale of what we saw in Screbenica, what we saw in Grozny, what we saw in other places where the attempt to root out rebels is really just about complete sheer devastation.

AMT: Murtaza Hussain, with the defeat of ISIS in the last several months some would have thought the situation would be settling down not escalating.

BESSMA MOMANI: I think the defeat of ISIS actually has allowed the underlying conflicts which predated the rise of ISIS to reassert themselves. ISIS first became prominent and began to take large amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria around 2014 and there was a need of, for all parties to either postpone their conflicts or pause them or even to ally to fight ISIS in certain areas. Now that ISIS for the most part has been defeated in both those countries, in Syria in particular we're seeing a thaw which is allowing the conflicts which began in 2011 to reassert themselves a good force.

AMT: And that's been played out almost on an international scale, eh Mutaza?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: The issue is that the strategies which were used to defeat ISIS in many ways laid the seeds for a further conflict in the future. But what you seeing even outside Ghouta in northern Syria. Turkey's competition with the YPG is in large part of the fact that the YPG has gained strength because they were the United States and the international committees, local ground forces and the fight against ISIS, and they were armed by the U.S. to fight ISIS. And because of that decision Turkey perceived the anti-ISIS war as a long term threat to its own interests because it was hostilities with the YPG and in many ways the conflict was seeing there right now is because of the anti-ISIS war. And even in Ghouta and Edlib and in other places where there were so called de-escalations zones between rebel forces and the Syrian government. Now that ISIS is defeated in the east of the country you're seeing these de-escalations all armed were not the first steps towards this cease fire or peace agreement but they were rather strategic decisions made by the regime and their allies to temporarily pause the fighting to focus on ISIS and now they reassert the fighting with force in those areas where they previously been paused.

AMT: So let's talk a little bit about the specific players and their interests. Bessma Momani what is the U.S.'s primary interest in Syria?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well I mean I think at one point it was about defeating ISIS. That's always been their prime objective. We know that they were not really galvanized to do much when it came to supporting either the rebels or frankly trying to bring an end to the Assad regime. I think that still holds. But of course as Murtaza said it was really the fight against ISIS that galvanized the international community response. Now that that is primarily completed almost I think we're now looking at the challenge where the Americans are trying to decide about what is the future threat. I would say that the biggest one they see is the potential for Iran to continue to be able to arm and fund Hezbollah through a Syrian corridor. So that's why we see them allied with much of the Kurdish forces primarily the YPG the SDF, PYD. All of these acronyms are all frankly they're all interrelated and they're using them as the proxies on the ground to try and prevent that land to root connection. That of course is something that resonates in Washington looking at this as an anti-Iranian force. But make no mistake this is not about rebuilding Syria or for the Syrian people, there's a larger geostrategic issue at play.

AMT: And of course they're using the Kurdish forces they also owe the Kurdish forces because they really help defeat ISIS but the Turks are wary of the Kurdish forces.

BESSMA MOMANI: Well absolutely and remember here I think we have to be you know sympathetic to the Kurdish forces here because there were no willing - both Western governments and even you know regional governments - willing to put boots on the ground to really fight against ISIS. We were very happy to contribute aerial support, military advisers and the rest but none of us want to put our soldiers on the front line and so the Kurdish forces really were the ones that primarily took the street by street battle. They've become a very effective fighting force. But let's make no mistake these forces that I mentioned the PYD, YPG, SDF, all these acronyms they're all interconnected back to the PKK which is a terrorist organization deemed to be such in Turkey and the wider western world. So you know it's complicated of course but it's sort of the best that we can do under terrible circumstances.

AMT: So let's get into more of the complication. U.S. air strikes reportedly killed 100 Russian mercenaries near and Deir Ezzor earlier this month. It was the first direct combat between Russia and the U.S. since the end of the Cold War. What's the significance of that?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well I think it's very important. I mean you know this is just one of many potential flash points. The other one I would point out is that we have already calls by the Turks to go into Manbij. That's an area where there are American advisors at least 200 military advisors there supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces or these Kurdish backed militias and so you know there are many many potential flash points. I think there are many conversations in the background both between the Americans and the Russians and the Americans and the Turks we know that's happening but you know we're talking about such small spaces and so many frankly convoluted alliances and you know these these forces that seemed to be dispersed throughout the country. So there's just lots of room for error.

AMT: And Murtaza, it gets more convoluted. Russia and the U.S. are coordinating the safe use of Syrian air space and there's been some suggestion there was active cooperation and coordination between the U.S. Russia and Syrian forces during specific military efforts against ISIS last year. Are the Russians and the U.S. allies or are they enemies in Syria?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: They have different shared interests, bit seems in the long term there are great diversioncies. Russia of course is allied with Iran at least in Syria at tactically pinpoint. And Iran's interests in Syria totally inimical to the United States, as Bessma mentioned with regards to the land bridge and connections to Hezbollah and parties which are threats to Israel. So while there are certainly tactical arguments between Russia and the united states, in particular we saw that in the war against ISIS, it seems like the fundamental political disagreements about the long term trajectory of Syria, and Iranian influences in the country, and the security preferences of Israel are going to lead to some major breaking point in the foreseeable future.

AMT: Well tell me a little bit more about that because we can't talk about Iran without the Israel involvement after it intercepted an Iranian drone that flew into Israeli airspace, not that was just days ago.

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Well in addition to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe for Syrians as a result of the war, a big fear is that this conflict is laying the groundwork for another major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and a nexus of other groups which have now been created out of the wreckage of this conflict backed by Iran. So, depending on the political outcome of this conflict you may very well see Isreal thing to bomb targets in Syria, to bomb targets in Lebanon and you've already seen some of that over the last few weeks. And it's very very possible that we could be seeing not the end of the Syrian conflict the beginning of a new even larger conflict which draws in potentially Israel and potentially to some extent great powers such as Russia and the United States. And that is the real threat. It's a serious consideration that this conflict even though people are fatigued of it. It's not anywhere near its conclusion and may be on the road to escalating in a very consequential manner.

AMT: So you're saying is it as opposed to a proxy war which is what has been playing out with great devastation, the bigger powers would get even more involved?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: I think unintentionally or intentionally there's a risk of a great power conflict in Syria because so many powers are now involved and you see incidents like the killings of the Russian mercenaries. There was a shoot down of a Russian jet recently using anti-aircraft weaponry which could not have been indigenously procured by Syrians. As these incidences pile up, if there is reckless political decisions on the part of Russians or the United States you can very well see an unintentional conflict generate. And even beyond that given what's Israel's interests are in the countries surrounding it you may see a conflict begin that forces the United States to get involved for instance. On opposite sides, the Russians, or the Turks or other belligerent parties.

AMT: Bessma Momani, what do you think?

BESSMA MOMANI: I couldn't agree more. I would just add that you know once you look at frankly the domestic politics of all of these actors it gets more complicated because you know we have loose cannons like in the case of the United States. We have you know governments and leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel who are you know dodging corruption allegations and want to deflect - we know that war is often used as a policy to deflect away from domestic problems in Israel. And so you have just so many of these you know internal challenges in these interested parties. I would say Turkey as well an upcoming election, Erdogan who continues to thrive on a coalition that makes him look tough and hit really hard on the Kurdish forces. You know all of this just is horrifying and it's often the Syrian civilians who still will be caught in the middle of all of this you know great great regional rivalry.

AMT: I was just going to ask you the Syrian civilians are stuck in that. It's like they're taking the weight of the world.

BESSMA MOMANI: They sure are. I mean they you know they faced so many - Think about it from you know the horrors of the Syrian regime to the horrors of ISIS to continuous bombing by I should say Russian policy that really replicates what they did in Chechnya to now potentially you know regional rivalries between various parties from the Israelis, the Turks and to the Iranians all involved. It really is a very sad tale of what may be coming in the future for the Syrian people.

AMT: Murtaza, is there any way this can be deescalated?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: You know it is a very good question. The conflict has become so convoluted and involving so many actors and as Bessma mentioned the domestic politics of other countries. The best hope that people saw originally for taking a step towards ending the conflict was the Astana process which involved Russia, Turkey, Syria and other parties trying to find ceasefire de-escalation zones in the country which many hoped would be the first step towards a political negotiation. It seems now that the cease fire, the locals cease fires that were negotiated were actually a tactical step to divide and pause the fight strategically and pick it up again. So, I don't see any political solution or any prospect of a political solution based on current events. It seems that the Syrian government is very committed to a maximalist ending to the conflict where it would reassert control over the entire country. And its allies are willing to support that with brutal airstrikes and political support and cover of the United Nations. So I think that this conflict is actually not even in its late stage is perhaps in its early to would middle ages. And as things stand right now, with the United position and Russia's position I don't see a negotiate conflict in the immediate future.

AMT: Bessma, what about you do you see anything?

BESSMA MOMANI: I don't and I think for the same reasons that Murtaza highlighted but I would just add that you know I think we are in an order now and internationally where there is just no you know there's no no hegemon. Nobody who is willing to say you know we must do it this way or else. We have the United Nations that's divided the Security Council. We have a disgraced U.S. presidency that you know ensures that there is no leadership on that front. And we have again very much emboldened regional actors who have their own narrative of what is the major security threat that they face and it's all playing out in Syria. Again we know that the Syrians that end up sort of hearing or feeling all of these conflicts come to their backyard. You know I would just also point out that you know the Syrian regime is also you know relishing in this because it has been able to basically point out to its people that you know this entire revolution was very much foreign inspired one that it was directed by forces abroad. The fact that you have these international actors now you know acting out within the country just proves that. So it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy from a narrative very early on that this was never indigenous.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Thank you for your insights. Paint a very bleak picture. Thank you.

BESSMA MOMANI: Thank you.

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Thank you.

AMT: Bessma Momani professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo Ontario. And Murtaza Hussain a reporter with The Intercept. The online investigative news publication in New York City. That is our program today. Stay with Radio 1 for Q Jennifer Podemski the Canadian actor and producer who's worked on television shows such as Moccasin Flats and Dance Me Outside will be honored with an award of excellence from Actor Toronto for her contributions toward gender equity and spotlighting indigenous issues through the media. She is Tom Power's guest coming up. Earlier we took a look back at Canada's history with marijuana. We are leaving you today with a trip back to April of 1967 and a look at Toronto's pot seen through the CBC Archives. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: In spite of new medical reports on the dangers of marijuana and particularity LSD both drugs are found in the Yorkville area of Toronto There are commercial possibilities beyond just paddling the drugs.

VOICE 2: Yorkville's newest boutique. It could be a [unintelligible] idea of a dream come true. Gandalf’s is Canada's first psychedelic [unintelligible] or as the hippies and trippies around here call it a head shop.

VOICE 3: What would you smoke in this pipe? it looks like it's a marijuana pipe.

VOICE 4: Well quite frankly it probably would be used by some people as a marijuana pipe. I wouldn't use that.

VOICE 2: One of the proud owners of Gandalf’s, Larry [unintelligible] says there are already plans to open new head shops in Montreal and Vancouver in the next few weeks.

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Thursday February 22, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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