#2113 - Christopher Rufo

Joe Rogan (0:12)

You were just telling me that Washington State recriminalized, or was it Oregon, recriminalized drugs?

Christopher Rufo (0:20)

Yeah, that's right. This just came out the last week, but Washington State, rather Oregon State, had pursued the defund the police policy, the decriminalized drugs policy, and there's now this dramatic reversal.

Because guess what? When you let people shoot up heroin on the side of the road, snort meth in tents downtown Portland, it actually is not good for society. And there's such this dramatic pushback, and I was actually shocked to see it, that Oregon lawmakers, all Democrats, of course, said, you know what, we've gone too far, let's bring it back to the center. And I think that's something that's very good.

Joe Rogan (0:58)

It's definitely very good. It is a little shocking that they figured it out. It just doesn't seem like, when you go and drive through Oakland, for example, it doesn't seem like anybody's trying to put a cork on that. They're just like letting it be insanely chaotic, like the areas where they have the shanty town set up, and people have tents everywhere, and these makeshift structures.

How?

At what point in time do you stop letting these open-air drug dens exist, where people are just cooking meth in front of everybody? That just seems so insane. So it's nice to see that Oregon's like, hey, let's hit the brakes. Is it all drugs now? Did they just put everything in the same category? Which is also quite insane.

Christopher Rufo (1:41)

Yeah, I mean, no, it's not all drugs, obviously.

Joe Rogan (1:44)

It says, the measure makes the possession of small amount of drugs, such as heroin or methamphetamine a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail, it enables police to confiscate the drugs and crack down on their use on sidewalks and in parks. But what about, what are the other, see, the thing is, it basically, what Oregon did is decriminalize almost everything.

The weird thing about drugs is you throw them all into one blanket. You know, you throw, you cover them all with one blanket drugs, because caffeine's a drug, alcohol's a drug. There's a lot of drugs that we're accustomed to using.

And I'm not necessarily in favor of those being illegal. And when you add in heroin and methamphetamine to something that we're already accustomed to, like alcohol or caffeine, it's like, what do, are we, you know, why are these the same things? Like, why don't you just individually say, the fentanyl is unbelievably bad for you. Marijuana, not so much. Let's like figure out which ones are okay and which ones are not, instead of just saying drugs.

Christopher Rufo (2:51)

A hundred percent. I mean, you just have to do a really simple calculation. You say, is this drug correlated with extreme social pathology? Does it obliterate the individual? Does it cause social problems, social chaos?

And then you could categorize them very simply. Yes and no. Okay, you have alcohol, caffeine, marijuana. You can have a functioning society where those are used. But you can't have a functioning society where people are foiling fentanyl.

And especially if you look at the cities, it's wrecked these cities. The big problem though, is that the political left in the United States has lost a willingness and the capacity to say no.

This is something we've all seen. We've raised a generation of kids where like saying no and imposing limits is something that you can't do. It's this idea of liberating ourselves from all limits. But some limits are necessary. Some limits are important. And so I think we're starting to finally see the consequences of obliterating limits. And then now we're starting to say, in a reasonable way, we should start reimposing some guardrails.

Joe Rogan (4:03)

Well, that's one of the things you find out when you're a parent that seems counterintuitive. But one of the things you find out is that children are happier when you impose limitations on them, which sounds so crazy.

But they are happier and they have less anxiety, apparently, obviously I'm not a doctor, because by having structure to life, it doesn't seem like everything is, like if they're in charge, like, oh my God, I'm fucking 12 and I'm in charge, I have no idea what's going on, and I could stay out late all night. The world's chaos, which it kind of is in some ways. But by imposing structure on them gives them comfort.

And I find that's the case with human beings. I find that the people that I know, even artists, even comedians and wild folks, the people that have structure in their life, like have families and children and have like workout routines or things that they enjoy doing on a regular basis that they're very dedicated to, those are the happiest people. They're the healthiest people. They're the people that seem to feel like there's a purpose to life. The purpose is your loved ones, your family, your community, the people you hang out with, the stuff you like to do, whatever it is, pickleball, whatever it is.