The 51st State

Why is that right Patrick. My name is Ed Brecker. I am the senior author of licit and illicit drugs a Consumer's Union report which urges among many other things that all current federal and state laws concerning marijuana be repealed and that we substitute some sensible regulations governing the legal cultivation processing and sale of this drug. Edward Brecker is here in the studio to defend his conclusions about drugs in America. I'm Patrick Watson.

The record conversation is just one report in this Thursday edition of the fifty first state. Seven people he prayed me was so many it's hard to contemplate. And that's why I'm giving as a fifty first state. Patrick Tom Collins and I have come across an unusual story that involves a telephone company political campaign debts and a city official. Any loser in a political campaign usually winds up with

big financial debts. Mayor Lindsay's unsuccessful try for the Democratic presidential nomination was knows it no exception when it ended last spring they were unpaid bills of $200000 almost $50000 of that debt is owed to telephone companies in New York Florida and Wisconsin. We got a tip that when the primary campaign was going on Milton music is a top city official intervene with a telephone company. Music has reportedly asked the telephone company to go slow in demanding payment of telephone bills piled up by Lindsay campaigners. Music is municipal services administrator and head of a city watchdog committee that keep close tabs on the telephone service. Officially music is was in no way involved in mayors in the mayors presidential politicking. Last night Tom Collins and I asked music as if he had discussed Lindsay's telephone debts with the president of the New York Telephone Company. Music has turned his head away from us for about 15 seconds before replying.

He answered that such conversations might have taken place. However it was his recollection that the subject of campaign debts had been broached by the telephone company not by him. Music has refused to be interviewed on the air. He denied making any deals with the phone company and he also denied that Richard or really the mayor's campaign manager had asked into the past and asked him to intervene with the phone company. Tom Collins has the earlier part of the story. In contrast to music it's Oreo's said he remembered the incident very well. We talked to him last night in Jimmy's as bar and restaurant in midtown Manhattan said the matter came up soon after you knew his job as deputy mayor to run Lindsay's campaign for the Democratic nomination. Well according to the real you seemed to him the phone company was discriminating against the Lindsay campaign by demanding knowing it to posit that special cash advances against any Lindsay campaign bills. He called Music is to complain. State his case and music is said he checked it out with William elling House President a New York

Telephone Company. Rubio said he saw nothing improper about calling musicals over the matter he wasn't asking any special treatment. Asked why he didn't go to the Public Utilities Commission or really oh without going into detail. Simply said he didn't trust the commission. A short time before we went on the air tonight or change the story. He now says he doesn't remember any specific conversation with music is he also denied ever discussing campaign bills with music as a house. Topping it all off. Mr. O'Reilly Oh I suppose a little bit. Accuse us of amateur journalism and manufacturing started just as over the phone over the phone. Have you talked to him. Meanwhile William Melling House president of the New York Telephone Company who met with music has also refused to be interviewed. We submitted a list of 11 questions to him but eight said that elling house would be unable to answer any of them. The key questions only house wouldn't answer are these one do you think it's proper for a watchdog city official to ask questions about political expenses owed to the phone

company and to that you bring up the subject of the campaign that's what music is as music it says. Meanwhile William Kern a telephone company vice president said he did sit in on one meeting and which is boy selling house and music is discussed the general posse policy of campaign bills current however deny that the company had in any way discriminated against Lindsay. Another footnote is this. The telephone bill of about $50000 is still unpaid although the telephone company says it always has a policy of going after every errant customer. Tom what possible advantage going to be to the telephone company to be nice to Lindsay or go easy on the city in this case instead of hammering for that 50. Well there are literally hundreds of ways the city can harass the telephone company hundreds of them right out in the streets to cut for them or their wires or patch the excavation regulates them so you regulate the checks up on that. It's just supposed to be the way city services. Also when they go for a rate increase the city usually has its say up in Albany

and most importantly perhaps the city can mute its complaints about the telephone company instead of publicly stating public telephone co. failings. They can just pass it off $50000 worth $50000 to the telephone companies. Gentlemen thank you very much I'll be back after the weather with a consumer report on the mobile home as a solution to your personal housing crisis. 1. Rain ending Thursday night mid-30s Friday saw Cloudy With A Chance of a few Snuffleupagus around 30. The trailer park has become a characteristic feature of the American landscape

as the billboard suburban sprawl cornfield railroad. For a lot of people caught in the Harz of urban housing mobile home is back and as a romantic answer to shabby buildings crime in the streets the phase of landlords spiraling rents. Let's see how it works out in practice. And this report from Fran McBride. Why and why it's difficult to believe but 40 percent I think in America is mobile home. Many people consider them and I thought and cities and towns in the East are passing strict accounting laws to prevent further mobile home development. Still you may look and think of covered wagons Americans living out a dream of Gypsy mobility. The truth is these mobile homes aren't going anywhere. Once they are set up they are expensive and difficult to move. There are 7 million Americans living

in mobile homes. Many of them young families with incomes. Most would prefer but can't afford one. Others refugees from the city are looking for a suburban way of life. They're taken by the idea of owning something fresh and inexpensive. You know this is 56 really try to 66 for a 60 foot or or 64 for they figure you can also buy this model here like with the BOH wound in the front and by the bow window in the back which is an extra $75 Actually I have about when the master bedroom approaches this price and this is 64 95 deliberately set of 64 library furnished. That's what from everything right. I wish my people are going to fructose what about 5 5 to 10 years to wash themselves you know it's now plus the tax money. Thousand two thousand.

We'll give you 10 your final vote with the if you want something like that. 30 for $75 per month yes that includes We were just now hearing that includes one sure sure each water snow removal 0 8. Yes that's extra like you can buy anything you know one right. We couldn't afford to buy a home that we wanted and then we found out about homes and we looked to be quite comfortable. It was furnished and it was within the reach of our pocket expenses

just to keep the payments on the trailer and people rent happy paper. When you go to. You're way more you're doing when you got down to actually I guess five or six. Well it's

basically because of the money. Yeah. Not really because I want to but because of a situation like that was when I thought why travelling today trailers cost ten thousand dollars for just a 12 y trailer and for me I really couldn't buy for ten thousand dollars and put it on a trailer park lot because it would be the same as buying a house for money that I would have to spend for living here you can get it now. Country-Western really American Spanish 3 3. No French from the French national and it's not about 5. How much is the

real cost of the US is 25 just told Michael. Of course you can buy cheaper you know this assembly for a three bedroom. This is a kitchen when you've got a space top and bottom in the refrigerator. For us free. What about the panel the panel this is as three 16 inch families you can get a quarter each. That's one hundred twenty five dollars extra. This is a tip it's $400 extra 5 by 12. Why do you say that little bit of the edge for too big you only ever get in the bedroom. You can't seem to fit a bureau in No no not miss mother here and the furniture is all building furniture in this because prices vary a great deal. People What They always try to compare. That's up to the dealer

delivery charges and legitimate markup if it's just one shot deal and you don't care what you tell your friends where he puts whatever the traffic will bear characters in the room so as you find in everyday life with anybody 20 percent market it's about a fair market it is a good idea to choose a model and check the price with several dealers there are a number of necessary extras not included in the price of the support and concrete strips interest rates about 12 percent annually. And there are sales tax. An $8000 home will actually cost over $11000. Most important manufacturers only provide a 90 day warranty on the mobile home they are not responsible for any repairs after that period

so you may wonder how well-made they are. Before we go or let's say a little trailer over there. Now that's a well constructed trailer that's all aluminum and that's all sealed in and they took care. And what they did but this is all thrown together it's actually thrown together. My husband has now since passed we put walking all around the edges so that the air doesn't filter through. And it's actually just paneling and some insulation. When they put some insulation in and covering outside that's all it is it's not really well-made when you walk the floors creak and everything so I guess it is nothing out of this world. Before there used to be but not now. Now they just make it make them for the look of it. I mean to me you know how it looks when you walk in your first impressions I mean they have carpeting and they have nice

furnishings in their car and curtains and everything. So it does look nice. But if you really look at it and to my experience they're not really well built and should people should take a little more you know care in how they build them. Mobile homes do not fall under any building code laws the only standards that exist for mobile homes are the manufacturer's code. New York State is adopting this code but there is no means for enforcement. Some manufacturers employ third parties to inspect construction that service generally cost the consumer $400 extra. But it may be worth it. Underwriters Laboratories. Or you will be best known for this work. Told us that manufacturers do such a good job of finishing their product it is almost impossible for a buyer to judge quality is not accurate. Yes but when it is too small just a little bit big jacket and what you really

think I lack you know when the children can get more than two or three cans. We don't have an eye for a hash. Our main problem is finding a place to put your home and land is very very hard to get to trailers and space and trailer parks are just as difficult to get. So you have to and I hope and pray that you park you know any complaints concerning the practices of the park owner who is also a dealer may charge more money for the mobile home. You know when you will pay it to get a space in his park Brant ranges from

$50 to $100 per month. The practice of charging entrance fees is widespread. It is an unanticipated expense ranging from $200 to $800. You may also charge an exit when you try to move your trailer to another site where you pay now for it. Right now you were paying $300 three hours and the park owners put restrictions on that if you sell the trailer they get OK the new tenant or you take the trailer which is a feature. There was a have to this first option of buying a trailer or whatever they want to pay for getting space in a trailer park can be difficult so some car going to take advantage tenants really get a lease. There may be frequent rent increases maintenance and some corpses poor in older parks trailers are placed one on top of the other and

can be strict prohibiting children and pets. The atmosphere within the court is also important questions of privacy and friendliness. You can see that we're want to topple another so you really have to watch what you're going to do with. Think about it first. We're going to have an argument. The fun of the next door neighbors are caught out but it's not the trailer park if you can't find a place and people you know we're most so young and speak our language and we don't speak. Nobody bothers with this. We don't balance it is just that when you decide that you've had it with this kind

of living you want to get into something a little bit better to bring out my son into something that I would be proud to bring him up in and have places where kids can come and play as they were six by six room. Well then I'm limited. I can't go anyplace else I can do anything else. I've tried to sell the trailer and the furniture that I have in my trailer is my own life. I've spent quite a lot of money on that trailer and I'm fixing it up and on furniture but I have no use for it with my furniture. Then when I had lain I would be losing money giving it away. Again anything. We're living now we're just personally only one group now and thinking people the best way to get a trail of the roof was so high that three rooms you'll pay $200 very

important three times. Really too much money. As people leave the city's overcrowding and high rents they look for alternatives they can afford conventional housing production is low and very expensive mobile homes have become a popular solution to the housing crisis. As we have seen it is not really a cheap alternative. $200 is the minimum monthly expense while paying for the home. And there are other problems finding a site the unsavory practices of some park owners. Rapid depreciation in the value of the mobile home and a lack of building code standards. Manufacturers dealers and park owners have had an incredibly free hand at the expense of the mobile home owner. EDWARD

M. Brecker is a writer his specialty is making complex scientific and medical subjects clear to the general public. He contributes articles to Consumer Reports and he was a major collaborator on consumer Union's important report on smoking in the public interest in 1963. He and his late wife were given the Albert LASKER medical journalism award that year and in 1071 the Robert Morris writer's award from the American Psychiatric Association. Now in collaboration with the editors of Consumer Reports he's written a 600 plus page book called licit and illicit drugs and as he said at the beginning of this program they're recommending the repeal of all existing laws governing marijuana. Would you review for a Mr Brecker the other major recommendations that you've made in the book. Yes there are half a dozen in particular which apply not merely to individual drugs but to the whole drug explosion from

which this country has been suffering in the 1960s and early 1970s when the first of these very simple leave is stop playing say placing reliance on measures designed to keep drugs away from people. We have concentrated our entire effort since the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1014 or at least our primary efforts on keeping drugs away from people. And it's a very fine logical approach but it doesn't work. It didn't work with alcohol from one thousand twenty two thousand nine hundred thirty three. It hasn't worked with heroin from 1914 to date it hasn't worked with marijuana from one nine hundred thirty seven to date. It won't work with other drugs. Second stop publicizing the horrors of the drug menace. The horrors of the drug menace happen also to be the lure which attract young people to the drugs to risk. Correct.

A third general recommendation is to stop increasing the damage done by drugs. Caffeine is a beautiful example of a potentially very damaging drug which we have domesticated. We use it after dinner instead of before we add cream we dilute it with a whole cup full of water and in a variety of other ways we make caffeine a relatively harmless drug in in with respect to the illicit drugs we do the precisely the real first. We permit contaminated and adulterated drugs to circulate as freely as pure drugs and we are. Give the same penalties for the possession of a hypodermic needle as for the possession of heroin and as a result a filthy contaminated needles are used over and over again and so on. Let's stop mis classifying drugs saying for example that marajuana is like heroin and a young person from the age of 6 up will conclude from this that heroin is like

marijuana and therefore reasonably safe. Precisely. And I think that we and the book suggest that we are placing too much effort emphasis on national approaches to this problem in substantial measure. Drug problems and particularly the problem of curbing recruitment to the drug scene is a local problem and should be dealt with in local terms. And finally stop pursuing the goal of stamping out illicit drug use. If we had started in 1037 to cut marijuana use by 5 percent within the next two years it might have been done. Instead we resolved to stamp out marijuana and the major marijuana explosion followed Aren't you afraid though than recommending loosening up some of these laws there be a kind of record permissiveness explosion and people will be just constantly smoking dope at work and home. All the time. Well in answer to that I think is an A. One of my favorite chapters in licit and illicit drugs called How to start a drug menace and it tells very

simply of how prayer 1059 glue sniffing was completely unknown. Then a few kids were arrested for drunkenness in Tucson Arizona and it turned out that they were not drunk on alcohol but they had been sniffing glue. City by city local anti glue sniffing campaigns were started and city by city glue sniffing became a major form of drug use among young people and a major quote cause unquote of juvenile delinquency. We do this with drug after drug permissiveness is not the issue the issue is whether we are going to encourage drug use by launching hysterical anti-drug campaigns. I'm happy the clocks caught up with us on this in a word before we finish Can you tell me if you have any personal experience with addiction. Yes I am addicted to nicotine. Oh tobacco really is an addictive drug. It is not addictive in exactly the same way as heroin. Many who have tried

to get both habits including sin and non residents in California report that it is no harder to kick heroin that it is to kick cigarettes and rid Brecker thank you very much its a book full of detail. I can recommend from a cursory reading this morning that you spend some time looking through it if you're a parent worried about your kids or legislator worry about the law or are a citizen worried about your country. I'm Patrick Watson. My guest was Edward Brecker author of illicit illicit drugs. And this has been the first state back to one. Whoa

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