at albertopveiga

First Guy: Prohibition; it started many gangs you know? Irish gangs. Italian gangs. You know what I mean? In New York and Detroit and Chicago and all he big cities. And they were all pushing beer and they were driving up into Canada and bringing whiskey down from Canada because it was legal in Canada. And. You know? Created a lot of crime. Ok? And it was like one gang would go into a place and say “you have to buy your beer and whiskey from my gang” and they would buy it from his gang and then the next week another gang would go in there and the people were scared!
Second Guy: Mm.
First Guy: Ok? And some people had actually been murdered and their shops were blown up and so all it does…all it does…these stupid laws create more problems than what they were designed to do. And I firmly believe that if they took a look at some of the drug laws that we have. And I am not saying that they got…they should …you know…make every drug legal. But you know… some drugs should be legal… like… you take marijuana … you know which has already been proven that it is good for people with glaucoma. It increases the appetites in people in hospice who are dying from cancer so there is benefits to many drugs.
Second Guy: Yeah.
First Guy: And I think they should stop and get off this stupid idea…you know what I mean?..that it is going to promote …you know…more crime..actually drugs promote crime being illegal. It doesn’t promote crime if it was legal because it would take the profit out of it by being legal.
Second Guy: Yeah.
First Guy: And that is pretty much what it comes down to and I cannot prove this but it is firmly my belief that my own government, the United States government is involved in drugs to bring in enough money to fund the CIA’s covert operations to run and destroy governments around the world who do not play ball.
Second Guy: I believe that too.
First Guy: You know? That’s it. And I believe we have a government behind the government.
Second Guy: You know like…Have you ever heard of a website called LEAP L-E-A-P. “Law Enforcement Against Prohibition” and its narcotics agents, lawyers; like all people who worked in the war on drugs…
Third Guy: I agree with you. I agree with you.
Fourth Guy: It is a major industry. Lot of money involved.
Third Guy: I don’t think they should have prohibition. I think you should be able to buy your heroin right next to your alcohol and whatnot. Absolutely.
Fourth Guy: With large federal taxes. They should tax hell out of it.
Third Guy: I totally agree. Totally agree. You know? I just think it should be treated as …addiction to drugs should be treated as (a mental illness?) problem.
Second Guy: As a medical problem. Yeah. It’s a medical problem.
Fourth Guy: It’s an income creation problem.
First Guy: Let me just say this. Let me say this. Ok. If you stop…and my first feeling is number one we gotta get churches, synagogues, mosques ; all religions…organized religions out of politics. Ok? They don’t belong in there.
Fourth Guy: Well they are out of politics. But they aren’t. Legally they are not allowed to be in politics.
First Guy: Yeah but they have so much influence.
Fourth Guy: I know. They won’t stay out.
First Guy: And this is the problem because they want to inflict their philosophy and their ideals and their morality on me and you and everybody else and I don’t want these people’s morality on me. I know what is best for me. I know what I have to do. I am big boy now. Ok?

at Tambako

Mark: So John..
John: Yeah.
Mark: You are working on a dissertation for a PhD. That is for an American university?
John: Yeah, that is right. It is a university in San Francisco, California
Mark: And what is the area?
John: I am studying..It is philosophy but with an emphasis on Buddhist studies, you know, and Buddhist philosophy.
Mark: In any particular country?
John: Well, yeah, I am mainly interested in Thailand even though I live in Japan, you know. I like Thailand’s version of Buddhism better.
Mark: Is that theravada?
John: Yeah. That is right.
Mark: Ok. So are you studying any particular temple or any particular aspect of Buddhism?
John: Yeah. I am doing research on a couple of temples there in Thailand. One is called Suen Mok, which is pretty famous. It is got a very good program for ten day meditation retreats and they are geared for teaching foreigners meditation; meditation techniques.
Mark: What is the other temple?
John: The other one is north of Bangkok about three hours bus ride and it is called Tam Krabok.
Mark: Uh-huh.
John: And it is… Well it does different things but one thing it does is it helps addicts recover, you know. It has probably cured about one hundred thousand addicts; mostly heroin or opium addicts, you know, and so I am really interested in how meditation can replace an addiction. You know what I mean?
Mark: Wow! So they are like teaching people to meditate and overcome the problems that caused them to become addicted to drugs?
John: Right. Exactly.
Mark: Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful thing. A hundred thousand.
John: Yeah.
Mark: Wow! That is really amazing. You have been to the temple?
John: Yeah and interviewed several of the head monks and some of the other people there and it is just a really really, to me, an effective way of applying Buddhism, you know?
Mark: Right.
John: To eliminate our addictions and work toward something more significant
Mark: Right excellent. That is really…That is great. Like. To use something like that to…That is really good.
John: A real practical form of Buddhism. As I understand it to try to help people live better lives and things like that and this seems to be a real, you know, obvious way to do it.
Mark: Drug addiction is a big problem in a lot of different countries.
John: Yeah.
Mark: And if they are finding something they can do about, it that is really great.
John: Yeah I agree totally there. And it was a big problem in Thailand. You know until 1959 opium was legal in Thailand.
Mark: Really?
John: And suddenly they made it illegal and all these people who would take it as a normal part of their life suddenly were illegal addicts.
Mark: Wow!
John: And so this place has really done something that I think is really important.
suddenly they made it illegal
Mark: What is the name of the temple again?
John: Tam Krabok. It means cave of the “prabok”.  It is kind of like “telling it like it is” or something like that. Originally it was just a group of monks and they lived in caves
Mark: Wow!
John: And then they started making a big temple out of it.
Mark: The caves of truth.
John: Yeah. That would be a good way to translate it. (laughs)