Welcome to Hawaii, the state of clean energy. I'm your host, Mitch Ewen. Our underwriter is the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, which is a program under the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. I'm very pleased to welcome our guest today, Megan Russell. She's a graduate assistant working for the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Megan, welcome to the show. Thanks, Mitch. Good to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you here. Our topic today is going to be the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, funnily enough, under new management. Throughout its history, the forum has constantly strived to remain relevant and at the front edge of Hawaii's energy policy space and adjusted its programs to support Hawaii's evolving energy situation in all its many facets. HNEI has recently taken over the overall management of the forum and has a new leadership team. And as with all the leadership teams, they have new ideas and new initiatives going forward from 2022 and beyond, including broader membership, more outreach, and analytic-based policy development. So we're going to be talking story with Megan about the progress being made in this transition and some of the early results of interviews and past and potentially new stakeholders. Megan, tell us about the new program and how it's evolving. And let's have slide number one to help guide us through this. Perfect. So like you mentioned, Mitch, we've been restarted. We're under new management. Our principal investigator is Mark Glick. And then Dallas Igay and myself are the graduate assistants that are aiding in this effort to revitalize the forum. So our three energy transition focus areas are up on the screen as you can see. Number one, being the high penetration renewable analysis and planning. Number two is our energy transition policy and regulations. And then our third area here is white innovation initiative. And as we've been re-engaging our stakeholders, we've been sending them these three areas to get feedback on them, understand what the needs of our stakeholders are and using that to really be the driver for how the forum proceeds. So if we can... So I have a couple of questions on that. So one of the issues, not an issue, but one of the ideas we've had is, is there still an interest? Because we've had at least about a two-year delay or where we've gone basically out of business through the COVID changes in management, a whole variety of things. So what is in the reaction from, A, the existing stakeholders and new people? Is there still that same interest in having this kind of a forum in Hawaii? There really is. As we've talked to people, especially our previous stakeholders, we've gotten a really positive response. People are excited to come back and start discussing energy policy in this space again. I think the forum really provides a unique space for that discussion, for productive discussions on these difficult questions relating to energy. And especially with COVID-19, we saw a lot of changes that needed to be addressed. And we've seen a lot of, for lack of a better term, weak points in our system. And people are ready to jump in and engage and talk with us about that and create solutions to these problems. So is there any like overarching theme that you've been able to identify from? I mean, what is driving that interest? I think really what's driving the interest, I mean, overarching themes from our interviews, we've talked a lot about equity and we've also talked a lot about resource adequacy and inviting new people into this space. So one of the main changes that we've seen from the previous forum is broader membership opportunities. We're really opening up to more individuals, more organizations, all for the purpose of garnering these diverse voices that we have access to in the state. I think we're so lucky to live in a diverse space and we have such diverse energy needs that opening up the forum to more people will help us to get those viewpoints to create creative solutions and maybe think outside of the box a little bit more. Yeah, I've always thought that even from day one when I first joined the forum a zillion years ago one of the things that we lacked was maybe showing a balanced view of various policies. Like, okay, we were more supporting a given policy rather than presenting a more complete picture of the pros and cons of each proposal that went forward to the legislature. I've always thought that if I was a legislature, a legislator, I'd wanna know what the good things are and what the potential hooks are or unintended consequences are. And then I can make my own decision. I don't need somebody to tell me whether it's good or not. Just tell me why it's, what it fixes and what the potential downsides are. Can you comment on that? Of course. So, and some of the questions we've been getting as we've been re-engaging stakeholders. I think previously the forum played a big role in legislation, whether it was advocacy or other things. And as we've been re-engaging, we've been trying to navigate that space as well. I think what you just described, the giving kind of, this is a space for kind of more neutral analysis, being able to go through these proposed legislations and give input saying, here's what would be beneficial for these stakeholders. Here's what would not be. And providing our legislators with that opportunity to kind of have this maybe more of a neutral view on these bills that are being proposed in the upcoming legislative session. And I also understand from talking to Mark and also looking at your slides, which we'll put them up a little bit more of analytics involved. So that's not just opinion. And gee, I feel good about this. It's actually backing up opinions or these descriptions of a bill with a good data to show the legislator it's actually based on fact or has some scientific basis behind it. So it's just not an opinion poll. Precisely. So that's another thing you mentioned in your intro that the forum has been in this effort to stay relevant and part of that staying relevant is being a resource for people. So having these data analytics available, whether it be through our website or through legislative briefings or other things that people can go to and reference and use in their own investigation of these legislative efforts as well as broader efforts organized by us and other stakeholders in the state. So that brings me up to one of my other favorite little topics and you've had a heads up. Talk to us a little bit about our website. I found it personally because I'm not a really high tech computer person. I found it kind of difficult to use, but that's just me. Now, maybe other people thought it's great. What are the plans for our website? I mean, websites are so difficult to design and put them up as a heck of a lot of work. And previously we put a lot of effort in that website and had a lot of good intentions. What are your comments or what can you tell us about the website now? How is it gonna evolve? Of course. So for clarity, we had originally two kind of outlets. We had our forum and then we had our public facing website. And the forum was more interfacing for members and stakeholders. And I believe that's what you're referring to with the difficulty of navigation. But as we've kind of revived this forum following COVID, the initial hit, we've taken the form more in the direction of open membership, transparency, being available to whoever would like to be involved. And so as of now, we don't have plans to revitalize the forum. It's still under discussion, but we are kind of shifting our efforts more to that public spacing website. Like I said, having it be a repository of data and other resources that people might need so that when people want information on energy or legislative dealings in Hawaii, they can come to our website and have access to that information. So one other question, which you did get a heads up on, I'm gonna ask you about the forum governance.  But we had this structure in the forum where we had a steering group, where we had a chair of the steering group and then we had working groups. And it kind of acted like a board of directors to try to set the policy or set the tasks and the plan for the year and then sponsor various events and going forward. It was kind of how we got people involved to actually work in the forum. What's the plan or what's the thoughts? I mean, it may be too early to comment on it, but how is it gonna be structured going forward? What can you tell us today? Another great question. I think as of now, as we're re-engaging stakeholders, that's another thing we're still trying to navigate and we haven't landed anywhere specific on it. I think the idea of having specialized groups to focus on different areas of concern is definitely part of the plan. As far as governance goes with steering committees, yeah, it's definitely still in discussion with that, but we're excited to be able to reorganize and really make this an accessible place for everyone in the state.  I mean, one of the biggest ones and probably the most important one was the annual legislative brief where we had all the legislators in the auditorium before COVID, the last this year, we had it all online in the Zoom and it actually went pretty well. But what's the plan going forward for events? On the other event we had was Energy Day, which was usually held over the YWCA. So what's the current thinking among the team right now? Well, let me tell you, right now we plan to continue with those events. I think they're great ways to engage the community, engage those outside of the forum, bring awareness to kind of our goals and the things that our stakeholders would like to do. So as of now, we do have a legislative briefing day plan for January 10th at the legislature. And we are so excited to be holding that in person this year. I do agree with you though, I think they did an excellent job of holding the online when it went really smooth. And there was a lot of great content. But yeah, this year we will be in person at the ledge on January 10th. And then we do have plans to continue with Energy Day as well. So we're very excited about both of those. Okay, so it'll be an in-person event, not a Zoom event. It will be broadcast though. I don't think via Zoom, I'll have to get more information for you on that, but stay tuned. Yeah, okay. So let's pull up the next slide and let's work through some of the more detailed elements and what we wanna talk about today. So let's have slide two up. Take it away, Megan. All right, so our first transition area of focus is this high penetration renewable analysis and planning. And these are ideas that we've been bringing to our stakeholders and getting feedback on. So data collection and analysis, like we've touched on, we would love for our website to be a place where people can go for these resources regarding energy, regarding policy. Our second point there is utility plans and integrated grid processes. There are a lot of unique projects going on in the state right now with HECO, with the County of Kauai and Moloka'i as well. A lot of innovative things happening with renewable energy sources. And those played into our community plans and really creating resilience in the state. And these are all topics of discussion that we would like to address as a forum. So that's our first transition area there that we're focusing on. Okay, so let's have the next slide up. Perfect. So our second slide here is energy transition policy and regulation.  But governance in our policy framework and then improvements in policy objectives. Now what I'd really like to touch on here is the Biden administration's recent passing of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. A lot of money, a lot of possibilities. And one thing we'd like to do as a forum and that we will be addressing in our legislative briefing is the dispersal of those funds. We want to make it more of a transparent process. We'd like our stakeholders and people in the state to know how much of that has come into Hawaii to be able to plan for what we really want to achieve in the state, which is cleaner energy, higher functioning processes and equity among ratepayers and energy receivers. Yeah, I was on a workshop this morning that was sponsored by the US Department of Energy all about the budgets coming down for renewable energy. And in particular, in this case, it was a hydrogen and there's billions of dollars standing by and they have a really short timeframe for actually getting that money out the door.  And it was the kind of like, you know, save, save, I'm focusing on hydrogen, but that could be on other renewables too. But in this case, it was like trying to save hydrogen. Now it's like they almost have more money than they know how to handle. And it's not a panic situation, but it's gonna totally change the way they do business because they have to get these large amounts of money out. And from our point of view, and this is where I think the forum can really be helpful is try to be help coordinate the state's response to all this money that's coming out for the various programs and set some kind of a priority on what is best for the state. What's the biggest thing we need to focus on? What's number two? What's number three? And start working with the group to develop plans for that because the funding opportunity announcements are gonna be coming out fast and thick and the response times are gonna be very short. So we have to think of, we're not gonna have six months to prepare a response. We might have one or one or a half or two months to prepare a response and get it going. So it's kind of a whole shift in the way we do business. And those that are prepared and ready to go and have their coach and plan are gonna be the guys that win the pot. So I'm not quite sure myself, who in the state is actually sitting up on top coordinating all that. It could be the Hawaii Energy Office, the state energy office. That's probably a good organization to do that. I mean, that's kind of what you'd think the energy office would do. Supported by, you know, of course, HNEI were kind of like the research arm for the state. And here's where the energy policy forum could really play a role in commenting on what's a good program and what's not. I.e. the pros and the cons like we were talking about. And that would surely engage our stakeholders because they're all gonna be interested and wanna have a place at the table and get their opinions in. So I think this is something that the forum should be embracing as we go forward. What do you think? And I think that is we relate to that completely. That's our hope is that we can make this more of like I said, a transparent process so that people aren't blindsided and say, oh my gosh, we have so much money and no plans with what to do with it. And by kind of mapping out this process of how the monies will be distributed, give people a chance to plan and to prepare with meaningful projects for the state. Exactly. Yeah, and get their good ideas front and center. So that's what people know about it.    You have to have social justice. You have to have a whole variety of things that make up your project. This slide is my favorite. It's the most exciting one to me, but the Hawaii Innovation Initiative. So the first term on here is innovation sandbox. And that's something that's come up in a lot of our interviews, speaking with stakeholders, what you provide such a unique opportunity and test ground for new ways to distribute energy, to create energy, there's just endless opportunities here.  Like you mentioned, when these projects come down and the funds come through, social justice and equity is a big piece of everything that's happening because we do wanna make sure that energy is being distributed to all people. I mean, in my brain, the energy system is akin to the food system. Everybody eats and virtually everybody uses energy. So we need ways to distribute that equitably and make sure that everyone's getting what they need at a rate that they can afford. And so... Oh, sorry, go ahead. Do you finish your slide? Then I have one, follow up. No problem. So that's also been linking into our efforts to open up membership to engage this group of diverse voices and give people a seat at the table to really discuss their needs going forward. Yeah, so one of the big needs I've observed in working on my bus project, for example, is workforce development. Because we've been a fossil fuel economy forever and this is all new stuff. And there's a lot of fear and uncertainty among the workforce. I'm not talking about academics and people like that. I'm talking about the Luke Caller guy. The guys that actually do the work are worried about their jobs and how can they fit in this new economy? What skills do they need? How do we teach them the skills?  We're not gonna be mining coal anymore. What do I do? And so this is something we have to address. And in fact, certainly in the hydrogen presentations today, 5% of the funding they've earmarked has to go to workforce development. Because so they've recognized the fact that we have to make this transition and bring the workforce along with us so that people don't feel that they're being abandoned. And the universities and community colleges can certainly play a role in that. But they have to also understand it's like, it's not an academic exercise. We're not looking for PhDs and masters. We're looking for the guy who can swing the wrenches and can do the work. And particularly in the heavy electric area because we're talking electric transportation, all that's kind of stuff. There was a lot of safety issues involved. So I think this is another area where the forum can play a role and make sure that this is not being missed or ignored or forgotten about. Exactly. So as we're engaging our previous stakeholders, we're also engaging new stakeholders in the state. People who previously weren't part of the forum but as we engage in this innovation and this kind of sandbox idea, engaging entrepreneurs, engaging other entities and people with fresh ideas to come to the table and discuss creative solutions to these big problems. And part of that is... Sorry, go ahead. Oh, good. Part of that is creating more jobs and job security as we approach these creative solutions to kind of bolster our own economy at the same time we bolster the energy system here. So I have a question. One of these little buzz words, sandbox. So now if I'm a millennial, whatever, I kind of understand what a sandbox is. But for the normal general public, what do they mean by the sandbox? Well, let me give you my definition of it really quick. There you go. It's important to make sure that you're using terms correctly, but a place to kind of explore, try new ideas and try them on a smaller scale so that in case something goes terribly wrong, you're not harming people. Sandbox, like as a kid, when you would play in a sandbox, you can build new things, you can try new things, you can explore and there's minimal consequences to that exploration, minimal negative consequences to the outside world. You're really contained in a space as you're doing it. And so that's as we move forward, it's starting small. It's testing these on a small scale, but still allowing for that full creative spectrum to be able to try these new ideas and get to creative solutions to the difficult problems. Okay, thanks for that. So let's go through some of these other bullets here on your slide side. I'll let you lead the way. And I'll only interrupt when I want to. Okay, so as you can see here, we have EV charging infrastructure, fast charging network planning, all hot topics and things that Hawaii's looking at to improve our greenhouse gas emissions in the future to reduce those. And the discussion that's happened around that really is resource adequacy. How do we address the new needs on the grid as we create these charging infrastructures as we move forward trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Transportation is one of the biggest generators of greenhouse gas emissions. I think as the state's goal is to achieve 100% renewable by 2045, we like to look at electricity and we like to focus on that as the way that we're going to achieve that 100% renewable. But really, when we look at it, transportation is a huge piece of that. And so creating that infrastructure and creating the resource adequacy to support the infrastructure is so important. And then the other thing, oh, go ahead. The other thing with electrification of transportation is, and transportation in general, is that you've got so many individuals, you've got hundreds of thousands of people who have their own way of doing it, whereas the grid is relatively easier from the point of view of you have two major players here in Hawaii, HIKO and KIUC, and you have a PUC that can command and to do certain things. But when you've got tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who wanna make their own choices, I wanna own a big pickup truck because I like it as big as tough. I go to the beach, don't tell me I can't use my pickup truck. It's a lot more difficult to change the way people think. The whole corporate culture or the whole transportation culture has to be changed. Agreed. It's definitely more than providing the infrastructure and providing the tools. But I think it's also a huge part of it is making sure that there is a way for people to have electric vehicles to use that space. I mean, for myself minus financial status, my biggest hindrance to getting an electric car would be, I don't know where to charge it. There you go. Just don't have the resources to do that. And so as we build that, I think the hope is that people will see this as an accessible option. And really that plays back into our equity we've been talking about is allowing a space for everyone to at least have the opportunity to engage in that space, whether it be now or in the future when they want to or need to. And of course the forum can certainly play a role by allowing everybody to share their opinions.  And that's feedback that can be passed up the line to the legislators and to the people who control that. So we're getting kind of close to the end of our time. I told you this would go fast. So let's just talk quickly about your last two bullets and then we can kind of wrap it up. Perfect. So our last two points here, the role of accelerators and then exploring the mechanism for energy financing. So like I have said previously, engaging with new members in the space, engaging with the accelerator, elemental accelerator being one of them and the entrepreneurs that they work with, the fresh ideas that they have coming up. I think there's a lot of good things going on in the space that maybe they, those ideas don't get distributed as fast a pace and the forum can kind of act as a conduit to distribute that information to all the players in the state and give people access to those ideas faster than they normally would have them. And it also plays back into our sandbox idea where you kind of have this comfort, this safe space to test out these ideas and then move forward with them. Granted, they're successful. Okay. Well, you know, Megan, we've come to the end of our time and we'll have you back and your co-comrade in arms Dallas and Mark Glick, El Supremo have him come back and talk to us as this evolves as we go through it. I'd love to be able to have some of our forum stakeholder members come out here too and really use Think Tech Hawaii for the best effect in getting their viewpoints out to allow them to share with the overall community as well, not just like an internal bunch of people sitting around on the table. So this is something we can explore.  Just that we are excited to be back and to be engaging with the community again and we have already received so much good feedback and really looking forward to continuing this process. So thanks for having me on and looking forward to future discussions. Sounds good, we're back. We're back. Okay, so we'll leave it at that. You've been watching Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy on Think Tech Hawaii. Today we've been talking story with graduate assistant Megan Russell about the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum and its evolving vision and plan under the new leadership of HNEI and principal investigator Mark Glick. So thank you very much, Megan and thanks to our viewers for tuning in. I'm Mitch Ewan, we'll be back in two weeks with another fantastic edition of Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy. Aloha, everyone. Aloha.


Hello my friends, this is the 35th episode of Patterson in Pursuit. Today we're talking about drug legalization. I don't know if you guys saw in the recent headlines, but the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States just classified CBD hemp oil as being a schedule one drug, which supposedly means it has no medical benefits And it's classified into the same category as drugs like heroin. This is utterly infuriating and Very topical for today's show. I'm speaking with Dr. Jeffrey Myron who teaches economics at Harvard University in Boston He's also the director of undergraduate studies at the Harvard Econ Department as well as being a senior fellow at the Cato Institute He's well known for being a supporter of the legalization of all drugs Not just marijuana, but all drugs heroin and meth Included so if you're unfamiliar with this type of argumentation I think you're going to get a lot of value out of this interview But together a very compelling case and if you are like me a fellow libertarian and do support the legalization of drugs You're still going to love it because he says a lot of things that I've been aware of this topic for many years And I've not heard them put in this particular way. I find it very compelling But before we start I want to give another round of shout-outs to the latest group of Patreon supporters we're up to almost 70 patrons on patreon.com Steve Patterson, I've just updated my patreon page with a bunch of new goals and tears and Rewards in addition to starting a new Facebook group where all the patrons can get together and share ideas in our own Intellectual community Which is awesome and just started up a few days ago And there's already been a bunch of threads going so if you're interested in supporting the show and you're interested in supporting the Creation of rational philosophy or if you just want a free copy of my book square one the foundations of knowledge And what's the big deal about Bitcoin? Then head over to patreon and you can support the show for as little as a dollar every time a new episode is released So my conversation this week with dr. Jeffrey Mayer and wasn't just about drug legalization We also had a really interesting conversation about social safety nets and what he views is that the appropriate or inappropriate role of government in providing a social safety net and as I said earlier Jeff teaches at Harvard University where He is a libertarian and I don't know if he's a solo libertarian voice on campus But certainly a near solo voice which gives him a really unique insight down to not just libertarian issues But also issues about the state of higher ed in general enjoy So first of all, thanks so much for sitting down and speaking with me today my pleasure.  However, I don't think there are many libertarians out there that are in your Position so it's wonderful. I'm sure you get vigorous arguments all the time from students and Professors who radically disagree with you, but I want so I want to play that role for you one of the things that you focus on in your work is Drug prohibition you take a pretty hard line stance against drug prohibition. You think ultimately it causes more harm than good So in a nutshell, can you give your reason why you think? Drug prohibition is kind of universally a bad thing. Is it does it all come from economics? Is there any ethical considerations that come into play so in a nutshell? my view on drug prohibition is that on the one hand prohibition generates all sorts of Ancillary negatives it creates black markets that generates crime and corruption It tends to lead to infringements on civil liberties and racial profiling which exacerbates racial tensions It tends to breed corruption in other countries that are the source countries for drugs that the US purchases and consumes So there's all these negative effects of prohibition On the other hand the main motivation for prohibition is this desire to reduce Individual drug use and I don't think that's an appropriate goal for government policy I think the most government should be trying to do is interfere with those actions which have some non-trivial and tangible negative impact on innocent third parties So driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is potentially something that society that government should try to stop because that clearly harms someone who didn't mean to take that risk But just stopping someone from consuming drugs even if that person might be doing something adverse to that person's health or whatever That's that person's business in addition many of the assertions about how negative drug use is for the individual who consumes drug Hmm are gross exaggerations, but even if they weren't I think that's each individual's choice should not be the government's choice so Does your perspective draw a lot then from your own political philosophy or is this the the the sounds like your Idea is that it's economics that you have these unintended consequences practical unintended consequences But also it's not the role of government So I just had an interview with Dr. Harvey Mansfield who has a vision of government that I think would incorporate Morals than than your idea of government What would you say to somebody who says look I think government should be involved in questions like this I mean it government needs to protect us even if it's protecting us from ourselves so I would say to people who Advocate interventions say to help people from themselves that in fact prohibition is a terrible way To protect people from themselves So let's set aside the general question of whether government should act paternalistically and focus it for the moment on this specific case Take is given that some people are naive some people are myopic some people make poor choices About whether to consume drugs about how much to save about whether to encourage their kids to do their homework about a billion things The question is does the intervention actually help such people? So in the case of drug prohibition I think that what happens is that many people who might be tempted to make poor choices about using drugs Still decide to use drugs, but in a black market They are purchasing from people who we know are criminals who might be more likely to rip them off Who might be selling them drugs that are impure might be selling the drugs that are of an unknown Quality and dosage so the risk of consuming drugs are actually much higher in a black market Especially for people who aren't especially swift at evaluating the risks of different things Prohibition also harms people who are fully rational and really thoughtful about what their purchases and decisions are But not nearly as much because those people say I'm not gonna buy drugs in a black market unless I've purchased from this person before and I'm pretty sure this person's not gonna rip me off I'm not gonna purchase from someone that I don't know because I don't know what dosage I'm getting they'll tend to stick with their friends, you know as suppliers They'll tend to stick to alcohol rather than drugs. They will avoid getting arrested Prohibition is going to be especially bad for people who are naive myopic about their drug use other ways you might nudge people against myopic ill-advised decisions such as information campaigns or Syntaxes or minimum purchase ages. I have my suspicions about all of those kinds of interventions But they're probably not nearly as harmful to those people that the paternalists are trying to help so a short version is If you want to be paternalistic, I'm probably going to disagree with that instinct But especially because it usually hurts the people you're trying to help now What if somebody takes what you've just said and says look you've just made a case for More intervention the drug war. We just need more enforcement We need the reason that you have these black markets is because you still have suppliers of drugs So the if you have the paternalistic instinct This is just a demonstration that going at it kind of half soft is not the way to do it You got to go like Philippine style. We're gonna, you know kill people that are smuggling in drugs So I don't think that the escalate prohibition has much evidence to back it up You can cite a few cases where enforcement is allegedly much much tougher But those are relatively small special cases. We've had vigorous enforcement for existing drug prohibition laws and we had vigorous enforcement for alcohol and The negatives increased with the amount of enforcement the amount of violence generated is partially function of how often police are trying to break up Networks the difficulty of dealing with the regular supplier is increased if your supplier is getting locked up every month or two or three So I think that that approach heavy enforcement Empirically or both a priori and empirically is very unlikely to work and of course it's costly and societies at some level are Generally unwilling to say Selling drugs or using drugs is such an evil thing that we're willing to let the police shoot on site Anyone even suspected of being a drug user or a seller most people would sort of pale I know which would shrink back from such an aggressive stance even when you have extreme measures It's not clear that they're effective for example prisons Have all sorts of mechanisms for wanting to keep drugs out of the hands of the prisoners and yet There's lots and lots of drugs in prison So it's very very hard to stop it without unbelievably over-the-top enforcement so you think this is Essentially just impractical even in almost all circumstances in prisons a great example that you have Even if we lived in a circumstance where there was as much government intervention as there is in prison You're still gonna have violence gang warfare that is drug related. Yes. I'll see okay However, this is an argument that I've gotten many times from people What about the children? You can't in your in your society, right? So if you if you have the the less intervention with drugs you have more freedom of access to drugs wouldn't that result in more young people getting high and abusing drugs so I love the look that you just gave So legalization might lead to greater access Would likely lead to lower prices. So excuse me lower access for youth It probably will tend to lead to lower prices, which has some effect on whether youth get access But there are number of reasons that that should not be determinative at all so first of all, they're various surveys of High school and junior high school aged kids that ask them whether they find it easy to get to drugs now under current Prohibition and large fractions say that it's easy or very easy That sort of makes sense because black market suppliers are not in any way disciplined by Any kind of regulation of needing to maintain their license to sell drugs They're completely in the black market a legal seller of say marijuana May still sometimes sell to underage kids But faces some non-trivial penalty of being caught selling to underage kids can be shut down by a local control board or other Enforcement just as legal alcohol suppliers have at least some incentive not to sell to people underage I don't think we should take it as a given that all use By teenagers is necessarily bad Some of that use is going to be a substitute for use of alcohol in particular might be a substitute for use in conjunction with driving Available evidence suggests quite strongly that when you make marijuana more available relative to alcohol for example Traffic fatalities go down and precisely the group that's affected Why because some people substitute from alcohol to marijuana and although marijuana does impair one's driving ability It seems to do so less than alcohol does third. I think there are plenty of mechanisms that tend to discourage people from misusing Private mechanisms and those work better when you get the illegality and the forbidden fruit out of it Because then the kids are not quite so concerned about doing it in a hidden way They don't face these extreme punishments for being caught. They face milder punishments And I think the ability to create a culture that says don't drink and drive is easier if in fact is not so verboten so One might still advocate for say a minimum purchase age for alcohol or marijuana or other drugs But it's still possible even there to make them too strict the 21 year old drinking age Seems completely loony to me because if you spend time on any college campus You realize that every kid who wants access to alcohol has ready access And so all that minimum purchase age is doing is teaching them that laws are for suckers Hmm. You had a minimum purchase age for drugs and alcohol of 16 17 That's not gonna make a huge difference one way or the other But it sort of would nudge people to say this isn't an evil thing, but it's a grown-up thing Wait a little bit. It would allow No parents to feel that they could supervise it more it would put parents on notice that they need to pay attention to this They can't assume the law has taken care of it for them, which some parents unfortunately do especially because It's allegedly illegal and therefore not available, but of course it is still available So in your ideal circumstance, are you advocating that we have a Like legalized marijuana that's taxed and regulated and there's the local control board that says, you know under 18 You can act have access to it or are you in your ideal circumstance would there just be no intervention whatsoever? And you'd have markets decide who gets access to Drugs and alcohol if I were benevolent dictator who were changing policy I would certainly change the legal status so that is a marijuana other drugs or legal goods I would Certainly roll the minimum legal drinking age back to 16 17 18 would I go all the way of complete less a fair Instantly, no, I mean partly because that would seem a huge too big a step for large parts of the population and I don't think that those mild regulations of a modest minimum purchase age Time and place of use restrictions, etc. They're not doing great harm Even if I'm not convinced they're doing great good either so it's perfectly reasonable to go, you know Get rid of the worst things the prohibitions and then maybe gradually you can tinker around with those other features. Now. Do you think theoretically that? Having this being completely laissez-faire is something that wouldn't work or do you think that this is something that could work? I think that complete less a fair would work and I think it would probably work better than Something like the alcohol model where it's legal, but significantly regulated where sellers have to be licensed where they're all of these restrictions because I think that private behavior Decisions and Exhortations and rules from parents and coaches and schools and friends and things would still get people to behave reasonably most of the time It's hard to control the behavior of the people who aren't going to be reasonable They seem to you know find ways to mess up under any system And I think it would breed the right atmosphere that we all have to think about our decisions We all have to pay attention to what people around us are doing So I think it would be better and I would certainly Want to go in that direction, but I would also accept going there in steps not necessarily all at once So are you saying that you could see cultural social private regulations essentially? supplant the public ones So Does this also apply to heart of drugs because it's easy to talk about Marijuana especially if people have used it. They're like, okay, this isn't really a big deal. I don't know what the big fuss is about Well, what about when we get into all the heart of drugs talking about meth cocaine heroin? Do you have the same I have exactly the same view on all drugs? First while those drugs are potentially more harmful In hard to impossible as best we know to overdose on marijuana whereas absolutely one can overdose on heroin for example It also means that some of the risks of keeping illegal. I think are much worse for the harder drugs because The difference between getting in you know a 10% pure dose of heroin and a 90% pure dose is extreme in a way that getting a stronger versus weaker THC content in the marijuana you smoke is not nearly so extreme even if you get a more potent dose than you're expecting nothing too terrible happens most of the time and for some drugs this depends a bit on which drug we're talking about they are in scent there are incentives created by prohibition to Administer them in ways which are really dangerous that is injecting yourself with a needle that you've shared with someone else who might have HIV or hepatitis C or other blood-borne diseases in a legal market any of the incentives to share dirty needles is going to Diminish greatly if not disappear and so because the risks are much greater I actually think that makes it's better for it to be private rather than prohibited because You do need people to be paying a lot of attention. It's much easier for either private mechanisms or maybe mild regulation a Suggestive nudge type regulation to do a good job when it's above ground than when it's hit now Are there any empirical examples of? Harder drugs being legalized or decriminalized and chaos not breaking out or well first basically all drugs I think I take that back all drugs were legal in the US some minor exceptions happening to do with state level regulation or City level regulation which had no meaningful impact until 1914 Morphine was fully legal heroin was legal cocaine was legal and these things were consumed moderately often don't have perfect data But they were consumed probably often in over-the-counter medications and things you could buy mail order and and so on so yes We have that example second. We have a few countries that have moved substantially in the direction of Legalizing all drugs. Okay, although not technically fully legally. They've done it in a way which was Had to respect UN treaties so they decriminalize rather than saying they were legalizing but in practice They've come very close to legalizing Portugal is the best example certain cities have Allowed people to have heroin injection rooms and so on we have the example of alcohol. Okay, which is a Can be described usefully in some settings as a legal drug now the prohibitionists will say If we legalize other drugs will be have problems on the same magnitude as the problems we have with alcohol And of course we do have problems with alcohol. They're driving accidents There are people who are alcoholics or people who give themselves cirrhosis, but I think that's missing the point There is going to be Shifting of which drugs people consume most people will shift to those drugs that they can consume with the best ratio of Benefit to cost and so giving them the greatest possible choice and flexibility to do that Hey is what's going to reduce the amount of harm that people experience from drug use rather than increasing it Okay, so on a related note getting back a little bit more to political philosophy when we talk about drug prohibition it's all in the same general category as You could loosely call it the government protecting people you have government protecting people Through the police through national defense through these kind of regulations But another way that people argue that the government needs to be Actively involved in society to help people out is with social safety nets So things like welfare and to some extent even affirmative action Do you take the same laissez-faire approach? When you're dealing with social safety nets or something like laissez-faire like hey The market will handle it the interventions cause more harm than good or do you think okay? No, actually this is an appropriate area for government to get involved and make sure that some people are taking care of in society You know that that couldn't necessarily Pull their own weight in a market. What do you think about that? So I guess I am slightly torn about the question of whether government should operate a social safety net on the one hand I Certainly think we have lots of evidence lots of good reason to believe that in a world of laissez-faire of no social safety net at all Private mechanisms would help lots of the people who were unfortunate in various ways. Okay, why do I think that? Well, we have lots of private charity now even though we also have lots of government charity government social safety net so Presumably if the government bowed out that should encourage people to supply even more private charity And there's plenty of evidence suggesting that government charity is to some extent crying out Private charity so many examples churches that run soup kitchens the Red Cross doctors without borders All sorts of things like that now there's a standard economics argument that suggests that the amount of private charity will be insufficient in the sense that Everyone would like there to be more private charity fewer people to be suffering with very low incomes and poor health and so on But many people will free ride off the charitable actions of others in the equilibrium the outcome will be Not that many people are donating to the private charity. Mm-hmm. It's a perfectly possible It's a perfectly logical framework Let's less clear exactly how compelling it is in practice Given that we do see as much private charities we do many people seem to be Altruistic and be willing to donate even without concern of the fact that they're letting other people free ride on the on the warm glow from other people's donations so that sort of first thought second thought is that actual social safety nets are Mainly redistributing to the middle class and even the upper class So a huge fraction of what we spend in transferring money around is going to Medicare and Social Security, which is mainly not going to poor people if we cut our social Welfare spending to only those programs that are helping people who are poor it would be much much smaller. So Unfortunately in order to Redistribute to the poor the political equilibrium seems to be have to also redistribute to the middle class Otherwise the middle class won't vote in favor of the redistribution to the poor So that's unfortunate because it means we're levying way more in taxes and having the associated distortions And in sort of encouraging everyone to think of their lives as living off of The government instead of off their their fruits of their own labors So that sort of leaves me somewhat ill at ease and taking a really strong stand one way the other the practical considerations Certainly suggest they're huge Negatives of getting the government involved in doing providing a social safety net the distortions caused by government provision of health insurance Seemed to me to be enormous the disincentive effects Created by source security programs or potentially quite large and so on so how can one possibly Have some balance between these competing things the concern that the size of the safety net is way too large and not targeted at the appropriate people versus Maybe some concern that you need some that the private sector won't do quite Enough and I'm not sure that's I'm certainly not sure that's true I think the private sector might do plenty, but it's an understandable concern My answer is get the federal government out of the redistribution business The government not do any program that is about redistribution, which means no Medicare No, Social Security, no Medicaid, no unemployment insurance, no disability insurance few other miscellaneous things and simply stop collecting all that tax revenue and stop making all that expenditure Presumably phased in over some number of years ignore that and let the states decide whether to engage in social safety That's the usual complaint about that approach is We will then see a race to the bottom in which every state tries to have the cheapest possible Social safety net or no social safety net because it doesn't want to become a welfare magnet I don't think the evidence suggests that that's what we'll see Lots and lots of examples where states do more than required by the federal government Higher than federal minimum wages more aggressive than required Environmental policies more generous unemployment insurance and so on and so forth lots of states created state-level welfare policies and Social Security programs before the federal government got involved and I think if there is some Competition across states some concerned by each state to not be overly generous That's probably a good thing. It will help keep social programs modest Not expansive and maybe that's a pretty reasonable compromise between the competing concerns Now it makes me think if your argument is that we should have no federal welfare programs and that you Take that responsibility To a lower level of government couldn't the same argument be made for state government versus local government So say well get the state government involved. Let's just make this a local community thing wouldn't that is not the same argument Yes, it's the same argument and if states wanted to make that some states might make that argument on that would one be Great for economists who could run some regressions trying to figure out the differential effects of the different policies, but more importantly We might see some Examples and we'd learn something from that and of course that should make libertarians even happier because if you go from state to city Then the degree to which one is coercing anyone to accept a particular social safety net program is even less And if each city kind of then devolves it down to precincts and precestive down to devolve it down to households Well, then of course you're at you know purely private charity, right? So The same argument apply. I don't know if we'd see that or not, but There's nothing wrong with thinking about extending it now. I've had some of these conversations What people will say is that sounds great except what will happen is you'll have some states where maybe you have more Conservatives that don't want the these welfare programs and that's going to leave some people out that yes Maybe it's more economically efficient. Maybe it's more ethical. There's less coercion. Okay, but there are some people at the bottom Who are let's say in rural, Mississippi that whose lives they're not gonna be able to make it. What is your response to that? My response is there is that risk. You will have people who live in states that will be less generous Maybe substantially less generous. I don't think the evidence to suggest we'll see very many states that do absolutely nothing There's also migration even if not for an individual particular household, but for their children There's lots of potential for mobility welfare migration. You're saying partially maybe migration of people who don't like the fact that there's not a sufficient Safety net because they think it's not compassionate and that puts pressure on a given state to be a little bit more generous What about this but also migration of people who? Don't like the low level okay of spending and they will may some of them may try to migrate to a more generous state And that then puts pressure on the other states not to be overly generous So many again many people assume the outcome of all that will be utterly stingery completely unacceptable Level of social safety net. I think that's probably not gonna happen. I think it will be less than now But my judgment is less than now is appropriate and maybe also very differently structured I mean an awful lot of it now goes to the middle class not to People who are poor if you add up all of the spending on the seven or eight federal programs I mentioned Medicaid Medicare Social Security 445 others you get two point two five trillion dollars a year if you divided that by the number of People in the bottom ten percent of the distribution bite by ten percent of the population you get approximately $70,000 of redistribution per person Not per household per person Wow, so obviously that's not all going to poor people Hey, that's going to Middle-income people who retired and getting so secured Medicare and even really rich people who are Eligible for Social Security and Medicare But it says that we're redistributing so much that we could Provide a very generous safety net for the poor Okay, without doing nearly as much redistribution and really the tough thing is how do you get societies to really focus their government efforts on People who are low-income who for whom there's a really? strong case that they ended up that way because of bad luck as opposed to choices to be you know I have a few hours of work per week Therefore less income per week But who could have had a higher income if they wanted to work higher so when the rubber meets the road for you and there are some individuals let's say and Rural poor states who can't afford to leave who can't afford to migrate Ultimately, you're okay with saying look that's part of the costs. I mean that if if the option is keep the current system and have those people at least on some sustenance level of welfare and Go to a more sensible Economic rational system that results in maybe even more people getting access to welfare that really needed if it's targeted to the poor Those that group you're just willing to say hey, this is inevitable I'm willing to take the risk that a small number of people will have serious difficulty getting access to a reason to a social government social safety net in order to design a Better social safety net overall. I don't think very many of those people will receive no charity I think a lot of those people will receive some private charity, but yes, there's a risk that some people fall through literally fall through the cracks I think that's a cost. We have to accept after all the government charity system doesn't catch everybody right either and The government charity system in my view comes with huge other costs now This is a natural segue It's the last thing I want to talk to you about because I agree with what you say, but it comes across cold That that that's not a very good marketing Right thing though. It is I think what you say is true. It's sensible. It's for the greater good Doesn't sound nice. So when you are At a place like Harvard, which is less free market than a lot of places Do you find that when you talk have conversations like this people are very receptive and say, okay? I see where you're coming from. Yes, you're right. This makes economic sense Or are you do you see like the campuses of the students on campus? Do you think that they are Rejecting this more free market more economically rational approach. Are you optimistic about the the future? Students so I certainly find that lots of students are interested in talking about the libertarian perspective Many of them have not been exposed to it to any significant degree if they have been it's only been partial or limited And a lot of them find it interesting But relatively few who weren't already leaning at direction are actually persuaded by it but the ones who Take my class who listened to the libertarian arguments about Drug prohibition and about gay marriage and why should be legal and about immigration and about why we shouldn't be invading other people's Countries all the time and about the often hard-hearted sounding Economic policies vis-a-vis health care and redistribution.  He's not doing this because he doesn't care He generally believes that this would be a better system for everybody including indeed especially for the less fortunate overall Even though they still disagree that I'm right on my overall assessment. So There's lots of interest and lots of tolerance to talk about it persuading people is a much higher bar So when when I say though, are you optimistic? It's good that people are tolerant But in terms of the prospects it from my perspective is doesn't it looks fairly bleak and I wonder What your perspective is bleak is way too strong. I think that the libertarian view is a bit of a hard sell As you said it comes across as seeming pretty tough and uncaring Mostly I believe if you think about it thoughtfully It's actually much more caring than the liberal and conservative and other perspectives Because a lot of big government is actually hurting precisely the people that Other perspectives claim they're they're helping them. So it's a hard sell. So that would leave me less than fully optimistic But I don't think libertarians have to convince everyone to be libertarians To have made some progress I think they need to be able to be in the conversation to maybe remind people that the standard liberal perspective has some inconsistencies and some Fiscal irresponsibilities embedded in it, you know refusal to accept the laws of arithmetic when Bernie Sanders says he's gonna promise College and everything else to everyone and it's gonna cost 18 trillion and he'll easily be able to pay for that by Raising taxes on the rich. I mean, it's just it doesn't add up. No matter what you think about the goals The same thing with perspectives on the right that have fundamental inconsistencies in them So as long as we can be in the conversation as long as we can point out these weaknesses I think we can nudge things from being really bad so it's easy for Libertarians to get themselves all wound up and think that the US is just going down this terrible path That it's an awful place that libertarianism is not making enough progress, but In the US and many countries around the world again compared to the sweep of history a huge fraction of people can Live in the country they want to or the part of the country they want to choose their occupation Choose whether to get a lot or a little education marry whom they want practice the religion whom they want Mary whom they want start businesses keep Most of the fruits of their labors even if they pay more taxes than they'd ideally so It really ain't so bad you can paint it as a fairly big success from a libertarian perspective Which doesn't mean we can stop being vigilant There are certainly forces trying to make government bigger and take away freedoms and liberties and efficiencies and so on But I think I would overall be Modely optimistic as long as we can stay in the conversation. So you'd say that perhaps the influence of At least sound economics not even libertarianism, but the influence of sound economics is something that is Almost implicitly accepted in the in the mainstream debate that it really could be so much worse and libertarians to say hey look It's not ideal, but it actually is not bad That would be my view setting aside say Donald Trump who doesn't seem to want to let Reason or sound economics anywhere near any of its positions But when most politicians on the left or the right talk about say immigration or trade Hardly any of them are talking about Building a wall and banning all future immigration hardly any of them are talking about slapping enormous tariffs on China they're talking about tinkering around the edges and maybe Changing the number of people who can immigrate to the US or the terms of trade a little bit Should we be in or out one or two particular free trade agreements? I think that reasonable people should be on particular sides of those issues But they're not talking about going back to some horrible, you know ultra controlled Soviet Union or communist China type economy. They're talking about small changes, which we might not like But nevertheless basically allow capitalism and sensible economics to operate Well on that positive note. I want to thank you. Thank you so much for talking to me today. My pleasure lots of fun All right, that was my interview with dr. Jeffrey Myron. I hope you guys enjoyed it Do leave your thoughts these ideas. I know are very challenging for people Maybe if you've never heard them my own background comes from political conservatism where if I had heard these ideas out of the blue I would just be completely aghast But when you actually work through the logic of the argument not just the economics but also also the ethics I think Jeff and libertarians in general make a very compelling case So if you want to support the creation of more content like this head over to patreon.com Slash Steve Patterson and you can pick up a digital version of the brand new book I've just released called square one the foundations of knowledge, which is my first book on philosophy It lays the groundwork for our rational world view So I've got a lot more to say on the topic in the future and I'll see you guys next week