Good evening. We're on the air again with another edition of Pacious on the News. I sometimes say we've been doing this 16 years. I think it might even be 17 years, every month except for the two summer months, year after year. And we have a guest tonight, David Packham is his name. We're going to talk briefly at the beginning about him and his day job and what he is doing in this state in a non-profit way. And I want to tell you, David got in touch with me. We talked on the phone about a month ago. I didn't know what he was involved in. He described it. He's provided me with information on it. I've looked into it. And I would say in the 16 or 17 years that we've been doing this show, we've done some really good ones. We've had some people on who really were interesting and mostly about politics and government and public affairs. This program, this interview is in my judgment the most important one we have ever done. The most important and it's about addiction. And I've learned things that shocked me. I really do have been shocked. So, David, thank you for getting in touch with me. I am absolutely delighted that you are bringing your important message to our audience. Thank you for having me this evening. Delighted to be here. This is a message about addiction, about alcohol, drugs and kids and all the people that are watching this show. Every last one of them have children, parents, relatives, grandchildren who are affected by the message that you have. And so I am absolutely grateful to you for coming on this show and I think people watching this show will be grateful to you. First, before we get into what you're doing and your message, I have known you a long time. I know your grandfather, when I was going to high school in Cape Elizabeth, your grandfather had a drug store right up the street from the high school. A lot of kids I knew worked at your grandfather. Nelson Packham. Nelson Packham. So this is, I should say, David Packham, Nelson's grandson. Yeah, that's right. And David, you grew up in Scarborough. Grew up in Scarborough, right?  And then you went to the University of Maine. Yes. And then you went to graduate school at BC. Correct. And got a master's in finance. Yes. Got a master's in finance. And then what did you do? Well, I came back to Maine. I got a job at Bath Ironworks. And ultimately, you became director of finance at Bath Ironworks. Director of finance and my last job was vice president of contracts. Vice president of contracts, which is the business contracts. Yes. Billions of dollars worth of contracts. Right. So you dealt with the Navy on contracts and disputes and things of that sort. Yes. And we had lots of disputes. You had lots of disputes. And billions of dollars of disputes. Yes, indeed. And then you left there and what did you do? I ran a telecommunications company in Standish, Maine and combined it with some other companies. I worked for the owner. I did that for a few years. Then I started with... Was that Standish? It began at Standish Telephone. It was called, yeah. It was called Utilities Incorporated. Yeah. And then... But then they went into cable and all kinds of things. We did. And then I broke off and started a software development company that did back office billing and other services for telecommunications companies. And I ran that with my two partners for about 10 years. And then what are you doing now? Today I'm the chief executive officer of Pineland Farms, Natural Meats. And so you have cattle out there at Pineland? We do have some cattle there, but we have... We've got cattle all over the eastern seaboard, as far west as Ohio, as far south as Georgia. Really? Yeah. And you process meat, you raise cattle, you process meat, and you wholesale it. And retail it? Yeah. And retail it. And it's called Pineland Natural Meat? Yes, Pineland Farms Natural Meats. And you run that? Yes. And you told me before we started with the cameras were on, you told me that, for instance, I asked you where you marketed, you said, for instance, Whole Foods between Maine and Washington, D.C., all the Whole Foods stores carry your product. Yes, that's right. Yeah. We're the largest natural supplier in those regions to Whole Foods. Not the only, but the largest. The largest one. Yeah. Isn't that something? I didn't know that. It's a good Maine company. Yes, I didn't know that. So you'll become, in your spare time, an expert on addiction. Will you want to tell us how this happened to you? Well, I'll stop short of calling myself an expert. I have been doing a lot of study. Yeah.  He was 32 years old at the time. He was the director of finance at Tufts Medical in Boston. But he could not stop drinking. And that threw us for a loop. There was really very little we could do to help him. He had to go to rehab. He had to find a way out of that difficulty. And what we could do was to try to better understand it. And we studied and we researched and we started to understand how the brain works and how young people are especially vulnerable to addiction. So when we thought we understood it a little bit better, we thought that if we could understand it, then other people could understand it. And we developed, we started an organization called Students Empowered to End Dependency. Because first and foremost, nothing ever changes with respect to addiction in our communities if students are still using at the rate they use. Because they are the next generation. So it's focused on students and dependency. The acronym is SEEDS. Correct. SEED, yes. And we decided to have a project. And we decided that we would develop a documentary series where we would interview people who had direct experience with addiction. And we would allow them to tell their stories. And we would ask experts, medical experts and other experts to comment on what they were experiencing from a strictly scientific and a medical standpoint. And what we thought might be an hour or 90 minutes is growing into about 12 hours of documentary. Today we, actually tomorrow night at 8 o'clock on main public, Episode 1 will air. It's an hour long show. And we will air six episodes that are all finished and done. And then we will run six more episodes. Now would you say episodes are they an hour long? Yes. They're an hour long. They're hour long shows. And featuring kids. Local people. Local people. Mostly young who have had serious addictions. The first show is called In the Beginning I Liked It. Because one of the things that I remember a high school student telling me was, he said, Mr. Packham, the kids won't listen if you try to scare them. Just tell them the truth. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? And he said, well, the first show you've got to say in the beginning, we liked it. Because everyone has had an experience where they won a state championship and they went to the bonfire and they had some beers and they smoked some pot and they were with their friends and they were bonding. And weeks later, they're still talking about it. And they didn't view that as a dangerous activity. Unfortunately, today, the products that are out there are so much more powerful that the idea of experimentation is gone by the board. We can talk a little bit about marijuana. But marijuana has become, in my estimation, in my opinion, the most dangerous thing that's happening in the state of Maine today. Because we have embraced it. We have jumped into the marijuana business with both feet. Is there a difference between the marijuana that existed when you were in high school and the marijuana that's being sold? If you go back to the 60s, the THC is the psychoactive component, which is shorthand. THC, back in the 60s and 70s, it was 1% concentrated. And up until about the 90s, it only got to about 5%, botanists would cultivate it to make it stronger. People wanted a stronger high associated with marijuana. But it's pretty weak. In the 2000s, it has grown to about 20% concentrated THC in the flower. But what the scientists were able to do, chemists, is they were able to isolate the THC molecule and they were able to distill it and concentrate it so that they could put it into oils and gummy bears and cookies and drinks and it could get to more than 90% concentrated. So we have in our, one of the groups we're working with is an awesome health teacher in Scarborough and we'll be showing her in our episode 7, talking to a group of students and she's holding in her hand a vape pen. Because we've all heard about vaping and how that's, tobacco has made a resurgence because kids can vape it. Well, they can also vape marijuana and the concentration in the vape pen that she has in her hand that they just took out of the bathroom in Scarborough High School was 82.7% concentrated. That's a dangerous, highly potent drug. It's not unlike, that process is not unlike how cocaine became crack cocaine or crystal meth. It's a process that is designed to make a product very addictive. And it's quite cynical in my view and why I think it's so important that we get this word out because the people who voted for marijuana in the state and that's behind us, I think they thought that they were getting the marijuana from the 60s and the 70s in the 80s. But what the marijuana companies have delivered is a highly potent product that is dangerous. And when I say dangerous, it's not only much more addictive and we see, we're seeing this in the schools. You'll, you'll meet someone from USM who is the director of counseling there that calls it a tsunami of problems from her, her freshman students coming in who are using too much cannabis. It's been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. It's been reviewed, linked to violence. It's been linked to a number of mental health issues that quite honestly our kids just can't, can't take on top of, you know, staying home for two years from, from the pandemic. We have a video and I think we ought to show the audience just to put everything in context. And then after the video, we're going to get back and ask you some specific questions, which I think people watching this show would ask themselves if they were sitting here. But why don't we begin if we're ready with showing this, this video that puts all of this in context. In September of 2018, we realized that our son was suffering with alcohol use disorder and we want to share what we've learned with other folks in hopes that their loved one may be assisted as they pursue recovery. I wanted to understand the science. I wanted to understand what happens emotionally, what happens spiritually. Eventually I met Reggie and we started interviewing many, many people who truly understood addiction, people who had severe addiction. They, they got it and they were in recovery and they told us their stories. I've been a video and film producer in Maine for the last 40 years and nothing has been more important to work on than this TV series. It's really an honor to be part of it and I'm looking forward to the impact. And what this series represents to me is the possibility of the happy ending and the people who have been so courageous, the young people who have shared their stories of resiliency and sharing their personal way out of addiction. I'm hoping that that will have a ripple effect. This documentary series is really what storytelling is about. It's about connecting with other people who are going through hardship and helping them tell their story and it's been really moving and it's been a really spiritual experience. These are topics that are really challenging for adults and for teens, for children to talk about and to be able to hear others' stories and to be able to share and process different experiences and to know that in a way so much of this is a normal part of life and that needs to be taken out of the shadows. So showing segments of voices of hopes has really helped students really see factual, real stories from real manors that are relatable, personal and it makes it okay to talk about mental health issues, substance use disorder and these issues that a lot of our kids are struggling with either themselves or their friends or their families and gives them an idea of how to talk about it, where to get help and that help is possible and that recovery is possible. Just by its nature I think it creates some feelings in you that make you wonder about these issues and these stories and these people and just by starting that process I think it takes you somewhere because we all have these experiences in our lives where none of us are immune either to addiction or mental illness or any of the kinds of issues that plague us in this culture. I think it gives people an insight and a window into how do we deal with these issues. So David how did you get the main public here in this local area channel 10 to agree that's pretty good, one hour in a series for several weeks. Well we showed them the show and it wasn't hard to convince them that it was important. I agree once you see this and once you understand what's going on in our community you want to do something and I'm sure the main public wanted to do something. Let me just set the stage a little bit about marijuana in Maine and let me start by telling you that the world is also dealing with marijuana and most countries per capita usage of most countries is less than 10%. Less than 10% of the population uses marijuana. There are a few countries that are very high. Chile is very high about 38%. Canada, Israel about 27% of its population uses marijuana. The United States is about 16%. Well Maine did a survey last year and they concluded, and I don't know how accurate it is, but they concluded that 41% of the state's adult population is using marijuana and half of those people are using every day. Now we know that 90% of all the marijuana sold in the state of Maine and around the country is what's considered high potency marijuana. What percentage is high potency? Well over 90%. It's high potency marijuana. Does that mean it's more addictive? Yes. More addictive and more psychoactive.  What happened in Maine is that we have jumped into it with both feet. We have the sales in 2021 were about $775 million, which makes it bigger than the state's lobster business. So you think about the lobster business which is sold globally. We sell lobsters all over the world. But marijuana has to be grown within the state. So in just a few years we have eclipsed the lobster business with marijuana in Maine. And two thirds of our kids, because we survey our kids, our school kids, two thirds believe that it's safe to use this very highly potent product once or twice a week. That combination of facts, in my mind, is that we're going to have a very big problem in the state of Maine for a number of years unless we get the message out to our parents, our grandparents, and our kids. So that's the message. Now you have to deal with some variables here. First of all, there will be people watching this show that say, look I use marijuana three times a week, daily, whatever. I'm fine. I'm not addicted. And that might be true. And for a young person listening to that do you also have to say but there are other people for whom it is a disaster.  Absolutely true. But here's another statistic for you. If you ask people who have had a substance use disorder 90% of them tell you that they started in their teens. So this is a fact that all addiction businesses understand so well. The undeveloped brain is particularly vulnerable to addiction. And we can understand this. I'll use a little metaphor about riding a bicycle. When you're sex, you can learn how to ride a bike in about a week or two. And you'll never forget how to ride a bike. I don't know how, when was the last time you rode a bike out there at Kettle Cove? Yeah, it's been a while now. You could do it though. You could get on a bike and ride it. You'd never forget. We can learn languages when we're young. The plasticity of a young brain is a sponge for learning. It's actually quite hard to develop an addiction if you haven't used the substance in your 20s or teens. Really? Yes. In other words...  Your brain is already set up largely for what it wants to engage with. Yeah. The electrical systems and such and what they react to. So, the younger you start, the more likely you are to be addicted? Absolutely. The earlier you start, the more you use, the higher potency you use. That's the trifecta. Say that again, the trifecta. The earlier you start, the more times you use and the higher potency you use is the trifecta. And I'm going to say it right out loud. The industries understand this better than anybody. That's why we had candy cigarettes. Get the kids started early. That's why it's gummy bears. Because if that's earlier, you get them started better chances that you'll have them for a lifetime. You got it. You got it. So, yes, you can have people in their 40s and 50s who are using some marijuana products. They're affected the same way as a young person. And once a young person's brain becomes attached to liking that substance, it changes their future forever. Certainly addiction is a big part of that. But we know that people who start early on average lose 8 percentage points on their IQ. Just think about that for a second. IQ is really critical. How do we know that?  They've looked at people longitudinally that have used marijuana and compared it to people who have not. And they have measured their IQ early and late and determined that it's been reduced by 8 points. Because of the effect on the brain. I'm not a scientist, but I can read research. There are many impacts that it has. Here's a fact that I'm sure nobody knows. But, Maine Health, they operate emergency rooms around town. In the last three years there have been 19,500 events. People came to the emergency ward because they had an adverse effect from using cannabis. Adverse effect to marijuana? Yes. Often it's uncontrollable vomiting. Often it is psychosis. They're hearing voices. They're seeing things. They're hallucinating. 17 per day. We don't really hear about that. If I were in the newspaper business, I would be singing that from the mountain tops. I find this fascinating. I had a good friend in college. I went to Princeton. He then became a psychiatrist. He was Canadian. He became a very well-known psychiatrist. He's my age, which is old. 86, in case anybody's interested. This guy's my age. He is today the best-known person in America for studying the brain. In fact, this is off point. He got in a lot of trouble with authorities because he was collecting brains. People died. There was a system where he would call them and he'd pay for their loved one's brain. He and his group of scientists have been studying the brain for a very long time. 50 years. He has a lot of narrative about this. A lot of stuff that he's written about the brain and the impact of these things that we do to ourselves, to our brains, and how we condition the brain by external things that we bring to the brain. The country has a big addiction problem. I think it's about 25% of our adult population is affected directly. There's about 260 million adults in the United States. About 26 million people are in recovery, long-term recovery from some substance. We also know that about 12.7% of the adult population are alcoholics. You add on top of this people who have a cannabis use disorder, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines. You get to 25% of the adult population. One in four. One in four of our adults has somehow compromised their lives and the lives of their families and their friends because they have become attached to a substance and lost a lot of control. When we interview all the people we've interviewed, I would say that generally speaking, these are all people who are in recovery, usually. They generally have sacrificed about 10 years of their life and they're prime, prime of their life. They absolutely know it. 17 to 27, 19 to 29, 15 to 30, they have had those 10 to 15 years of their lives taken away from them because all they could really imagine day in and day out was using a substance. So your program is also about hope. You talk about in these episodes, which are going to be on main public, and hopefully people will watch them, first one tomorrow night at 8, about hope. Voices of hope. Thank you for reminding me about that, Harold, because this is a tough topic. But we end every show on a high because we interview people who have made it, who have come through hell and they have developed their own personal methods that can be modeled by others to how to recover from these serious illnesses. We looked at addiction as a moral failing. And science knows today that that's not the case. It's physiological. It is absolutely brain changes. You can see an MRI of someone who has a severe addiction and you can see a damaged brain. What's wonderful about the brain is it heals. If only the person can stay away from the product and whatever methods they use, I'm going to say AAA is probably one of the best we've seen. The AAA community here in Portland is very strong. If they can hold on for months and years and keep going to meetings and staying with their home group, they can make it. You know, David, when I worked in Washington a lot of the Washington reporters were known as hard-drinking people and a lot of politicians. Same thing. I knew many in AAA in Washington. I knew many. I was always shocked at the number of people I knew. One thing I observed, they did it many of them every day at the beginning at least once a week, AAA meetings. I came to think this thing works for some, not everybody. There was a guy, he'll go nameless now, but he was well known in Maine. He was a good friend of mine. He's dead now. He was a state senator. He was a big leader in the legislature, he was a Portland city counselor. He went to AAA all the time and he told me when he was a very young man, he started drinking. He went in the Navy after high school and he came back and he said he was on the streets of Portland because he said I was drunk all the time and I couldn't hold a job so I would do it all day long. Outside, more than I slept in a bed. How's that? Down and out. In those days, you'd get arrested for public drunkenness in Portland. They'd put you in the cell in this police station overnight, let you go in the morning, you start out all over again. The police knew him and one time he was in a bar at 10 o'clock in the morning in Portland, Maine.  Who's Welch? Welch was a lawyer here in town, Vincent Welch.  Mr. Welch came in his car to the bar, which was on out of Congress Street, picked up this guy, brought him to his house, started him in AA. Welch was the founder, I believe, of AA Chapter in Portland and this guy, he was a young man telling me this story. He said, and here I am now 48 years later, I've never touched a drop. I have to go to AA. It is my home. It has kept me off the stuff. He's worked two jobs. He had a night job and then he had day job and then he had the legislature and kept him busy. And he said, it saved me.  I mean, we talked about careers a little bit. I've met a lot of impressive people over the years. I have interviewed probably 30 to 50 people in recovery over the last three years. They are, by far, the most impressive and inspiring group of people I have ever come across. They will keep me going because I've hired these people and they have become kinship to me because they're so inspiring. Tell me one other story. A lot of the people watching this show watched, we're talking about public television. Mark Shields. Mark Shields was on television every Friday night on the PBS News Show. He's a very close friend of mine. Shields was an alcoholic and he was another one. Never touched a drop for 30 years. Another well-known reporter, columnist in New York, Jimmy Breslin, also a friend of mine, he was an alcoholic. So the two of them used to go out drinking and then they stopped. They went to AA and they became recovering alcoholics and they were devoted to AA. They didn't see each other because he used to drink together so they didn't see each other if he is. So one time they didn't talk to each other for all those years. Their social bond was gone and so one time Breslin, I said to Breslin, you know I was talking to Shields and he wanted me to say hello to you and the first words out of Breslin's mouth were, does he drink? I said no. I told the story to Shields and I said that was his first question. He said, well let me ask you about Breslin. Does he drink? I said no. When we think about these particular people, they have lived in hell. They have experienced having no choices in their lives. We are going to have over 10,000 overdoses in 2022. When the numbers are all in there will be over 10,000 overdoses. In this small state. Now about 700 of them will turn out to be fatal but these people who are experiencing that life and it's not that much different when you can't control your drinking or you can't control your marijuana or you don't feel normal if you're not using these substances. When they finally surrender to recovery then they experience something that I think the normal person doesn't experience and they really start to love life and they become very inspiring people. Now we've touched on hope and success. What can we do? What do you do? You're educating people and you're educating young people about this. We're trying to get more and more schools interested in this program. But even if they're interested and even if they tell this story I'll give you an example. We have a school teacher who uses our clips in her classroom and she surveyed the students before she used the clips. What percentage of you think it's safe to use marijuana once or twice a week and the answer is about two thirds. Think it's safe. She does her segment. She shows our clips. She is a big advocate of the clips because it brings the stories to life. It brings the science to life. And then two months later she asked the same kids what percentage of you think it's safe to use marijuana once or twice a week and only five percent say they think it's safe. So we've gone from two thirds down to five percent. The teenager is educated and understands the science of all of this that they will be less likely to engage in it. Even with peer pressure? Here's the other thing that people learn a little bit. Nobody wants to get played. When you understand the science a little bit and then you understand the marketing all of a sudden you begin to go, I'm getting played. This product can make me high but can also hurt me. And they understand that it's all about marketing. It's all about developing a customer, a lifelong customer. And even the bad guys who market the criminals who market drugs, some very potent drugs, they're in the marketing business. Their whole idea is to get you hooked because they're going to get a lot of cash. And I'm not here to tell you it's going to be easy because we're about in the sixth inning and we're down about six to nothing. And we need a marketing campaign in this state, a messaging campaign for moms, grandmoms, and kids in every school that is just as imaginative and robust marketing campaign that says use our product, eat our gummy bears, eat our cookies, our popsicles, our drinks. We need something just that bold to counteract what's out there because we're way behind. On one of the local news programs in the last two or three days they talked about the number of children, three, four, five-year-old children who have been hospitalized because of these gummy bears. Huge numbers. They're candy. They're designed to look like candy because they want a young user. Because the younger they are, the more they'll chance to be addicted and become a great customer. Absolutely. That's the deal.  Tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals. I asked you about fear because at one point earlier in this interview you were told you just can't scare the kids. Right. Right. I think about what you said. When I was a kid, we didn't have much marijuana around. I was fearful. Why? Afraid. So fear... you've got to be a little bit afraid of this. Well, I think you have to be knowledgeable. I don't think we do a very good job in our culture raising kids to be kids. It seems like we're always trying to push them along. That five-year-olds, we want them to be eight. And eight-year-olds, we want them to be 12. And 12-year-olds, we want them to be 18. And that teaching kids to just love, love being kids, and playing, like all the ball fields or whatever, playing a piano, is so much more important than always marketing to these kids so that they always want to be older. Always want to be older. I think that's also sort of a cultural dysfunction that we have. Sometimes in the summer when I pass through the park during Oaks and you see all the people out there, and you do see people with needles. And you see people sprawled out unconscious and so forth. I say to myself, well, if some kid is in a car and goes by and sees this, he doesn't want to be in this situation so doesn't the kid get scared?  Maybe if they think about it, but you know when we see things and I'm sure your friend, the scientist, would tell you it becomes normal, we get desensitized to it. Go back five years, we did not see the number of people standing on street corners begging like we do today. During Oaks, five to ten years ago didn't look like during Oaks looks today. But it's almost become normal almost acceptable and that's a big danger for us and it's not going to get better if we are this loose with our marijuana policies because hard drugs lead to other hard drugs and so we know that we've got a big opioid problem in the state of Maine and the state's doing a lot at trying to curb it. How do they curb it? Well, they have more recovery operations going on around the state. Places where you can get treatment. But the numbers go up every year. So we're not gaining on that problem and in my estimation the reason we're not gaining on that problem is because it's marijuana is the minor leagues. It's where we start. Now that doesn't mean every kid who uses marijuana is going to end up using opiates, but a percentage of them will without a doubt. That's a feeder system for the next generation of opioid abusers. It depends on their wiring and so you don't know how you're wired. If I were 16 years old I have no idea how I'm wired. I might be wired where I could take these drugs and not become addicted for the rest of my life. Or I might be wired where I would become and I don't know. Genetics plays a role. Yeah. Genetics plays a role. Genetics plays a role. In about half the cases there's a genetic predisposition to a particular addiction. Both drugs and alcohol. Interesting. I can understand that genetics particularly with alcohol you see it families suffering from it. Sure. Going back about five generations in my family my estimate is about half of the adults were alcoholics and about half of them were successful in recovery. That's interesting. About half of them were successful in recovery.  I have no doubt about it. No doubt about it. No question about it. He doesn't have any question about it either. We eliminated any alcohol in our home as soon as we had kids. We taught them that we could have a lot of fun without alcohol. One of my sons took to it. One of the interesting things when you watch our show I remember people will say this about how when they got started the first time I used alcohol, the first time I used marijuana I liked it. I really liked it. Red flag. Because you've met people who said yeah I could take it or leave it. That person's not going to have a problem. You're saying something that I understand so well because I had peer pressure growing up and they have a beer. But I never liked it. I have a drink. I have a gin and tonic from time to time. Not very often but I do. I'm sociable but I don't like it. But I know people that really like it. Need it. That's what you're saying. That's different. That's different. Yeah need it and like it. Let me give you another statistic. We're probably running out of time. Our business is based on this addiction as well. They did a study about 20 years ago and I think it's held up. They looked at how much do people drink. Well really about 2 thirds of the adult population either doesn't drink or drinks very little. Like how you describe it. 10% of the adult population drinks about 74% of all the alcohol that's sold in the United States. People like it and some people are not crazy about it. What it means is that people who have become attached to the product they fuel the business. And everybody in the addiction business understands this. Colorado looked at marijuana. 4% of all the users in Colorado by 65% of all the marijuana sold in Colorado. And that business understand that. They know that we need users who will use every day and that means we need people who are addicted to our product. And the best way to get people addicted to our product is start them early have them use regularly and have them use a high potency. That's the trifecta. The trifecta. You know I liked that episode you're going to show tomorrow night. And one young lady said you know when I was 15, 14 my friend said try this. You'll like it. I like it. And she said and I liked it. And then she said but you know I had limits first of all the very thought of putting something up my nose. Creeper out. Creeper out. Cringe. And no one. The needle. And it had a guy on. A young man. Needle. The very thought of it. The point that they made was they set limits. I would never do this. And guess what? They said what they wouldn't do because of the addiction. Because of the addiction they broke that limit and they did it all including needles. And Brittany describes it very well where she says I have a brain even after all these things I've done terrible things I've done stolen from my grandmother on her death bed I have a brain that tells me it's okay just one more time. You can handle it now. And when our brain actually turns on us and convinces us that the addiction is in control then that's when people lose total control of their lives. And that's how they go to needles. That's how they have multiple overdoses. And that's how they can't stop no matter how many times their family and their friends ask them. All the promises they make. They have to get into a serious recovery program. And I think AA is probably the best one I've heard of. So there's a book written by a man I know named Cope Moyers. William Cope Moyers. His father Bill Moyers was my boss in Washington. His father was a very famous journalist. Bill Moyers. Cope was brought up, his father was the publisher of Newsday, then he was CBS television news guy and famous. And Cope was brought up with all the advantages and he became a drug addict starting in high school. Wow. And seriously addicted. His parents went through a horrible time with him. In the book he describes how his mother, and his mother told me this story herself, how she and a lawyer friend of hers was helping them went in Harlem to a crack house. And there was people, he had nothing in common with the people other than it was a place to get high and took him out of there. And then he relapsed. He went to work for CNN as a reporter in Atlanta for CNN and was doing very well, relapsed, was in the crack house down there. And his father with some people that he had hired found him and brought him out of the crack house. And he tells the story of sitting in the car with his father after he got him out of the crack house. And he said to his father, who loved him dearly, coming through all of this to save him, said you probably hate me. And he said my father paused because he was so upset and so angry. So Cope Moyers struggled in and out of treatment and then he went to Hazelton in, I mean, in St. Paul. And he has been clean for 25 years. And he is actually a senior vice president of Hazelton in charge of external relations. He came to Portland to speak one time on drug addiction. And I'd rather put you in touch with Cope. I'd love to speak with him. So I guess the point there is it can happen to anyone, all the people that are out here who have children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, they know it can happen to them and in their family. I know it can happen to me and in my family. So it's important for all of us to learn a lot about us and all of us to be on the alert. Well, we've got to get bold. We've got to be as bold as they are. We've got to increase the amount of education in our schools. They don't necessarily have to use our programming, but they've got to use better programming. We still have a lot in rural Maine. We still have a lot of good lacrosse coaches that teach health. Well, then they're not qualified for that. We need people that have the qualifications to teach the science and do so in a manner that is interesting and engages young people. Our project is to engage young people. We do not preach to these young people about drugs and alcohol ever, but we put them behind the camera. We let them do transcriptions. We let them do interviews. We let them do animation. You're saying the kids that you're working with actually run the cameras. We give them projects. We give them as many projects as they can handle. And what happens is they meet the people and all of a sudden they think, wow, this is really something. Never once have we ever said to a kid, you shouldn't be using marijuana. But they learn from the people they meet. So how do you find the kids that tell their stories about their own addiction? It's been unbelievable. I can ask that question in your moved. They come out of the woodwork, Harold. Somebody tells their story and then somebody hears that they told their story. I want to tell my story. We've got more people that we need and they are they're unabashed. But how do you connect?  I work with the Portland Recovery Center on my board. I've got people who are in recovery. I hire people who are in recovery. The people in recovery are crucial to this education program. We need to have them into some of these schools being able to answer questions of young people. We have a lot of young people. I hear from principals who say the family comes to me and they've got a real problem with this. I don't know what to say to them. One of our projects is to take a team of 6-8 of these very well vetted people who are in recovery young in their 20s who can go into these schools and talk to these kids and help them. So the name of the program is SEEDS. Students Empowered to End Dependency. And if somebody is interested in watching is interested, there's two or three things they can do. One, watch this series beginning tomorrow night on main PBS. But suppose they had somebody who a person member of their family who was suffering from addiction and they wanted to talk to you or somebody that you work with. How did they do that? They were on the website. They can contact us. Take this down everyone. Voicesofhopeandrecovery.org Voicesofhopeandrecoveryallrundegether.org And you can leave us an email that's how the ways you can contact us right off the website. Can they access online some of these episodes? Watch all the episodes online. The first six episodes are all there. We're working on the next six episodes. The name of the first episode is In the beginning I liked it. The second episode is the slippery slope. I'm glad that you contact me.  And I will be following the work of SEEDS and looking at these programs you're doing on main public. I wish you well. I can't think of more important work than the work you're doing. Thanks for coming, David. I appreciate it very much.


gooey challenge community shoutouts. I've got four of them today. So we got to kind of make it quick. They're based on this building a side nap component that we did last week. Check it out if you haven't yet. Here's the article. It's got all sorts of fun little gifts. If you watched the video and didn't read the article, I suggest reading the article. There's a lot of stuff I put in there that I don't put in the video. Anyway, let's get into these submissions. The first one here is by Anrella.  And this was a really interesting remix. Just sort of took it. Changed some colors, learned some things about CSS, submitted it right back. And that's all that you need to make a great submission. Shout out to you, Anrella. Thank you for that submission. I love it. This one down here takes a little bit more of a personal style into it, which I really like. This one's from Maya. Thank you so much for your submission. And if you want to see how this one works, it's of course on Glitch with all of the code there. Look at that. That's just so nice. Up here, we have one from Jason Miller. This one's a custom element that has many nice features that I want to showcase. One is the ability to drag out the menu from anywhere within the viewport. And of course, drag it back. There is the button. Gotta love it. But that's just really, really nice. Now, one thing it doesn't have is what this one does down here by Evromalarki. This one, once you invoke to show it, you can then use your mouse to scroll it back and forth and throw it away. So it's almost like I would love to, you know, drag one of these open and then scroll to throw it away. And I might be able to make a new nav that has the ultimate set of features of every nav that ever came from the community and we, you know, I don't know, have a new style. And that is what this is all about. Thank you so much for the community submissions and I'll see you all in the next episode of GUI Challenges. Take it easy. Bye.


Hey, I am really enjoying my episodes from Brazil. You know why? Because I'm learning so many new things that I never knew it existed. How I wish I speak so many different languages from Africa so that I'll be able to connect. I learned something new from my comment section yesterday that I never knew it existed, which is Oludum, the popular music band in Salvador Bahia. I never knew that word is an Iroba word. Thank you to all my Iroba subscribers who left a comment to educate me. And now, I now know that Iroba is a song like that. But trust me, I never knew the word Oludum came from Nigeria. But hey, that's not why I'm here. I have traveled across Africa. And whenever you travel within Africa, there is one thing that stands out in every single African country that you go through. And that is our African market. And it's exciting to see that in Salvador Bahia, the blackest city out of Africa, the city with 80% of its population routes to Africa, seeing the signature of African market present in Salvador Bahia made me feel like, indeed, this is Africa. It's funny how we are in Brazil and we eat coconut the same way we eat coconut in Ghana. It makes me stay here. I'm not going back to Africa because I'm in Africa already. The similarity in Bahia and West Africa is very similar. And at the same time, the similarity to the South Africa going from down of Congo to Angola. Because if you look at the map of the African map and the Brazilian map of the South America, you see that the Angolans are very parallel to the Bahia. So if you look at the transit of the slavery, it was easier to transport each country to the opposite level. So this Bahia gets Angola, Ghana gets Mariah, these are all like a peak. And this is where they really live, like Africans. They are food. Wow, like literally everything, even the people. The people. Hi man, what's up? Kassava man. Kassava, Dereciam, Watermelon, these are all African roots. She's selling okra. Kiabo. Kiabo, it's called kiabo in Brazil. Uncruma, uncruma man.  And this is the sweet one? Yeah, the sweet one. Oh my goodness. Look at coco. Oh wow. That's the symbol of Ghana. When they brought some of the seeds from Ghana to here? Exactly. To Bahia. To Bahia? Yeah, that's why they have it most. The whole Brazil, that's where you can have it. They even call it Kakao. It's a big community of production of coco down the south of Bahia. So this is a symbol of one more thing we can find Ghana here. Hello. Hello, I'm from the same language as you. What did you say? I'm from the same language as you. So you're from Bahia, right? No, I'm from the same language. I'm from the same language as you. You are not speaking a language. So why is he going to shake you up and speak in a language? Oh my goodness. So we are entering the front of the market. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. This is the Kaneshi or Makola market? Yes, yes, yes, yes. For Legos, they have Jankara markets, you see. They have the Pepe Land. The Himbaru, man. Bro, this is Africa, man. This is Africa. The first time you came to a market like this, man. I mean, when you landed in this country and you came in, all the settings looks like you're back home. You know, Salvador really changed my life of view of outside Africa. I would say, why? Because I'm like I'm in Kotokraba market. I'm from Cape Coast. Exactly. See, the ginger, look at the Mahogany, the pitas, where we do pitas. Oh my goodness. You understand. You see, it makes me stay here. I'm not going back to Africa because I'm in Africa already. Yeah, in Africa already. I arranged like everything. Yes, yes, yes. Familiar, familiar, familiar. Wow. How are you, man? Good. Yeah. I'm at home. I'm at home. Yeah, he's checking. Yeah, yeah. Black power, black power. Black power, black power. See the ganas. It's the same way we sell it, man. Hello. Another cocoa. Another cocoa. They sell cocoa here too. And you know, like in Ghana, you will never see cocoa on the market, them selling it like this in Ghana. Really? No. You see here. And you know, like selling your cocoa in Ghana is illegal. Illegal. To the government. Yeah. But here everyone is selling their cocoa on the street. You sell what you plant. Exactly. Or you own what you plant. Is that red oil? That's palm oil, red oil, original African oil. Ha! Yes. You, you each red oil, palm oil. What's it called me, Dende? Dende is actually an African name. It's taken from an Angolan language called Kimbundo. So that's why the name Dende comes from. And what does Dende mean? Dende is the name of the tree that produces the fruit. So please, leave a comment if you know anything about the origination of the name Dende. What do you eat with? What do you eat with? Carage. Carage is a beans dough. Like Ghana call it Kosei. Kosei? Oh my goodness. I need to try that. So it's a very traditional African cuisine. They use it in everything. Just everything. Does it feel African? What's it called? Is it African? No, it's just a digital African. So yes, they are from descendants of Africa. So for sure he feel Africa. Nice to meet you, my brother. Razi. Razi. Rali. Hello. To express the way I feel to people on camera, because literally I feel like I'm walking in the street of... Any market? Any market? No. Typical. Even the way they sell the... the ingredients. This is mind blowing man. I'm so happy to be here. I'm just super excited. Being here. That's like my grandma from Ghana. How are you? To the bank. To the bank? Everything is cool. She looks like my grandmother from Ghana. For sure, why not? Has she ever been to Africa? She has not, but I really love to. How do I make that dream come true? Say you the one going to say it. Passport? Do you have passport? No. Which country in Africa do you want to visit? Which country in Africa would you like to meet? I would like to visit that country. Which country? Because there are many. Ghana, Nigeria. Nigeria. You want to go to Nigeria? You want to go to Nigeria? What do you know? What do you know? You say she wants to. Dude. We can make it happen. We can make it happen. She has to. She has to. We have this information. She has to be in Africa before she transition. You need to go to Africa, before your mission to this land. Yeah. Because you want to go. It's heavy. Get that content. Let's make it happen. I was so excited when I found Kaku. The greatest meat of all time. I found it in Salvador Bahia. So if you are from Salvador Bahia, call me my brother. This is more like the meat session. You know we have this sort of beef in Ghana. Yeah. This is more like the white one. Yeah. And wow. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And this one, they do it with sun, they dry it with sun. And you know, like with this, we cook it with that. We can use it to cook. You can also make rice and oil with it. Yeah, yeah. Oh God, this is Africa, man. And this one, when you make it with rice, man, it's so delicious. That's what I'm saying. What do you cook with this? Sautéed beef. Let me know in the comment section, man. Wow, this is like a beef session. No. Wow. This is beef session. Meat. This session, meat. Yeah. Everything meat. Yeah. Shrimp. Different type of shrimp on that side. Wow. Wow. Wow. We did not come here the other day. Ha! This is kaku. This is my best meat in the whole world, man. They got it here. Sautéed? You know, this is like salted shak, bro. You cut them into pieces and then you put salt. It's salty, man. It's one of the best you will ever get. I told you I can live here, man. I must eat kaku in here before I leave. Yo, we buy kaku. Yeah, we're going to buy kaku. Yeah, just dancing. Yeah. Is that a kilo is 80 eggs? 80. A kilo. Yeah. Half a kilo. Half? Half. Half. This? Uh huh. You want the meat to understand the fish? All of them it's OK. OK. Ha! That's it. That's it? Uh huh. What about the size? No. I didn't say... I said it's quite a lot. I said one kilo. One kilo, man? Half a kilo. Any 1.5 kg you can count on us. It's a lot. That's half a kilo. Is it okay? It's okay, it's okay. So how much is it? 40 bucks. Okay. What do you see? See? Spices. Spices, this is what they used to cook Jalof in Ghana. Yeah. All these spices, they have it here, right? This is a garlic. Is that pepper? No. Is that peppermint? No. This one is garlic. Peppermint? Is it peppermint? No. No. What's that?   You have it. You put it to the inside so that it to be colored. I'm sorry. You have the Jalof, yeah. Hello. Tutubeng? How many? Three. Three is the ice. Three is the ice. They have coconuts. They cook. Salt. Salt? Yes. They cook? Yes. No salt? No. They use it with sugar. The same thing. Salt. They use it with salt. No. No. They use it with salt. No. They use it with salt. No. No. No. No, you say it doesn't have, you only have sugar. Sugar? Yes. No. No. No. Okay. Tutubeng. Thank you. The same thing that... The rosemary. The same thing that they do in here. No. Thank you. No. It's over. The same thing that they do in here. I understand. The same thing that they do in here. Okay. Thank you. I see you want to do this for us. This one for two. No. I give you money. Thank you. I don't want anything. I started more. One more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you know what he said? Tell me more. Do you know the meaning? No. Bye bye, my love. Oh, wow. Yeah. I love you too, mama. Feel that we have in Africa here. Yes. That's why I feel at home so much. Because we the... They will say this is a snake food. It's snake food in Ghana. Snake food.  You understand. This is what I was talking about.  In Ghana, yeah. You can't eat this. They tell you that it's... You bought it already? No. You can't eat it. You know this one. I'm opening it. This one, we call it Nyunyan. You know Nyunyan. Yeah. But we use a leaf for medicine. You know we cook the leaves for medicine. But here... I cannot eat because I still have that mindset that this is good for the snake. I'm not a snake. Oh. Ah. This is a fruit. What if I turn into a snake, bro? They brought everything with them. Basket. Like it's exactly the same way we make baskets. And they are all handcrafted. Handcrafted? Yeah. So our aunties in the market this is exactly the same hat. To protect the sun. Right. We have this. In Ghana, man. Made out of cans. And they're doing exactly the same thing here. Like literally everything. She's the one doing this art. Beautiful art. Oh. What did she learn it? Apprende onji. Apprende onji. She's just observing and doing it. It's handcrafted. That she knows that... That she knows that the reason why she knows how to do it is the spirit from Africa. If you know that the institution that comes to do this comes from Africa. Did you know? No, he said he knows. Because we make it. Everything comes from Africa. They have this culture of Africa that they use it to do baskets. They use it to do hats. They use it to do other things. Like put fruits. Wow. Wow. The basket. Oh. I feel like Brazilians embrace Africa. The Afro-Brazilians really embrace Africa, man. He thinks that the Afro-Brazilians appreciate Africa a lot. Sit down. He said... Not everything started from there. That's why. See, the Africans that came to Brazil with the colonization that tends all these things to happen like this. So for sure, the roots is Africa. Hey. Serious matter. The markets where they have restaurants. So these are the restaurants that feed the whole market people. I hope you can get a restaurant where we can eat some African meal today. Yes, yes, yes. The whole city is fed from this market. Oh. They take it to everywhere. Like 24 hours on function. Because the food comes from the farm in the middle of the night. So like 5, 4, 3 o'clock people already here come from far places to pick it up in large quantities to take along, you know. These are fruits, huh? Yeah. It comes in large quantities. Pineapple. This is melon. All kinds of melon. Watermelon. I don't know the kind of melon, but these are all kinds of melon. That's the purple, right? So I think this side is the fruit session. Do you guys have plantain in here? Yeah, plantain and bananas. They are from the most African countries. They export every food. They export everything. Everything. They feed 40% of the population on it. Actually, it's the bread basket of the whole world. Every food comes from Brazil. Exactly. I've seen some fruits that I've never seen before. Example. Oh, that's plantain. That's plantain. I was like, where am I going to see plantain? So which means you can pound fufu here? Yeah, you can pound, but we don't have the pounder. So what we do is I use another system of eating original Ghana fufu. But I have to go through technology. Microwave, you know. But the soups, palm nut soup, granite soup, light soup, contemporary garden eggs stew, pumpkin stew. Everything you get it. Everything. That's where we are. Everything. We bought some fufu from the market, man. Where are you heading to now? We are here. We are finding a place to eat in a traditional Sanjuaki where all the food that goes to all the city are from here. And they created a restaurant where you can see people eating doesn't have nothing to do with the market. You can see because it's become an attraction where everybody feel like coming to have a lunch in the market. So if you look at them they have nothing to do with the market. There are people that come from somewhere and just come and enjoy the the place, you know. So what this market stand for is tourist. I'm salivating, man. Is he going to give me some? So we are the area of the African spiritual religion. African spiritual religion. Where you have the traditional religion, you know. Maybe with the outfit. What inspired the outfit? Is it from Benin? Aki Inspiration to the Benin. Aki Inspiration to the Benin. To the Benin. To the Benin. To the Benin. This one? Yansan. Yansan. They call it Yansan. Because Yansan is a Yoruba language. Because why? Yoruba was the last slaves that came to America. That's why their religion it's all Yoruba. If you go to Cuba, if you go to all the Latin they all use the Yoruba. So it's the only sham. Yansan, we call this Benin. So this is the outfit from the Yoruba people, right? For the traditional religion of the Afro religion in diaspora. Here, if you see the way they use all the beats you understand. Our chiefs in kings and also our native doctors. So this is like the things that the native doctor will act. Do you know this? No, no, this is no cola. Oh my goodness. So they all use this in a traditional of arending and other you know. Exactly. But these are beats. I'm seeing like clay pots right in there. Wow. So they all use this for juju, you know. They have juju here? Yes, that is what is meant for playing. Okay, do you know what we have here? That's a tortoise. What do you guys keep tortoises like this? They use it for rituals. I want to bring where you can see diversity of all these Africans starting from the drums, right? These drums is only meant to be played in the African religion. We call it Kandumbleh because actually for me, it doesn't really make sense Kandumbleh because it's only Yoruba both tribes in Africa are billions of tribes. They only use one language so it's not everybody that is going to understand the Kandumbleh. They call it what? Kandumbleh. Yes. In here. But that's Yoruba language? That's Yoruba language. Which means a traditional religion. Wow. Where they call it that Ghana, we call it traditional religion. Okay. Yes, so it is the traditional Let's go and see what the tigers have for us. Powerful. Start from the power. If you want to pound your palm nut Ghana, for the Fufu pounders, they're more here. So you can see that all the people in the whole Brazil when they want to do anything spiritually if you want to give some sacrifice for some spiritual thing you direct it to buy some things which they will use it together to make the ritual so that's where they come. So most of the people here are sent with some definition you know. Something to come and buy. Like you see what they hold in their hands. Can you ask what you see coming to buy here? Wait, what's that? He came to he came to find out something like a research so these are the beads. Beads. Yeah. Wow. Look at that. Yeah, these are the African artifacts. Yes. This one, I know this one. These are Nigerian Yeah, Ibo. Typically. Oh my goodness. And the outfits. The outfit is representing. This is crazy man. And also the statue is very important not to forget as well. Each statue stands for one kind of spirit that they believe mixed with the Catholic because as Brazil have the they are colonizing the religion oppressed. They always have to hide. They never do it openly. So even to today they are dying because of it's a slave religion. And that's the diaspora. So they are still being oppressed. So a Christian movement Pentecostal temples they are growing here in Brazil and some of them not all of them sustain this message that Candomblé is the same of the devil. So this is sugar cane. This is sugar cane. Oh it's the biggest economic in Brazil, sugar cane. In alcohol in alcohol for vehicles for sugar and for the spirits appetite So it's a symbol of slavery as well because that's where the slaves work on the farm. Big farms. So when they brought them here that's why everybody thinks that when you are going to Brazil you are going to grow sugar cane. Because it's the symbol that's what the slaves not only in Brazil, Cuba as well they have a lot of sugar cane molasses, plantations that produce sugar all over the world and to make this quantity of production they needed the slaves. That's why it was very economically growing because the more slaves you have the bigger farms you have. This is Assanka. Wow. We eat in this we also grind tomatoes and peppers within this and it's exciting to see that they have the same thing in Brazil. It shows you that indeed Africans were taken from Africa and brought to this part of the world. Nothing can change my mind about that. That slavery story or the transatlantic story was a fairy tale. Because you see the presence of Africa in here. Are they selling on water? No, they are taking it to the island. To the island? The island needs products. Wow. All the islands they need products from here. All these boats itself like long distance and to support the market, the growth store so it's very important the work of these big, big boats. They are not that big but they are big enough to take enough. So most of the owners own little, little shops on the island so they come and do the big shopping and take it there. So that's what they sustain. Greetings from Africa. Say Complimentation from Africa. Complimenting. And we are so sorry we are very sorry. We ask for your forgiveness. We couldn't fight so hard not to bring you guys here. Yes, so as not to make you bring you here. You are welcome to Africa anytime. You are always welcome to Africa. Let's see. Thank you so much for taking me around showing me Africa in Brazil. I've learnt a lot of new things today and believe me or not this is Africa in Brazil. Yeah, for sure. Thank you very much having this opportunity to share this wonderful educational colonial Africanism diaspora and I know my people are going to have a lot of good benefits of this wonderful wonderful education system to you in Africa. Maya. So whenever somebody comes to Salvador Bahia, reach out to DJ Sankofa and believe me you're going to learn something that you've never learnt in your whole life before. Don't forget to like this video. Share this video so that others will see this video. I mean I am blown away. I've learnt something new and I believe that so many people need to know that there is Africa's presence in Brazil and I will see you all in the next one. Peace out.


This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Navigating the journey, and today we are journeying into the belly of the beast, that big square building that we call the State Capitol. It is where the office of the Lieutenant Governor, the Governor, 25 Senators, and 51 members of the House, all our House members there. Can they get along? Probably not. Can they at all get it together? For us, our taxpayers? Probably not. But as we speak today, they are talking about the ominous rail project. It is a special session and they are trying to figure out how to get it paid for. What can I say? Will we, the residents of Honolulu, be left with unfinished rail system and debt? Can the leadership pull it together so that we, the taxpayers, aren't paying for this for the rest of our lives? I don't know. My guest today is Scott Foster, the founder of the Hawaii Advocates for Consumer Rights. Scott and I worked together for so many projects, like the stewards for Waimea Valley and the stewards were credited with saving Waimea Valley from the Ferris wheels and all the nonsense. Scott worked with the Pew Foundation for the National Marine Monuments and the Rose Atoll, the Marianna Stretch, and who knows what all of them. So he was a part of the Needle Exchange project. Yes, he'll pass that. And of course, he and Jugi Heen, my dear friend Jugi, they will revitalize the Kapuna Caucus of the Democratic Party. So here we are today with Scott and, as I said, that ominous rail project. So, Scott Aloha. Aloha, Marsha. Now, tell me, tell me, how in the world, you seem like a nice guy, how in the world did you get involved with this rail thing? Or when did you get involved? Because this rail has been going on forever. When did you get involved? Well, it was going on before I got involved, but it had quieted down. The year was, let me see, I'll read you a headline story here. Oh, is that the one from the new, the star bulletin? Right. Monday, August 8th, 2005, transit approval not assured. Vote on Wednesday stirs memories of past council rejection of a plan offered in 1992. So it was 1992 that I got involved. It was several years before I helped create advocates for consumer rights, Hawaii advocates for consumer rights, which Ralph Nader came over to Hawaii and helped us co-found that organization. And it was because of issues such as the rail project and many other things, car insurance reform and banking charges reform and on and on and on, that we created advocates for consumer rights. But all by myself in 1992, I was living in Moeilele. And it was announced that drawings and pictures and collateral material for the proposed rail project was going to be presented all over the island at neighborhood boards and at city hall and all over the place. So I went to a couple of them just to see what was being proposed. 1992, I'd been in Hawaii about seven years. So I wasn't really Akamai about everything, but I was learning. And when I saw the photographs of the intersection in Moeilele of where University and King and Baratania merge, that the photograph showed that that entire intersection was going to be under concrete. The entire view plane was going to be devastated. It was at that moment that I realized, wait a minute, this thing is too big. It's over-engineered. It's over-built. This can't be. So I got involved and started protesting the whole thing. And here I would congratulate Cliff Slater. That's when I met him in 1992. And Cliff and I are on opposite poles of the political spectrum. He's a Republican. I'm a Democrat. But Cliff through the years has done an amazing job of documenting how this thing came to be that we're dealing with today at the legislature as the Senate prepares to vote on the funding mechanism to continue building this huge project that we've been fighting for all these years. Now where are we in the process today? What's going on today at the legislature? Today being the last day of August. This is the third day of the special session. It began on Monday. About 10 days ago there was a joint hearing to get ready for the special session. Yesterday after a five-hour hearing, the vote to move the funding bill to the full Senate for a vote today at 1.30 at the Capitol was passed by one vote. He was contentious. Won't get into all of that at this point. But so today the vote is whether to pass the bill over to the House for their consideration, where this whole process will be repeated. They will be hearing the House if the bill passes today. The House will then be hearing the bill and all of this has got to conclude Friday. Well then I read that the neighbor island people voted against. Neighbor island senators voted against most of them. Yes, that was an interesting part of this. The tourism industry, after the informational briefing that the Senate had a couple of weeks ago, jumped on this because they did not want the transient accommodation tax raise. The TAT. That's the TAT. The TAT is the transient accommodations tax. And that is a state tax on hotel rooms, which at this point in time, it's a small amount. If the TAT is increased as they're planning, it'll increase it less than $3 a day. So that's the big fuss. And the reason the neighbor island senators voted against it is they were erroneously informed that they would be, the neighbor islands would be paying part of the TAT, which they will be collecting the TAT and the increase in the TAT. But the point that I have made to the legislature in my testimony is that 80% of the GET is collected on Oahu. What that means is the Oahu taxpayers pay 80% of every state project on every island, including schools, teacher salaries, hospitals, roads, environmental programs, and all of the rest. So it doesn't seem to me to be quote, unfair that the TAT be increased and that that money go to help Oahu pay off this monster project, which by the way, I have fought from day one. It's too large. It's over-engineered. It's just a- And it's ugly. And it's ugly. All these things. Hawaii sells beauty and that's ugly. But it's here. But it's here. And so what- Now what? My organization, Advocates for Consumer Rights, is trying to do is get the best of what we can get because of the circumstances we now find ourselves in. So if each hotel room is $3 a day, because it's already at, you know, $300, so what's another $3? Well, it's more, the TAT is already in place. I think it's, I'd misquote the number, but it will be an additional less than $3 a day. Okay. In addition to whatever taxes they're already paying. Yes. Okay. So now- Statewide, not just on the neighbor island. Statewide, yeah. So the state, do the neighbor islands that they collect from the hotels on those islands, they get to keep that much? Already? Well, already the state refunds a certain amount of it, not all of it, to the various islands, counties. And as I understand it, the state will be increasing that amount, a proportional amount. So the counties will be doing better, actually. And that's why I'm very surprised at the way the boats went on the neighbor islands. Political cover, maybe. I think it's more that the tourism industry does not want any additional fees that don't come into their pockets, such as the various fees that they charge visitors. And when they raise the room rates, anything else that gets added on means that they maybe can't raise the room rates as large as they wish. Now, here I would point out, it's a great article in the morning paper, the morning civil beat. Oh, I got it here at the time. Yes, it's this morning. Excellent article. Anybody interested in this issue, read Lawmaker's Skeptical that Hotel Room Tax Hike Would Hurt Hawaii Tourism. The senators, several of them, Donna McMurdo-Kim, to her great credit, had asked for documentation that the tourism industry had been, to what the tourism industry had been saying about it. And damn it, she didn't get it. And it's all published in this article in the morning civil beat. So anyone really interested, I urge you to go to civilbeat.com and read that. So that documents how much is taken in, where it comes from, and does it do anything to slow tourism? To the contrary. It has, well, not to the contrary, but it has apparently no effect on it because tourism in the last, and again, I don't want to misquote dates, but the last years, decade or so, has gone from 6.5 million to 8.5 million. A steady, I believe the number was 8% increase year after year after year, despite the fact that the tat has been raised several times. It's had no effect on tourism. Okay. Well, we need to take a break, and we will be back. And let's talk about some more of this, what's going on with our legislative. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. And we're back talking with Scott Foster, who is founder of the Hawaii Advocates for Consumer Rights. And Scott is bringing us up to date on what is going on at the state legislature special session, and about getting us funded or not for the rail. So Scott, tell us, what is going on today? What do you expect today? And then can we rewind for those people that haven't been with us since 1992? Well, today at 1.30, the Senate will either vote to pass the combination increasing the tat, the transient, the combinations tax on hotel rooms, plus extending the general excise tax for, I've forgotten, several more years. That's the compromise. It's the combination of those two taxes. It will either pass or it won't. If it passes, it will move over to the house and go through the whole process again. And again, this all has to be done by Friday. The whole session has to be done by Friday. If it doesn't pass, I don't know. It's anybody's guess. We'll stay tuned for that. A little background, I was fortunate enough to have worked for and with the late state representative and council member Dr. Duke Venom. On June 2, 2009, Duke Venom had written a letter signed by then council member Duke Venom and council member Charles DeJew to the Under Secretary for Policy United States Department of Transportation. And I'm just going to read one paragraph here. We have the opportunity to go a long ways in solving our transportation problems while still protecting our lifestyles, if and only if all transit alternatives are given a full and fair consideration. We are only requesting that light rail at grade and elevated be examined as an alternative to all elevated systems as currently pursued by the city administration and that money not be spent for preliminary engineering or construction until this evaluation is complete. It is for this reason that we bring this matter to your attention. That was the day before he died. He died on June 9. This was June 2. Unfortunately, then council chair Nester Garcia held the vote and again memory fails a week or 10 days later, maybe two weeks. Duke Venom was dead. He was our turn vote and that brings us to today. Of course it was a devastating loss when I woke up the next morning and realized that I had been working with Duke only a few hours before he died of a heart attack. And I knew what this meant. The one thing we were successful in that ill-advised council meeting was we were able to force the city and county and I think Hart was in place then to come back to the city council every time there was a bond issue. In other words they wanted full bonding authority without having to come back to the council. That was the one victory we got out of that. Now if I remember correctly they had a council meeting almost immediately after Duke died even without taking a breath to say we're sorry you're not. Yeah that's that's the meeting I was talking about. So now here we are with this horrible thing and if you've been to Waipahu you know how many businesses have been lost and if it ends at Middle Street which seems to me to be the best solution because there are at least five hundred buses that transverse Middle Street every day so you can get on a bus and go someplace. My point in the position you're talking about which is let's stop it at Middle Street now whether it gets built on to Ala Moana later or not my argument and advocates for consumer rights argument and another hat that I wear the Kapuna Caucus the Democratic Party's position is no I misspoke. The Kapuna Caucus supports raising the TAT. Advocates for consumer rights in my position is let's put it on pause stop it at Middle Street and get it operating between where it starts way out in Eva and Middle Street and get the bugs worked out of it see what it costs to operate and then decide if we want to continue to build it on to Ala Moana and hopefully later the university. Well okay so what will the electric bill be if you push the button and it starts rolling down the track what happens with the electric bill for all of us because we've got to pay that what is it cost to operate this thing now it's up high and you've got folks riding the bus what happens if you have an emergency let's say somebody has a heart attack on the thing how do the emergency people get up there to the patient to the person that's number one if you have a disturbance on there and there's no driver who who is what happens those are you see I'm a bus rider those things I have seen happen on the bus what happens when you're up there how do you get emergency vehicles there how do you get time well the questions you're posing Marcia or a whole other show suffice to say we do not know what it's going to cost to operate because those numbers have not been put forth as I understand it certainly a additional substation is going to have to be built some are saying they're going to have to have a whole entire power plant for it a separate power plant I do not know because it's not been discussed nor has it been really widely discussed the fact that there's only one restroom in each one of them and those are going to be locked with a security person on site with the key now you know getting off of a cold bus sometimes the first thing I'm a bus rider too I'm looking for a place to pee and in this town that's hard to find that's hard to find so these are unanswered questions and the other reason I would like to see some resolution to getting this thing operating out there is so we can begin the important dialogue about affordable housing along the transient corridor the TOD the corridor the right of way yeah because once you get in town there is none right but out there out in the country yes there's plenty yeah because once you get to Chinatown there's not a square inch of space no real or white Paul you know or even white Paul there but all that all that ever ever planned yeah that's the transit or that's the TOD the what is it transit development development corridor that we need to be talking about and my fear is that the big developers are going to get a hold all that land and there will be no affordable housing bill and I would bet if that man that you're right but if you look try to take that to Alamoana have you been down to Alamoana recently and see all those million dollar condos and you're going to ride a train in their view plane I don't think so you're going to ride a train pass bird off again this wasn't my idea I don't like it any better than anyone else does but this is what is coming I the people already a friend of mine just finished doing a survey at the of marketplace international marketplace and almost to a person they were dissatisfied with Honolulu because of all of the high-end commercial spaces and one person said she just left Jamaica and it was so lovely and the music and the people and it's Jamaican flavor and she gets here and it's all high-end and she's disappointed well the naysayers and the war we we've warned people with a little common sense have warned the city council for years about this and that's one point I want to make before we leave the city council makes decisions today that really won't many won't have any effect for years they won't show up and yet while organizations will go to the legislature they rarely turn up at the city council and so I encourage people we've got to keep a better eye on this city council well they have the plans and permitting department and in the city council which they have to go to but the plans the net but as we learned last year when we were working on the amendments the master plan is 25 years old so the city is still working on a master plan that's 25 years old and hopefully was on the master plan 25 years ago things have changed in 25 years so that everything now is different than the master plan that the city is working on and well this is this is why citizens must become more involved in in their government we must we must get better organized we must raise our voices more often and not be afraid of retribution which is one reason a lot of people don't you know you can ask anybody on the street for all of the words to um any you name it uh Taylor Swift's newest song they know it all but you ask who is your city council person they don't know I know and they don't know who their elected representative or senator are yeah mostly don't mostly don't and one last thing before we go because I've been complaining about this forever in 1908 when the city was made in county of Honolulu became incorporated there were nine city council people they were called county different but nine today still we have nine everything has changed the population's changed the face of the island has changed everything has changed still only nine people we have 51 house members nine council people that has to be changed I agree that that let's start there let's figure out how to change that let's do another show on that yes okay thank you so much for spending this day with us and we'll see you next week I love you


Welcome, this is Melissa Armo with the Stock Swoosh and I'm reviewing the track game for the GapOp Shows newsletter for one week. This is the week of May 26, 2023. The win ratio was 67% and average return investment, this includes the losers, was 166%. This is with an advanced trade or risk. Again, I get this question a lot. How many trades do you call on the newsletter? How many can I expect in a week? You can expect as many as I get good gaps. In a slow week, we may have, you know, three trades. I don't think we've ever gone a whole week without any trades. In a busy week, we may have more trades than this week. So this is like an average week. And there were nine trades this week. During a busy week, there might be twice as many trades. It's earnings season is a busy time. Sometimes you have a lot of volatility in the market. So you have to plan accordingly and say, I'm going to take this much risk per trade. I'm going to do this many trades per week. That'll really help you plan. But this gives you kind of an idea. This particular week was nine trades. How many you can expect? And again, you must choose your risk. With a win ratio of 67%, you figure out of every 10 trades, three and a half or so on average, you're going to lose. And six and a half, we're going to win. If you have questions, you can always reach out to me. You can watch me on TV or call me at 9 to 9, 3,200 gap. You can email me at Melissa at thestockswish.com or follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Skype. So everything I do is based on my golden gap rating system. That's a system that I use to rate the gap, to determine if I want to go long the gap, enable a gap up or short the gap and a bearish gap down. We do a mix on the letter. We do putts and we do calls. So it's really a question of whether or not it is a gap that rates good. Like for example, this past week, we went long to video. So the video was a call. So I will do calls on this letter, even though I prefer to short. As far as options go, I'm doing really good mix of them. So this particular week, again, the win ratio was 67% with nine trades, three losers, zero break even and six winners. The advanced trader risk, and the trades I'm going to show you here was $8,000 per trade risk. That's on average. Some were a little bit more, some were a little bit less. You must determine your risk. The profits were $98,600 for this one week, with an average return of investment of 166%. So getting to the point I'm trying to make is you must determine your risk with the cash of your size of your account. So again, if you have a margin account or if you have a cash account or it's a retirement account that you are allowed to trade options, you must check with your broker to find out. But we're buying the call, selling it, buying the put, selling it. That's what we're doing. This is trading momentum based on the gap rating. This is not complex option strategies. Your risk should be based on your cash account, like I said, so that you can take multiple trades. So if you want to risk $1,000 a trade and you want to do five trades at once, for example, then you need to have more than $5,000 in your account to do that. So let's go over the first one here, which was May 16th. Did the test of puts? It didn't work. Again, looking at this here, I'm going to show you the chart in a minute. The trade never went right. It cost $3, which was relatively cheap. Sold at zero. The profit was negative. Return of investment was nothing. Blew out into the day of the expiration. We'll hold into the day of expiration of a trade. It's down to see if it comes back. This never had a chance, really. Stock closed here, gap down. Here's the day I called it. It reversed. So if you have a strategy where you want to, or money management, where you want to kill something at 50%, you can go ahead and do that. I don't do that. Some people do do that. If that works for you, you're going to save in the cash and the ones that lose. But then you may not make money in some that went that go at the end of the week. So this could have. It just didn't. So that was a loss. Apple 170 puts that I called on the 17th. This didn't work at all either. Very similar setup, too. Tessa, actually. This was, what day was this? The 17th. Here. So again, closed here, gap down, fell, reversed. And again, take it to the right here. The 170s never got anywhere near that. So that did not work. That was a loss. Cisco completely reversed. This one lost, too. The 45 puts I called. This was earnings on the 18th. And it was cheap. It almost was like too cheap looking back, but the volume was there. I mean, the volume was there, so I didn't take a full risk on this because I just thought it was just too much size. And I was worried about not getting out. That should have sort of been a sign that it wasn't right, actually, now looking back. I could have added to it if it had gone in my direction, but it just never did. So this closed here, gap down. I called the 45s, never went down there. Completely reversed 100%, lost. So those were the three losers. Then we had to get one in PayPal. On the 18th, I called the 60 strikes in PayPal that expired the 26th, exited the 25th, although you could have got out earlier. Could have even held this to the last day, although I don't suggest that the trade is up this much. 55 cents was across 150 contracts, risk was 82.50, sold at 95 cents, that's a good trade. That's a great trade. Profit was 6,000. Again, 73% return on investment. So this was the 60s. Let's look at those here on the 18th, here. So again, fell. It was a good timing on that. It was a nice move, it dropped. We had been playing that, and really that was the big winner, actually for the month of May, that was a nice short. Again, a put is a short. We did BABA 86 puts. This worked nicely, called this on the 18th too. Cost $1.50, 50 contracts, risk was 7,500. Sold at 7, profit was huge. 27,500 dollars, 367% return investment. You could take one contract if you want. You could risk $150. It doesn't matter, it worked. Again, that's the nice thing about options. You can hold options overnight with a fixed risk, whatever you risk. You can't lose any more than your total risk. And if it continues overnight, you can make big banks. So that's what happened here. Gapped down, fell off a cliff. So again, you can see through the strike, fell, fell, fell. So again, fell through the strike, dropped through, even went through 80. Did the Foot Locker 31 puts it, expired the 26th. Again, you'll get this newsletter live to your email. So when you get it in the morning before the open, you can't do anything until after the open. If you get it in a live day, you take the trade after you get it. Very recently priced $1, 80 contracts, risk was 8,000, sold at 5, profit was $32,000, return on investment was 400%. So this again, was one of these ones we did a lot. Close to your Gapped Down, fell, boom. That was a nice short in Foot Locker. Again, called it on the 19th, I'm doing the week lease. We did Disney, which was Monday the 22nd. I'm fine with that, it has a whole week to go. $90 strike, 90 cents was the price, good price, cheap. 100 contracts, risk was 9,000, flipped it around. Again, 50% is good. If I get more than 100%, it's a great trade. And again, this just continued. So we'll look at this here, the 22nd. You could have held this all the way down. Look at that. So that was a nice movement in Disney. We did another Foot Locker strike, the 28 puts on Monday, this was huge. 40 cents, 200 contracts, risk was 8,000, sold at 225, profit was 37,000, with an $8,000 risk, return investment was 463%. Again, you could have held this into the last day too, but I don't suggest when you're up this much money holding into the last day. So you exit the day before, you take the money, don't let the trade go against you when you're up this much. And again, the 22nd was here. And there's the drop through the strike. And that was a short. We also did low, this was Tuesday. Sunday night early in the morning, this was earnings. This didn't go the way that I wanted, but it was a profitable trade. So you could have made 50 cents on this with a risk of 70 cents. And again, a $7,000 risk for 5,000 is still a nice trade. Now again, what happened with this? So close your gap down, it reversed. That's not what I wanted it to do, to be honest with you. I wanted to fall and drop and did it, reversed. Then it fell, then it fell. And I said, boom, that's enough of this thing. And I got out. Cause I was down when it rallied for the first day. That wasn't good. So I was happy to have it go in that direction. So overall, again, nine trains, this is an average week. Some weeks it's more, some weeks it's a little bit less. But this gives you some kind of an idea. And again, you can risk more than $8,000 per train. Risk what you are comfortable risking so that you can take more than one train and keep your account intact because you are gonna have some losers. But the whole idea about being profitable trading is that you have more winners than losers, which we do. And some trades were huge winners. If you wanna sign up for the Gap Options newsletter, it's a six month subscription or a 12 month subscription. The half annual is $49.99, if you wanna try it out, sign up, you'll be on the letter to the end of 2023. That's a long time. For me, I rate the gaps. You don't have to worry about that if you sign up for the newsletter. Again, it's a subscription service. Now, if you wanna do the class and learn, you can take the class and learn my method. The objective is to make money. I think that people make money better when they understand what to do. But there's plenty of people on the letter that have actually never taken the class, which is interesting. And people always say, you know, about paying for a six month or 12 month subscription, you have to have the time invested that you're gonna do this.  You have to have a trading account. You have to have an options account. You have to be able to do the trades. You pay for the subscription service on a credit card and you take your time paying it off if you're risking a smaller risk. If you're risking a larger risk, you could pay it off the cost of subscription even for one year in one good trade or one good week. The idea is that you are trading, learning as you go, getting the calls, making money, moving forward, and then usually people end up doing the class after the subscription because they are doing well and they wanna learn what I know. But whatever your goals are, if it's to make money on the side, trade for a living, you need good trade ideas, it's all about making money, but you have to be serious about it. So I'm very serious about what I do. Again, sometimes I'll send a trade out seven o'clock in the morning. I can tell it's gonna be that good.  You have to take charge of it in this market or any market, in this economy or any economy. And again, the nice thing about trading is you can do it from home. If you would like to learn my system though, the system is called the golden gap course. It's a 26 point professional bearish gap rating system. The purpose of the system is to help you evaluate which gap to trade each morning using a checklist. This checklist tells you what to trade when and in what direction. The 26 point checklist predicts directional bias in a stock. Again, the golden gap checklist is something that I'm doing in the morning. Then I'm sending the trades out, okay? But if you wanna learn and take the class, the June class is coming up. Friday is a deadline. June 24th and 25th, 90 to five p.m. Eastern time. Class tuition is $69.99. It's online. Anyone in the world can take it. You must email me for the forms. The combo includes the trends, which is a nice offer. You get the two-day golden gap and then the trends, which is Tuesday 11 to three. You save $500 by paying for them both. The trends helps you with swing trades, long-term trades, options, all of it. And the class for July, if you're interested in doing it a month from now, save up $69.99 for the July class. Again, everyone pays the same price. It's July 22nd and 23rd. And then if you wanna do the 12 months annual, options is $69.99. Six months half annual is $49.99. That takes you to the end of the year. That's actually a lot of time. That's actually a lot of time to be in the letter of six months and a lot of trades, a ton of trades. So if you have questions, email me at melissa at thestockswish.com. If you wanna sign up, you can sign up. You can sign up today. We'll get tomorrow's newsletters. Have a great day, everyone.