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♪ [theme music] ♪ >>> affordablehousing. is there affordablehousing where there's a dire need for affordablehousing in new york and the nation, butwhere is this coming from? how do you get it? whoprovides financing? why do peoplebuild? and how do you belucky enough to win the lotteryfor it?

so today i'veassembled a group of experts who aregoing to provide their thoughts onthe status of affordable housingin the region. my guests includejeff levine, who's the chairman andceo of douglaston development andlevine builders, jane silverman,who is the executive directorfor community

development atchase, a developer on the other side,andrea kreshma, laura bailey, whocame from virginia to be here with ustoday, who is the managing director,managing vice president ofcommunity development. >> community finance. >> community financefor capital one bank and last but notleast james rizzo

who's a principalat the briarwood organization. so i have developer,developer, builder, builder, developer, banker.is there affordable housing? how can we buildaffordable housing? we have this direneed. what's going ontoday? >> affordable housing iscritical to the life of people of new york city. we need it toattract others

that come herefrom all over the world. obviously aaffordable housingis difficult because 50% of people arepaying more than 30% of theirrevenue for housing in newyork city, as is evidenced by thefact that we have vacancy below 5%and 3%. so the issue ofaffordable housing is critical. as our mayor, thismayor, and every

mayor before himgoing back to my early days in theaffordable housing business undermayor koch when we work with all ofthese people, mayor de blasiohas renewed this commitment wantingto do over 200,000 units of housingover the next ten years. >> mayor bloomberg did agreat job creating a lot of affordable housing. therewas a time when we had

land that we were talking about. today we don'thave that much land. then we weretalking prior to the show, jameswas saying and andrea the amountof time it took -- the recessionreally took out a lot of guts onaffordable housing. you know, you weretalking about it, how long does ittake to do an

affordable housingproject? >> typically it should takeabout a year and a half. we have someprojects where we were awarded thejob back in 2009 and due tobureaucracy -- >> financing.>> financing, you know, politicalcommunity -- >> it took fiveyears. >> it took fiveyears to break ground.

>> people want to knowhow does somebody get an affordable apartment? couldsomeone try to explain the lottery system,the ami, jane, or andrew? >> i think youprobably have done the market -- >> sure, sure. youtalk about area median income. the city of newyork is a very large area and sothe area mean income for afamily of four is around $80,000,maybe a little

higher than thatnow. so the typicalaffordable housing project is forpeople who live at 60% of the areamedian, so that's a family of fourearning $48,000 a year. is that right? yeah, $48,000.then it's scaled depending on the size of your family. >> prior to youarriving this morning, i was telling bothjane and laura about two

incidents of peoplewho watch my shows who won the lottery, asone would say. jane was sayingthat the lottery sometimes -- wecan have 50,000, 60,000 people. so oneperson qualified under this 70 -- or 60%of the ami which is low income. but the otherfamilies who also have difficultyqualified under the 175. what is the 175 upto on the bands?

>> well, if you considered itroughly $80,000 is median, 175- >> but my questionis not that. i earn a little bit morebut it's still impossible for me to get an apartmentand i see these notices in the newspaperor i go to new york housing connect or even ifi'm in the westchester market, there'sdifferent markets, how does somebodyget the opportunity to go into the lottery?that's what i want to know.

>> the lottery asper the policies of the agenciesare advertised in different media and print.they're also available online at the agency. >> right, nyc connect -- >> there are manynot for profits, be they new destinyor settlement housing who help peoplefind these affordableprojects.

so the higherincome bands are available only inmixed income projects wherethey have units allocated forthe -- >> also the communityboard gets preference. >> they get 50%. >> and then it goes to cityworkers, cops, teachers, firemen. so they getthe preference. the demographicslowly goes out from there.

>> can we talkabout, people think affordable housing, butanother big aspect of affordablehousing is supportive housing. who would like toexplain that? >> michael, i think that's a bigtrend in affordable housing. last year our three majorsupportive housing developments in new york involvedthree different types of subsidythat helped make not just the rentsaffordable but

helped make surethat there are services forpeople who are living in the communitythat need just a little bit of a boost to beviable in society. >> you weretalking earlier about the threebands on a program that you'reinvolved with. >> yeah, i wastalking about a couple things. one is the threedifferent tiers of

income in aparticular project that we financedrecently. one is a traditional lowincome, another was supportive lowincome and moderate income band so that's oneof the first that i've seen with allthree in one project. >> as i was sayingearlier prior to the show, one of the biggestdifficulties of affordable housingis there's not

much land to bebuilt, okay. some of it isbeing built maybe perhaps on aformer brown field or in a differentneighborhood. and you need theopportunity because we needmore people to be living in the newyork market. where can we dothis? we were talkingearlier before

about the new yorkcity housing authority whichhas some extra land because whenthese houses were built and you lived in oneyourself there were parks, there were parkinglots and all the rest. that's a market oran opportunity. >> i know thatthere's a debate about parking insome of these areas now. we're doing aproject currently

with a nonprofitwho had a parking lot, they owned aparking lot next to one of theiraffordable buildings that wastotally underutilized, sowe are now developing -- we partnered with that nonprofitand we are developing a building on thatparking lot. >> we hear aboutafford al housing, one thing that iknow jeff has been

involved with andmaybe both banks have been involvedwith it has been senior housing,affordable senior housing. explain that tome. >> affordablesenior housing in many cases is verydesirable in many communitiesbecause senior housing doesn't drain thecommunity in terms of school costs and thingsof those nature.

so when you'retalking low income, unfortunately thereare some communities that are not amenableto having low income developments in their community.seniors are being welcomed to a higher degreebecause that's a group that is notinvolved with drugs, does not use communityservices beyond those having to do with their physicaland health disabilities. so i believe whenyou have a subsidy

program throughseniors, very often they are notasset tested in many of theseprograms so it's basically revenuebased. for many of theseseniors who may have hold a homeif all they have as revenue issocial security and earnings fromtheir pension, very often theycan satisfy the

economic requirementsfor affordable housing. >> you know whatjim was saying before about thecommunities, you know, that it preferencesfor 50% of the people who lived in thecommunity board, i remember when silversteinbuilt on 42nd street, he had difficultiesfinding people to qualify for seniorhousing because the band ofopportunity --

>> can be sonarrow. you want to make sure, there's such a hugeneed for affordable housing, thatyou're not saying you need to besenior or you need to be this specific groupin order to fit it. i would agree withjeff that what's unusual about newyork is that there's lesssenior focused housing beingbuilt in new york

and it's more ofan open population. >> aren't you buildingin staten island senior housing? >> we are buildingin staten island and we open injune subject to our wonderfulgovernor and our mayor puttingtogether the bond allocations aswell as possibly dealing with someother issues we're confronting we'llbe closing on a

160-unit seniorsproject which we believe will be avery good project. >> and for myaudience, what earnings does asenior couple band? >> the band is 60%to 80% in order to satisfy federalrequirements for tax credit allocation aswell as the community desires, so we're talkingabout at 60% of the median of roughly$80,000.

>> so here's aquestion, why does chase, why does capital one gointo this business? what is the reasonwhy major lenders like you, thebiggest bank, okay, and a nice size bank,go into this business? why is there adesire to help affordablehousing? >> well, it'sgreat for communities, but it's great business.it's a very simple answer.

>> it's our obligation tomake sure that we have a clear publicbenefit to existing and this is a perfect way. yousee a need that's out there and the opportunity touse your expertise to do something that's good. you can't get anybetter than that. >> i think theformula works. >> i think thefact that you have cra requirementsis also a part of it.

>> but i think therisk is relatively low -- >> right, both ofthose things are right. >> the risk, once youput in affordable housing, the people who areliving in it don't -- they want that opportunity. they want to bethere and they're going to be payingtheir rent. you're not goingto have to worry about the arrears.

>> the structureof affordable- affordable housingwhich is subsidized, that makes a secondposition to the money of thelending institution andenables the deal to make far moreeconomic sense. >> and it'sinteresting, isn't it, how if you'redoing the right thing it works outbecause your

interests are aligned.residents want to live there, the developer wantsit to be affordable and stay incompliance with the programs, andso that -- it has to work for thebank. >> andrea, whenyou took care of the coney islandcommons, in addition to building theaffordable housing, one of the componentswas the ymca.

>> right. the rfpthat the city issued solicitingdevelopment ideas for that parcelrequired a community facilityoperator so we were fortunateenough to enter into a relationship withthe y and that was i certainly believepart of one of the reasons that we won, andthe financing there was we tooka number of

different approaches.originally we were looking at new market taxcredits for the financing. it became moreexpensive and more complicated thannecessary and so we ended up usingjust the low income housing taxcredits but that is a winner forthe community certainly. >> so the communitynow acquires a y, and what about thetenants in the

property, do theyget any certain advantages -- >> that's a very goodquestion because that was an important partof the way the project wasdesigned was that it had to -- wehad to ensure that the community as awhole felt welcome in the y and thatit was clear that it was not justfor the residents of the twoapartment buildings.

and themembership, the y looks at this, also they're in thecommunity business and so for they, this is a lossleader. we understand that. they are pricingit based on a sliding scaleaccording to your income. so membership --and that building is full at alltimes of the day and in the eveningand you see old people, youngpeople, people of

all differentraces and ethnic backgrounds inthat building because it's coney islandand that's who lives there. the y membershipsare strong. it's been a tremendousasset. there's a family pool and a lap pool. >> it's veryinteresting because thebenefits of the community ofaffordable housing

typically goesbeyond that. in many of theseeconomically challenged areas,the new construction ofgood community facility and retail spacedoesn't happen on its own. >> right.>> if you go back years, we worked with the anchorprogram, we built the renaissance where webought over 60,000 square feet of communityretail, which

includes the carver bank,health and beauty aids, all of which enhance the qualityof living neighborhood. >> when you built that,the renaissance, this was beforethe resurgence of harlem, okay. and you had agreat location, but the retail wastruly limited to 125th street andit was a different type of retail. so you went inthere and at that

time you even geta better benefit. you gave thecommunity the opportunity to buyan affordable condominium andthe people today have been verylucky and sold them for a verylarge price. >> and thecommunity services in some of thesebuildings can be very varied. our investments inharlem have

included sugarhill, that has a children'sheadstart center in the groundfloor, and we have one where thepartners art space, where the ground flooris performance space and gallery space for artists. >> right now i havethe privilege of working with jane and chase ona project on 149th street, 540 unitsof mixed income

affordablehousing, the base of which willprovide not only an importantretail community but we were fortunate enoughto bring a universal pre-kindergarteninto one building. >> in the bronx.>> 149th street in the bronx. and you have torealize having 20,000 square feetof continuous space does notexist in those areas.

>> one of the thingsthat they have created this incrediblycreative market in creativity inpartnering so we are bringing innonprofits, community groups,arts programs, supportiveservices into these proposalsand getting groups that wouldn'totherwise be participating inaffordable housing

and it's forcingus to be much more proactive inthinking. it's an overallbenefit also to the deals. >> what about for my audience,what is supportive programs? what's help, theandrew cuomo program that wentinto effect a number of yearsago, what are the different programsin addition to housing thatpeople who are

residents of thesecommunities on these affordablehousing have, okay? are there social services?are there psychologists? are there socialworkers? >> we're doingfive projects currently, and we're partneredwith five different nonprofits and they eachhave their own unique -- >> so give meexamples. >> well, we'repartnering with

fifth housing upin the bronx and they're going --and also we're partners with thebridge up in the bronx. >> what is the bridge? >> they provide services forlow income individuals, but the specificbuilding is veterans housing. >> so that's anotherimportant -- >> so that's awhole niche. >> now, are theresome supportive

housing programswhere there's job training also? >> yes. in fact we'rein construction in east new york thatwas an underutilizedparking lot between the lyndonhouses and boulevard houseson stanley avenue and we're doing a communityfacility there as well. it's about 19,000square feet. good shepherdservices and man

up are going tomanage that facility. man up is anonprofit that does workforcedevelopment, job training, osha training forthe 40-hour certification, job placement so,for example, we're constructing on the site, wehave members of the communityworking on the job that man up helpedus place. we have a localhiring requirement

so economicdevelopment, job creation, that's abig part of -- >> we always -- wework both in brooklyn, we talked about thelyndon houses where i lived for a portionof my childhood. i have worked fora number of community-basedemployment groups and we work indifferent communities with differentcommunity-based groups.

for instance,positive workforce very active incentral harlem. different groupsin different areas that reflect thenature of the population of thecommunity, which is critical. >> now, somethingthat people are not aware of, once you're in anaffordable housing program, also inan 80/20 program, because 20% of --in the market rate

housing there's 20% that isbasically affordable housing. it's not aseparate building. >> 20%, soon to be25% or 30%. >> but when theyhear of 80/20, those are the bestlotteries and people want to getinto these buildings. ironically i believe thewriter, producer, director, everything ofhamilton was -- won the lottery anumber of years

ago and he livedon west end avenue -- >> i didn't know that. >> yes. he won thelottery, all fair and square. now he'sfortunately doing very well but hisrent is maintained, right? once you get intothese apartments -- >> once you're in the apartment,you cannot be forced to leave. althoughif you file your income and it exceeds theper missive

allocations otherapartments have to be lowered inrespect to that to maintain the balance. ingeneral the 80/20 program where you'rebuilding high-rise buildings attypically much higher costs thanlow or mid-density type constructionis an issue which has to beaddressed. >> but in long island, thelong island housing program,

there they specificallysay that you have to bring your taxreturns. you have toqualify each and every year. >> right. and that'smore common. >> that's morecommon. what about, i know, poco isdoing programs in westchester and laura, you'redoing programs -- both of you inother markets. what's theaffordable housing

programs, let'ssay, in new jersey, the newarkarea, or the elizabeth area? i know that it wasrecently atlantic development, peterfine did something in mt. vernon. so isthere differences? >> i think you're stilltalking about the federal tax credit rules. thenext available unit jeff was talking about. if onebecomes ineligible, the next one hasto be reduced to keep

the number ofaffordable units the same. >> you mentioned newark.newark has become a center for redevelopingbuildings, so the affordable housing programs arelooked at in many places, newark is an example,as being a way to redevelopbuildings. >> let's be realistic.when jeff, since he's the elder statesman,started in harlem with the burn outprogram --

>> vacant buildingprogram. >> these were neighborhoodsthat were vacant land. i still remember when westarted the show 15 years ago. >> it led mayor koch to saylet's bring these back into speaking. franklyspeaking, it was the housing partnership andkathy wild that formed the conceptof marrying the private sectorwith the public sector and thebanks to have the

type ofguarantees -- >> there were alot less developers. it was a loteasier. >> and when youbuilt on madison avenue, you know, on those -- thetwo or three family, those are beautifulhouses and there was a dire need becausemadison avenue from 106th to125th street was vacant lots. the community haschanged over there.

>> in retrospect itwas low density. those lotsprobably could have been used -- >> much higher. >> one of the things we'reseeing outside of the city, we do a lot of workin connecticut and we have a project insuffolk county is what they'recalling t.o.d., transit orienteddevelopment. these are smallercities, especially

in connecticut, that aredeveloping new downtowns around their buswaysand railroad stations and encouragingyoung families or empty nesters inparticular to come and live in theseareas. >> large developments inlong island is where they're working onthe train station to get closer. >> another one isa labor of love for us.

>> they're actually transitoriented developments with the subway andthat's why those communities haveevolved. >> coney island.>> you know, when i do shows andpeople i ask about coney island, thegeneral comment is it's a great placeto develop, but once you get offthe subway -- >> right, so backin the day we

would call that atwo-fare zone. >> if you get offthe subway. >> right, especially ifyou're living -- if you're of age at all andneed to get all the way to west 29th or west30th street in coney island andyou're taking the bus. >> one of the areasthat the briarwood organization wasinvolved with was the rockaways,which was also as

you would say atwo-fare zone. look, rockaways,beautiful water, same water thatyou have -- where you are. >> oh, yeah. >> it's the samething. >> those were forsale and it was a tough sell butthen the neighborhood isslowly -- >> but it's reallya beautiful thing.

and that community, itcreated low density over there and it's reallybeen an important thing. so with like oneminute left, what do we see, you know, inthe balance of 2016, you know, the biggest challengefor affordable housing? >> well, obviouslythe world has changed greatlysince 2015. the expiration of the 421 a taxabatement is something that needs to be dealtwith, as does the

bond allocation,the taxes and bond allocationsbetween the city and state. i'm quite suresince the idea of affordable housingis so critical that ourgovernments, both state and citygovernments will work this out and i thinkit has to be done in 2016. >> and the prevailingwage discussion is still in flux. that'sgoing to affect the amount

of affordable housing unitsthat we can develop. >> laura? >> we need to pickup the pace. there is a direneed to affordable housing across thespectrum. new york hasfigured out how to do this well inmany respects but we need to domore. >> kudos tocommissioner bean.

she says to janeand probably jeff all the time,bring me your deals, let's be creative. wecan have a conversation. the door is alwaysopen. >> last but notleast. >> last but not least, i thinkthere's a lot of subsidy out there, more thanever before with the new budgets comingout. tax credit pricing is higher than everand it's a world of

opportunity outthere. >> so i don't havemy crystal apple, which i normallyhave, so it does look shiny thatthe world looks good and hopefullythere will be the movement on the421 as and certain other things andwith the budgets there will be moreaffordable housing because we needmore in the

metropolitan area.i'd like to thank jeff, jane, andrea, laura andjames, and i'll see you next week.

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in association with the scp website. secure contain protect. the scp foundation is an organisation of numerous doctors, researchers and agents, aiming to understand and catalog anomalous objects and keep them from getting into the wrong hands. scp objects are classified into 3 main categories of safety: scp-1351 is a cave located within the mammoth cave national park in kentucky. interestingly enough, this cave in no way follows the rules of gravity, space, nor time, as the warped tunnel beneath the sanctuary of the earth's surface, wraps around itself to form its own gravitational point. basically, the floor begins to twist, and the one rock wall twists alongside it,

reassuming positons parrallel to its original location. it's been reported that the gravity within the cave depends on the situation and angle of the floor. the cave enters with a hole in the ceiling, which is unusual in comparison to the majority of the caves in the national park, however, the temporal anomalies within the cave itself has gained the most attention, as no one can give logical reason to explain why they happen, or how they happen. a standard perimeter fence and signs warning away unauthorized personnel, and the access road to the entrance of scp-1351 is marked “authorized vehicles only.”

to match nearby park roads, which are not open to the general public. the permanent security team are the united states national park rangers and civilian speleologists. scp-1351 was most recently discovered in 1995 by national park service speleologists mapping the cavern to determine if it connected to the main cave system in the park. 3 expedition teams surveyed the interior between 1995 and 2002, determining the cavern to be sufficiently safe for a permanent research presence. research operations are still ongoing. scp-049 is another humanoid character. who in addition to his mask, wears a black hooded robe,

replicating that of which is worn by 'plague doctors,' in 16th century europe. further studies reveal that it's clothing is actually a part of scp-049's physical figure. although it feels like leather, it is actually the same material as it's muscle tissue. 049's touch is invariably lethal to humans, causing the victim to suffer and then die. the plague doctor will dissect the body, injecting certain chemicals into the victim, after a period of a few minutes, the victim will resume vital signs and appear to reanimate.

however, it seems completely without higher brain functions, and will wander aimlessly until it encounters another living human. at that point, the adrenaline and endorphin levels increase to approximately 300% as it will attempt to kill any human beings it can find, before returning to its mindless state and wandering until it comes across more humans. detailed autopsies of 049's victims, have found several unusual substances within the body. including ███ and █████ in the sternum region. however, several have yet to be identified and remain classified the behaviour of scp-049 is unpredictable,

and although it doesn't seem too menacing, the physical appearance is far from inviting. scp-049 is held in a research sector, heavily guarded and monitored at all times. it's been noted, that the scp is capable of speech, as noted in one of the interviews by dr ███████ now playing audio log 2957: scp-1382 is a 'red sea mark' water buoy, floating on the surface of lake michigan. all air and sea traffic must be redirected away from containment cell. although scp-1382 has taken a fair ammount of structural damage during its lifetime, it still stands tall, occasionally flashing out the sos distress signal in morse code in 10 second intervals.

this mysterious buoy is anchored to a downed airliner lying deep beneath the surface of the water. named "flight 441." this derelict aircraft, contains the skeletal remains of 56 passengers and crew members, who begin to animate, obtaining their natural body temperature of 37.0 â°c as registered by thermal imaging scanners and assume into the crash position in their seats. after 13 seconds of activity, all instances of passengers turn to face scp-1382 they will remain in this position, until scp-1382 ceases it's sos at which point, they collapse and become inert.

it has been reported that the passengers are distressed due to the accounts before the crash. as opposed to the crash itself. implying that every passenger is stuck in some kind of time loop. scp-002 resembles a tumorous fleshy growth with a volume of roughly 60cm cubed. an iron valve hatch on one side leads to it's interior. which appears to be a standard low rent apartment of modest size. the interior of the fleshy sphere is decorated like a low cost rented apartment. with furniture made up from biological matter such as bone, hair and more.

all of it which are from the human body. in addition to this, there is also a window to be found on the interior. though no such breach can be seen when trying to view from the exterior. all matter tested thus far, show independent or fragmented dna sequences from each object inside the room. there have been 7 cases of foundation personnel disappearing after entering this scp for examination. and roughly at the same time, new furniture can be found inside of the room. consisting of a lamp and some rugs. the furniture was again; made up of the biological matter of the human body.

presumably.. the biological matter of the 7 personnel that mysteriously disappeared. as detailed in the archive under the mulhausen report scp-002 was first discovered in a small crater in northern ██████. where it struck earth from orbit in 1994. scp-804 is said to be the remenants of a sculpture found by a group of artists. said sculpture consists of a model, transparent globe, with a few smaller globes situated around it. whilst the globes swivel on the axis that they were constructed on, any man-made material within 100 a meter radius, including the tissue of a human being,

will gradually decay. when it comes to inanimate objects, such as clothes, buildings or anything else of the sort, the speed of decay is slightly accelerated. biologically speaking however, the corrosion of the body is a great deal slower; and requires a long period of exposure to cause any permanent or noteworthy damage. this mainly consists of loss of body mass, leading to symptons of near starvation. but both of these aspects, can be fixed with the correct ammount of medical care. exposed to whatever force this scp emits for an extended period of time,

would cause the skeleton to collapse and inevitably lead to death. tests have been carried out, to see if the results obtained from the reaction with human matter, would be the same as with animal matter. but to no avail. because of the nature of scp-804, it is not contained in within any foundation facility. believing the effects of the scp, could destroy its own containment and seriously comprimise any other containment nearby. scp-2998 is an anomalous radio signal picked up from all quarters of the solar system.

it's not yet known where the origin of this signal is, or when it began it's transmission, but the scp foundation made it a point to prevent all personal radios from detecting and listening to scp 2998 until further research is conducted into the safety of the signal, as well as its origin. scp 2998 is just a consistent electromagnetic signal which previews white noise at all times. no means have been found to decode the signal until 2011, when the signal was also found to contain a video transmission of a humanoid entity floating aimlessly in a dark room. no background information has thus far been obtained about what this message could possibly mean, or why the message was being transmitted at all,

but due to bodily gestures that the aforementioned humanoid was conducting, it can be presumed that whatever it was, it was in clear physical distress. it was initially theorised that the foundation may be picking up signals from a television show, but this was considered highly unlikely, due to the random and complex encoding of the transmission. we simply do not know. scp - 1875 is a victorian-era chess machine, consisting of a steel chessboard table, a drive shaft, a stationary steam engine and a suit of 18th century samurai armor. however, the machine itself is powered by a biological system that controls a matrix of 64 electromagnets, using an engine created from the combined brain tissue of the twin daughters of a russian chess prodigy.

a complete set of 32 pieces carved in the 'oriental style' from human bone with each piece afixed to a thin 0.31cm base pad, of theromagnetic iron. effectively, the whole thing runs on the souls of the 2 little girls. it is said that the souls will perform illegal moves during a game, and make illogical turns whilst playing scp-1875 containment, permit no use of data network devices. child psychologist to be present. the 'euclid' ranking of this scp, seems very appropriate. considering the fact that we do not fully understand how it works, nor why it works, nor what works within it. only the premise is understood, at this point.

scp - 823 is an abandoned amusement park located in ███████. it's responsible for the deaths of an unfathomably large amount of people. nicknamed 'bloody sunday' because of the 231 people dying in the theme park, due to the 'accidents' of staff members and customers alike. the majority of these deaths were horrifically violent. some examples include: a mascot found dead of suffocation, a group of people found decapitated on a roller coaster, a couple fused together on a ride and a multilated man found in the hall of mirrors. foundation personnel are found surveying the area, and are instructed to avoid an area known as 'the red zone.'

the red zone is an area where no one can enter, not even by those of the highest authority. it isn't stated as to why the red zone cannot be accessed, but it does claim that anyone who attempts to enter will be terminated by sniper fire. should music or piping be heard emanating from within the red zone, foundation personnel on-site are immediately prepared to use protective earplugs and withdraw from their positions to a 2km perimeter, beyond the currently established yellow zone, and inform foundation scientific personnel immediately. scp–1981, or commonly referred to as ‘ronald reagan cut up whilst talking’ is a strange, distorted video tape of ronald reagan making his evil empire speech.

the tape itself is made from all of the normal materials that you would expect to get from a betamax tape. the tape was originally encountered by a filling clerk in the ronald reagan presidential library in 1991, 11 years after this initial speech was made. during the tape, reagan’s face seems to fall apart, cuts opening up on his face and his eyes becoming bruised. the video continues until his vocal chords are severed. occasionally, during the beginning of the tape, a figure clothed in black robes and a pointed hood appears in the background, which replaces another member of the press detail. scp-1981 is kept inside of a secure video storage unit

in the media archive of site ██. years of natural magnetic interference have severely degraded scp-1981's signal quality. making it even more difficult to sift meaningful information from continued playbacks. scp-342 normally takes the form of a mass transit ticket, for the closest form of mass transportation to it's current location. at the moment it takes the form of a train ticket, departing from ███████ transit station. when held by a sentient person, for any length of time, it will eventually change form into a transit ticket. for a form of transportation that it's holder desires to use. the transformation always take place when not being directly or indirectly observed. no recordings of scp-342, changing its form exist at this time.

anyone who uses scp-342 to board a vehicle, is unable to exit the vehicle by any means. when the vehicle reaches the end of it's route, the one using the ticket.. will cease to exist in our reality. any user of this scp, claims to feel extremely paranoid and have an uncomfortable and uncontrollable dread consume them. specifically, the way in which they describe their emotions when in contact with the ticket resembles, acute paranoid schizophrenia, and will witness a perception of darkness outside of the vehicle, including a mass amount of fog, or the portrayal of night. witness reports claim that victims mumble to themselves. will grow an intense fear of other passengers and the condutor

there have been several experiments with different transportation networks, each yielding different results. scp-610 is a contagious virus that starts out with a small rash, which will then lead to an intense itching and skin sensitivity. after 3 hours, the skin disease will spread in such a way that skin will begin to scar and cover in blemishes around the chest and arm region, completely consuming the affected person after a full 5 hours of being infected. following this is the life functions ceasing for a full 3 minutes, before starting again at a rate of 2 or 3 times the regular activity rate for a standard human being. this leads to the sprouting of several limbs, like a leg or arm.

the skin disease can affect one in such a way, that the head will become so mis-shapen, it would barely be recognisable as being human. the victim will sit in one place and route itself to the surroundings that it is located in, consuming objects around it with his or her own flesh. the area that scp-610 affects is close to lake baikal in southern siberia; and it was first reported from the russian government, through undisclosable channels. the reports consisted primarily of disappearances of farmers in the region. and were not considered until local police, and government agents failed to report within a 72 hour period. observation of scp-610 infected settlements have been established

using artificial methods such as remote robots and drones. the data returned from these observations, coupled with the openly aggressive nature of the infected, to attempt to spread scp-610, has resulted in the 'keter classification.' so long as nothing is allowed to enter or leave the infected areas, it is considered to be a neutralised threat. as strange as it may sound, scp-122 is a child's night light, designed to look like a star. this product is unregistered and has no brand name written anywhere on the structure. so it's safe to assume that this nightlight is but an anomaly of it's kind. reports indicate that when in an unpowered state,

the night light will affect anyone within a 500m radius of its location. when anyone enters the radius, they will slip into an rem sleep, and will be sent into comatose state until the night light has recharged itself. while comatose, subjects will claim that they have seen humanoid figures that are formed from a black, translucent mass of shadow from somewhere around the light. figures have been described as sentient, with physical properties similar to that of the subject. in a powered state, the sleep pattern of the subject will be affected greatly. claims have been made that the subjects will have disturbing and psychologically tormenting dreams that have often lead to insomnia.

scp-122 was first discovered within the linnell children’s hospital on ██/██/███. after several reports of it's manifestations reached locally embedded agents. recovered documents indicate that a patient brought scp-122 when being admitted. no record of the patient's identity has been found. scp-122 is stored in a standard containment chamber, containing a single electrical outlet. personnel are instructed to routinely monitor scp-122 at all times and never let it enter an unpowered state. during a breach which caused the death of 17 site personnel, security footage witnessed several maintence personnel tampering with the scp-122's chamber lock.

when questioned, the subjects claimed they had done so, under duress. saying that a canary was not allowing them to sleep, until they released scp-122. affected subjects were given class a amnestics, and containment procedures have been revised. scp-513 is a simple bell, coated in a thick layer of rust. all attempts to remove the rust that engulfs the integrity of the bell, have been unsuccessful. having tested using both chemical measures and mechanical, there are literally no markings or symbols to be seen, so it is impossible to identify the exact origin.

upon scp-513's discovery, it was also found that the bell's clapper was strapped tightly to one of the interior walls of the thick metal structure, using strong industrial tape. attached to the bell was a piece of paper, with text written on it, which read: any sentient being to hear the bell chime, shows overt signs of extreme anxiety, with an increased heart rate and blood pressure after some time, those exposed to the sound claim to catch glimpses of another humanoid sentient being in their peripheral vision. whenever the exposure victim attempts to look directly at this other being, it simply runs in the other direction, not leaving any traces. due to the severity of the anxiety caused by the knowledge of this 'stalking',

victims are commonly deprived of sleep, and often suffer from clinical depression. those who are able to fall unconscious, state that they are physically assaulted by the stalking being, which flees when the victim awakes. all descriptions taken from several different foundation personnel, all match the same criterea; a humanoid being with long arms and large hands. this being is not visible to those who have not been exposed to the ringing of the bell, which leads researchers blind- sighted. scp-513 is located in a one cubic meter block of gelatin, and contained within a sound proof, climate controlled cell. which is inspected daily for any degradation or loss of integrity. scp-035 is a white ceramic comedy mask, that will often change it's appearance to it's binary opposite.

this change will also cause its appearance to change in any video footage, photograph, or even artistic depictions created prior to said change to match it's new physical appearance. it's been stated that a viscous liquid, will constantly leak from it's orifices, which has been proven to be corrosive to any material that may come in contact with it, aside from the mask itself. the name of the liquid is unknown and as anomalous as its appearence, being only visible from the front and showing no signs of existence when looking from the back of the mask. a true fear factor to consider would be the fact that any person to come within 2 meters of the mask will have a strange compulsion to put the mask on. after doing so, the individual will have a different wave form sent through its brain, causing the subject to become brain dead

however, the consciousness of scp 035, is still very much present, and will continue to possess and control the actions that the victim makes. in addition to this, scp 035 has been shown to be very manipulative, being able to corrupt and cause sudden fluxuations to the psychological mind set of any other person within a certain distance from the mask. subjects been quoted to say that it has 'an intimate knowledge of how the human brain works, and would be able to change the views of any individual if given enough time.' scp-035 has been found to be able to possess anything that has a humanoid shape, including mannequins, corpses and even statues. the subject has been able to motivate all into movement, removing the need to expose live subjects.

personnel within 10 meters of scp-035, have recently reported feeling unease, stating that they can hear.. 'intelligable whispering.' several others have suffered from severe migranes. the object has been monitored, but there is no change in it's dormant behaviour; and no sounds have been recorded. scp-035 is kept within a hermetically sealed glass case, no fewer than 4 inches thick. this case is to be contained within a steel, iron and lead-shielded room at all times. doors are to be triple-locked at all times, with the exception of allowing personnel in or out. guards remain outside at all times and are not allowed within the containment room under any circumstances. scp-439 is an insect of unknown origin that uses the human body as a habitat for its colony.

the process begins by the queen entering the body via the mouth when the subject is asleep. the insect will crawl down the trachea, creating a nest within the lungs. a few hours after awakening, subjects will complain of an ever increasing tightness of the chest, followed by a consistent, sharp pain located in the abdomen. soon after, the victim will begin to suffer from rapid fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva; a disease which turns muscle tissue into bone. the shear spread of this procedure causes some bone matter to breach through the skin and become exposed, causing a great deal of pain to the subject at hand

in a matter of 3 days, the subject's skeletal structure will have distorted and stretched in such a way that their body is no longer recognisable as human, taking the shape of a circle and anchoring itself to it's current location, and feeding off of the organs within the body. prior to this, the victim will have felt the strong compulsion to seek shelter of some sort in a small, enclosed space the host, now in its new territory,

creates a hive of insects, consisting of warriors, workers, and drones within this new skeletal cage. in a particularly disturbing development, dr anderson performed a range of experiments to determine the extent of damage to the host body, after it has finished the transformation into the hive. while it was previously discovered in autopsy that portions of the brain are hollowed out to serve as food, others are left intact. presumably to regulate what bodily functions continue. while the eyes are eventually reached and used as a food source, opening the eyelids and examining them with the flashlight,

discovered that the host's eyes followed the beam.. experimentation was ceased and no further testing was scheduled. scp-895 is an oak wood coffin which was recovered by the scp team when there were reports of strange footage within the surveillence tapes regarding this particular object. scp-895 is stored in an isolated, underground, containment cell; at a depth of approximately 100 meters. this scp is reported to cause disturbance to photography or video equipment within a range of 50 metres; these disturbances include vivid hallucinations and graphic images.

the strangest factor of this is that those physically in the presence of scp - 895 will not experience any of these hallucinations. it's also stated, obtained footage within a range of 5 metres of the scp, will cause "severe psychological trauma and hysteria in from the subject." again, even if footage is obtained from 5 metres away from the subject, those who are physically present with the scp will not experience any kind of the trauma; and in previous operations, mobile units have even made physical contact with the coffin, and apparently, unexplained paranormal activity has been reported if the lid is removed.

an audio excerpt was recovered off of site - ██ "now playing audio excerpt from the scp 98 recovery log" "end of recording" alright, looking at the 2nd security monitor of the scp-895 maintenance tunnel. now the personnel here have witnessed this paranormal occurence over the past few days now. it's not as devastating as the activity, that was first witnessed when we found it. maybe it's getting progressively weaker? we're not sure. anyway,

if you see right here at the 4:00 mark, the camera feed starts getting more interference. ok? normally this is usual. but see right here. you see this outline of some sort of figure looming over the camera? we're not sure what that is. but, alright. there's this one over here. at the far back wall.

this 4 legged creature emerges. gets near the camera. and then vanishes. can't really pinpoint what these are. maybe they are spirits of scp-895? scp-372 or more commonly referred to as 'the peripheral jumper', is an abnormally flexible, green creature; able to flex each part of its body. the muscle tissue of the peripheral jumper allows for rapid and accurate movements, and using this ability, lurks just out of range of the human peripheral vision, hence its name. in events of a containment breach,

all personal are told to watch for a green flicker in the corner of one of their eyes, as this is an evident sign of scp - 372's presence. even more interesting, or rather terrifying, is it's sensory organ; it allows for echolocation and identification of energy transfer. instead of vision sensitive eyes, there's no hiding from this sentient blur, any thermal energy a person emits will be taken note of. scp-372 is contained in a cell,

5m x 4m x 2m. lined with reinforced pexiglass. embedded into each of the 4 walls of the cell, are infared motion detectors. scp-1048 is a small teddy bear, approximately 33cm in height. through testing, composition of the subject revealed no unusual qualities that made it discernable from a non sapient teddy bear. subject is capable of moving of it's own accord, and can communicate through a small range of gestures. the subject regularly shows affection to individuals in ways found in by most people.

affection is usually given in the form of a hug to the lower leg, but subject is also been observed dancing, jumping in place; and in two separate events; has even drawn childlike pictures for janitorial staff 7 months after it's first capture, random occurrences concluded that scp-1048 could actually create non identical duplicates of itself. dr carver has suggested that scp-1048, uses it's endearing qualities to lure those around it, into a false sense of security; allowing it to collect materials to produce these creations. the first incident mainly consisted of the discovery of scp-1048 giving a tour to an almost identical copy of itself. although the material of the duplicate was "fully-formed, with human ears." when staff attempted to recapture the 2 objects, the duplicate let out, an ear splitting, high pitched cry.

which caused severe pain in the eyes and ears of all foundation personnel within a 5 meter distance. every person afflicted with this symptom died within 3 minutes. this resulted in the death of 7 personnel; including the entire security team. autopsies reveal the cause of death to be asphyxiation caused by an abundance of "ear-like growths," manifesting in the mouth and esophagus of all victims. the where-abouts of scp-1048 and it's clones are currently unknown. though are still believed to be somewhere in site-24. scp-096 measures roughly 2 and a half meters in height. with barely any muscle mass or body hair.

it's limbs are completly out of preportioned to it's body. each arm measuring at a length of 1.5m. the activity of scp-096 is far from normal. spending most of it's days pacing the eastern wall of it's cell. the only real issue reveals itself when somebody see's it's face. from this point onwards, scp-096 will become severely emotionally distressed. covering it's face, with it's sickly twisted arms, whilst crying, screaming and even babbling it will then take it upon itself, to seek out to whomever was to view it's face. attempting to charge towards them at speeds of 35kmph and even higher.

while this will typically depend on the distance between the viewer and the scp. scarily enough, the location of the viewer, does not seem to change in behvaiour of scp-096. as it will have a constant, yet logically, impossible sense of where the victim is, at all times. whenever 096 actually reaches the person, it will proceed to kill them, and somehow leave no traces of the victim's biological matter. scp-096 is contained in an air tight steel cube at all times. weekly checks for any cracks or holes are mandatory.

because of the nature of the scp, only 2 cloaked video surveillence tools are used inside it's cell. for safer research and security, personnel use preinstalled pressure sensors and laser detectors to ensure it's presence inside the cell. an au audio log was recovered from an interview between dr ████ and captain ██████. probably one of the most popular scp monsters, scp-173 is a humanoid statue made from concrete and other rock materials. with discolouration, in the face region. as innocent as the object class makes this monster sound,

the capabilities of this statue are unfathomable. looking away for a split second, even when blinking, will mean that this statue is free to move. when chamber inspections or maintence takes place, no less than 3 members of staff can be in the room, and must alert one another before blinking to reduce the risk of having their necks broken. scp-173 cannot move when direct eye contact is made, meaning that if a constant line of sight is made with this statue it can't move.

recent reports indicated scraping sounds of stone originating from within inside the container when no one is present inside or no cameras are monitoring it. it's considered normal, but was indicated to be a warning if the behaviour had changed. the brown substance on the floors of the room, seem to be a combination of feces and blood and is usually noticed several days into the week. origin of these materials is unknown, but the enclosure must be cleaned on a bi-weekly basis

rent apartment japan tokyo

hello, it's bene no fukuoka ! welcome to the hall of my living building.today i'll show you my appartment in fukuoka ! at first i want to show you a thing that we don't have in france : a special kind of mailbox in france mail boxes are opened with a tiny key so i thought it would be the same in japan but no. here we use a code. when you get in a new place you receive a code and i'll show you what it looks like. here it is mine is the 501 one and as you see there is no keyhole but a code. to open it you va e to do (for example) 2 turns on the right until number 3, and one turn on the left until number 4.

it doesn't open because i actually don't know my code (haha). oops, sorry it's something typically japanese that i wanted to show you. okay, time to go up to the 5th floor where i live to show you my appartment ! elevator is here, let's go ! "welcome to my home !my japan appartment tour in fukuoka" here we are on the 5th floor and something typically japanese (=different from france) (wow i have sun in my eyes) is that the corridors are outside as you can see.

it's quite nice in summer because the wind blows and it's cool but it becomes so cold in winter. also, i wanted to say one more thing, don't expect my room to be like magazines ones with only decoration and not daily life things. my living place is a normal appartment so yes it's can not the tidiest kitchen or bathroom ever and i won't show you how it looks like in my closets but don't mind me for that please. but i wanted rather to show you where i live daily and not a magazine appartment. so let's enter ! i'll take the camera in front of me to show you everything. here is my intercome, wow ! let's enter...

welcome to my home ! let's start by the entrance which is called genkan in japanese. we remove our shoes here and we put the ones we use the most on the ground while we put the other ones in our big shoes closet, here it is. it's quite big but we already filled up all of it. it's very convinient. on the other side we have our umbrella stand, and up to it we have a shelf where we put our shopping bags, folded umbrella and hats. next to it we have some coat racks which are very convenient in winter

but as for now daisuke put his things on it as he has to collect cardboxes for his job (he is a kindergarden teacher). i'm going to remove my crocs but don't put my slippers in because it's too hot. as you can see we have 1, 3, 3 doors. let's start with this one. it's the bathroom ! hi there ! when we enter we have a japanese sink called senmenjo in japanese. we can also use it as a shower, there is a light and shelfs to put products on them. it's great for washing you hair, i'll show you. here is the normal water and when we push this button it transform to shower water.

than we have our washing machine, inside the bathroom which is nice because in some japanese appartment it's outside. as all japanese washng machine it makes nice sounds and is very simple to use. above it we have more shelfs with our badly folded towels, my hair accessories and my french medicine. i only drink medicine from france so i have bunch of ti like this one. on the other side we have the main part of the bathroom : the shower room. i'm going to enter even it's still wet from this morning. what is great about it is that we have tons of shelfs to put our shower products we also have a mirror which i don't understand why because watching you when you're washing yourself isn't my thing but why not.

then we have the bathtub, some basins and a nice wooden wall. and here is the tap. we don't have small benches to sit in while showering, as the two of us prefer to sit on the floor. let's get out. oh, yes, of course we can put water everywhere in this room. no need to worry. it was our bathroom, let's go an other room. here are our restroom. there are more shelfs i won't show you how it the flush works, i think there are too many videos on youtube which show that... okay, i'll do it anyway

it's a japanese flush, water is getting out ! we have some buttons for bidet, water, make the seat warm, set the water temperature and so on. we don't have the sound to hide what we are doing here but it's not very important after all. now i will show you our 3rd room which is the kitchen ! as i said before it's quite messy, sorry, we washed our plates and everything this morning. we have 2 gas stoves and it works like this : just to have to turn the button. at first i was unsecure about using gas but it's very easy. more japanese buttons here.

next we have our cooking chopsticks, the sink with our little garbage bowl and the water cleaning stuff. the water in fukuoka is good, it even has a better taste than what i had in france but we wanted to have one. next we have cleaning stuffs and dishwashing liquids. above we have... a mess ! there are daisuke's bananas, some sesam, somen noodles and a korean thing that daisuke's parent send to him.

next to that we have what i will prepare for dinner : pork and cabbage with a miso sauce. it's convenient, delicious and easy to cook. just spot the "cookdo" brand in the supermarkets and try it. next we have... oh yes i wanted to show you that ! it's "very japanese" and it's for controlling hot water. when you use the tap in a normal way, when you open it, hot water won't flow out but cold one. to have hot water you have to turn on this thing and choose the temperature, now it's at 37â°c. the temperature controller can't go under 37â°c which is too hot for a shower in summer but it goes up to 75â°c !! hum... what i wanted to how you... we have 3 closets we use this because we don't have place for a waste container here.

on the other side there is our microwave which is also an oven and a toast, not a toast, a toaster. and here is our fridge ! in front of it we put aluminium and kitchen papers. of course i'll show you inside. it's not very interesting haha. so we have two packs of miso, some pickled plums (umeboshi) that i love eat everyday, a can of green tea and natto (fermented soy beans). under we have kimchi and cheese, chocolates and water. then there is tofu, meat, a tuna/mayo bottle. i wasn't sure i wanted to eat that when daisuke brught it home but it turned to be delicious then we have yoghurts and... why it's here ? it should be on the vegetables drawer...

my favorite yoghurts are this peach and mango ones. very delicious. on the door we have... mess ! just kidding, we have eggs, soy soauce and takoyaki sauce, no yakisoba sauce. more water, dressings, takoyaki sauce, takorice sauce... okay it bips because i leave the door open for too long some mayonnaise, ketchup and banana milk. under we have the vegetables drawer and the freezer with some things we put in our bento boxes when we don't have time to cook something, and some rice. when you have rice leftover, just freeze them, it's the best. then, the next room is our main room, the living room !

we put this cute noren (japanese curtain) here is our living room ! on the right we have our rice cooker. at first i didn't want to have it in the living room because for me all the cooking stuff must be in the kitchen but we didn't have space so... under it's messy haha. on the left we have my hobonichi things, some decoration and picture of us and our jewelry box. next to that we have what is the most important place for me : my desk. it's the place when i'm from the time i finish dinner until i go to bed. i do everything from here : blog, answer to comment and mails, doing design, tweeting and so on.

let me show you what i have on it : tsum tsum and sailor moon stuff, some (false) cakes and cute packagings, my business cards, some cute memo papers my smartphone and my glasses, very important (i don't wear glasses when i shoot a video), my pen tablet and my french keyboard which my mum send me from france (thank you), and then i have my design books and all the kyushu and fukuoka tourism related papers i collect or receive. i have so many and it's a ral source of inspiration. beside i put my card captor sakura figures, rilakkuma miniatures and sailor moon figures. under there a re some decoration and a bunch of stuffed toys.

the other parts of the living room are like everyone else's rooms with a sofa, a kotatsu (not working right now because hey it's summer), a book shelf which is too small for all our stuffs. here we have the few manga i read, daisuke ones and his kindergarden books, my fukuoka and kyushu tourism books and the japanese language ones which i have to thorw away, and other big books. more mess (haha). it's actually pretty nice things. on the kotatsu table we have this cute lamp which is, if i remember well, someting use for kimono making. my japanese penfriend send it to me few years ago and she became a great friend so i treasure this lamp.

here is our fan and our big tv, always turned on when daisuke is at home which i hate because i need calm to work and i don't watch tv. look at my rilakkuma plushies and cat chair ! it's very cute. i feel insecure to be here because yesterday a cockroach was just here so i'm afraid there's more. yesterday i was doing reharsal for this video and i left the windows open so one entered. it's all my fault but since i'm very afraid that one would be here so i won't open the window, i'll just show you the balcony from inside. i hope there is no cockroach.... gya, no there isn't. i panic myself haha. you can see our amido (door protection) which is half open

and the balcony. the view is quite nice. let me close the curtain back. i won't show you inside but we have 3 blig closets, big enough to contain daisuke's piano, which is nice. then we come to the last room, our bed room ! it's very simple since we only go there at night. omg, it's so hot inside... i know we only have a single bed for two, we didn't bought a double bed yet but it's still okay. we have also a big closet here where we put our clothes and bags. the room's fan. and we have, well i have tons of plushies !!

i know there is a lot of people who wanted to see my collection so here you are. i have a huge banana xd my foot looks so small next to it. and the last ones : an ice cream, a kabosu lemon and so on. check my cute curtains, dark blue with silver stars on them which i love. what i don't like in this room is that's too much hot. it's because of this huge window. the room is exposed full east so the sun comes to the window every morning and it makes the room hot. i think i show you everything... maybe not the intercome, there it is. if someone rings on the first floor we can see who it is and open or not the door. here we are, you saw everything. i take back the camera.

now i'm going to aswer question you asked me, just let me sit on the sofa. okay i sat down and ready to answer to all the question you wrote me on facebook, thank you. but i just checked the video i just shoot and it's already 15 minutes long so as i don't want to do a 30 minutes videos, i decided to quickly talk about this appartment while answering. if i don't have time to answer everything, i will reply to this question on facebook directly. let's start ! this appartment is a 37m2, we have two main rooms and we pay 80 000 yens for a month so we pay each 40 000 yens per month which is reasonable if we consider where we are located. we are in the center of fukuoka

we have several bus stops which take us to all of the city, we have two subway stations nearby too. on the surrondings we have several convenience stores, banks and a post office just in front of our home but we don't have any supermarckets and that's a bad thing. it's something to look when you rent a place in japan and we looked at that too but i don't know we must forgot when we found this place because we only realized that after moving. we don't have drugstores too so we have to thinkin advance if we run out of shampoo or body soap, we don't have to run out or toilet paper at the middle of the night because we have to run our bicycle for 10, no 5 minutes (even though there are conbinis). we fond this place trhough a normal estate agent, ours is call able.

so to say how it works, you go there, we tell them what you want, in which city or district, they show you bunch of rooms and take you in car to visit them. i don't think it's like this in france (you have to go by yourself ?) after you choose, you fill the contract and it's done. it tooked 1 month and a half from the time we first enter the estate agent to the moving we really took our time because at first we saw a place we liked but there were some bad points so we made them searched again and found this one. it wasn't a problem at all that i'm a foreigner because i know thie estate agent really well to have used it for my previous living place and they knew i speak japanese and i'm not a troublesome

there was only one time i wasn't sure to be accepted because i'm a foreigner (for my previous living place) but the estate agent managed to get him out of their files. but except that it wasn't a problem at all. i never struggled to find a place because of that. i know it can be difficult in tokyo or osaka but not in fukuoka (at least for me). i think it depends of your japanese speaking abilities, the estate agente (you need one which want to do its best for you) and it depends about your city too. for example there is few (western) foreigners in fukuoka so they are nice to us. in this appartment we can have pets like a small dog or a cat but bigger animals are forbidden. you may check if you can have pets with you buildings policy, it depends from one to another. sometimes they accept only cats, sometimes only dogs, sometimes nothing, sometimes everything.

in an other topics, about insulation, about noise thermal insulation, we don't hear neighbors at all, no even those upstairs. we hear street noises a bit because the building is located on a kind of small square so noises are coming up so if there are cats fighting downstairs we hear them a bit but we are used to it now and it's a quiet district. we don't have big streets or anything. about thermal isulation, it's quite bad. until now i lived in good insulated places, i just need one fan to cool down the whole appartment. i know it's quite rare in japan and i was so happy about it that i wasn't used to use the air conditioning. here if we don't put it on we just can't live. it's too too hot.

we don't have one in the bedroom and it's too hot. i'm not someone who sweat a lot but the morning when i woke up my shirt is quite soaked than i wanted to talk about the garbage system. in japan it's pretty strict about reclycling and sort your garbage it depends of your city or prefecture but in fukuoka we have to sort our garbage in 3. we have to put pet bottles in the yellow bag. it's collected once or twice a month, i don't remember well. the blue bag is for cans and things like that. it's collected once or twice a month too. and the red bag is for the rest (paper, food ans so on). it's collected twice a week. the reason why i can't remember about the blue and yellow bags collects is that we have a kind of room for garbage

so we dont care about the collect day since we can access to it all the time. in smaller building we may have to get out the bags on collects day only because of cats and birds but not in ours so we forgot when collects are. about big garbages such as sofa, you need to call a service, pay and they will come to take them in front of your building on the day you want. i hope you liked my appartment. sorry if i couldn't answer all of the questions, i tried to answer the most. i will answer to more if you leave me comments (please do :)) see you next time for new adventures in fukuoka !

rent apartment jamaica

ryan archibald: myname's ryan. we're in british columbia. and i'm in a roomfull of weed. in the wake of legalization ofmarijuana in washington and colorado, we've come to canada'spot capital to get a glimpse of the currentstate of the industry in this country. mik mann: for how many yearshave people said, what's wrong with politicians?

are they stupid? no. it's about money. and there's a businessof prohibition. david: when all the evidence issuggesting that it's like, if you want people to stopusing drugs, making it illegal, it seems to be not aparticularly effective tool. so why do we keep using it? jesse: medicine isproduct, right?

these are products. i'm not in it because of weed. i'm in because it's fun. it's cool. and you're trying to createa good product. and there's going to becompetition for that product. murray power: any waythat you can make money, you make money. that's what organizedcrime wants to do.

money gives you powerand control. dana larsen: the war on cannabisand, really, the broader war on drugs, i thinkit's one of the most important social issues of our time. jodie emery: nobody wantsdrug war anymore. nobody wants marijuanaprohibition anymore. can't we just stopthe punishment and take a new approach? [music playing]

ryan archibald: if you like toget high, there's a good chance you've heard of bc bud. back in the '70s, draft dodgersbrought their seeds to british columbia, which happenedto have a perfect climate for cultivation. the development of strongerstrains higher in thc, an unprotected border with theus, and lax canadian laws enabled the industry to generaterevenues today estimated at close to $7 billiona year in british

columbia alone. this is a province with apopulation of only 4.5 million accounting for over 40% ofcanada's marijuana industry. everything is set to changesince prime minister stephen harper instated bill c-10,the new tough on crime legislation. now the government is armedwith mandatory minimum sentences and super-prisons tofill, helping to ramp up canada's war on drugs.

at a time when bc is underattack from law enforcement, the recent legalizations inwashington and colorado are putting further economicstrain on its marijuana industry. so the times, they certainlyare a-changing. we wanted to take a look at thecurrent condition, meet some of the key charactersinvolved, and try and get a sense of what thefuture holds. we're now in port alberni.

we're going to talkto mik mann. he's a grower and activist. he's been in the industryquite a long time. he's a bit of a character. so we're going to go hang outwith him, check out his gardens, and see whathe has to say. mik mann: i like to look atpeople and say, yeah, i know it's hard to tell bylooking at me, but i do grow marijuana.

i've got my cultivate freedom,the free mark, chemistry symbol for thc, some rastastripes, pot tv logo. that's opus from "bloom county."and he's got a joint. his watering can is empty. he's just done his chores. bob marley, frank zappa, my logofor opus farms, 420, and a big roach here thati can smoke. my name is mik mann. i run opus farms, which isbasically this house in my

garden and what you seehere in the office. we have cannabinoid receptorsin our body. they're there for something. i think it might befor cannabinoids. speaking of, let'shave some now. the pot that gets to thechronoisseurs, as we prefer to be called, is usually grown insmaller amounts by people in basements or outbuildings orwhatever the situation. but it's not aboutmaking money.

it's about the marijuana. i think i got 15 plantsin here right now. smell your fingers. ryan archibald: smells good. mik mann: the good stuff. ryan archibald: smellslike weed. mik mann: this is 12 yearsi've had my permit. so i have seven grams, upto seven grams a day. so i can grow 35 plants.

at 35 plants, and as aprofessional grower, i mean, really, i can grow alot of marijuana. there is no shortage ofgadgets and gizmos and everything out there. and i've used myshare of them. but i've gone right back alwaysto the keep it simple, stupid method. just the kiss. it's the cheapest.

i spend the leastamount of money. i put money into goodfertilizers. you grow the best pot out there,everything else takes care of itself. people want the best pot. they'll say, well,we'll take that. sure, it's going to cost more. or you can go down the streetbuy your pot wherever. just nah.

so that's your choices. like anything, those are theeconomics of any type of-- oh god, i can't thinkof the word. commodity. that's a major concern of mine,that legalization would lead to just screening orpushing guys like me out, the mom and pops, the individuals. however, legalizationis the first step. and from there, now we canchange regulations.

and we can fight for theright to grow your own. we can make our own beer. we can make our own wine. and i don't see any reason whywe can't grow a few plants. you're growing yourown medicine. you're saving tax dollars. i think we should begetting a medal. or they should be paying us. ryan archibald: whileindividuals like mik mann

produce their own medicinalweed, there's another group of growers that make money growingmedicinal marijuana for licensed patients who can'tgrow for themselves. we met up with david, one ofthese designated growers, and he gave us the inside scoop onthe medicinal marijuana system as we drove up to visitone of his grow ops. david: hey, listen, i'mjust rolling up to squamish right now. i'll be back a little bitlater this evening.

can i just give youa holler then? ok, sounds good, buddy. all right, later. so the the problem with dealingwith marijuana is that every asshole wants you to goget their brother in fucking comox a quarter or somethinglike that, or an eighth. and i'm like, that's notreally what i do. i don't really know evenwhat an eighth costs. ryan archibald: leaveme alone.

david: like, if you owned acoca-cola bottling factory, would you ask them for a coke? could you grab me a coke? like, go fucking buy a coke. i don't know. fucking, that's notmy business. if i owned a mac's, i'dget you a coke. like, fuck off. has anyone explained to youhow the medical system

situation works asof right now? ryan archibald: no, not really. david: ok. if a doctor prescribes a certainamount, so like 10 grams a day or something likethat, how do you regulate that amount of production? they decided that they wouldtranslate that prescription amount, that per-gram amount,into a plant count. so 10 grams a day equals50 plants.

on 50 plants, you can usuallygrow a bunch of little ones. and you could producethat 10 grams a day. or you could grow a bunch ofreally big ones and produce 50 pounds, if you want. you could grow six-foot treesand produce a ton of it. so what essentially has happenedis you've created a system in which the unfetteredproduction of marijuana has become de facto legalized. but the distribution and saleaspect is still criminal.

i have heard that a lot of thetime now, patients often can't afford to pay for theirprescription amounts. so they're really being used asfoils in some ways, right, for the rest of the operation. but that's as i understand it. ryan archibald: it's hearsay. david: that's hearsay. ryan archibald: so basically,according to david, some growers have been using theirlicense as a front to grow

marijuana that gets soldinto the black market. along the way, we picked updavid's partner, jesse, and went to see his high-techbasement grow. jesse: this is called arecirculating deep water culture system. under current is the actualbrand name for it. this method allows plants togrow probably twice as fast as soil growing, i'd say. they started out one-leafretards.

david: why would it bedoing that right now? jesse: because they're growingtwo and a half inches a day. david: is it just-- but with not-- jesse: they just caught ityesterday and started going, waaaah-- exploding. david: they're just doing toomuch for their own good. jesse: exactly. steroid plants.

david: ksssh, come on,little bitches. jesse: let's just say i own myown house, don't have to fucking pay a mortgage. and i just have theone room in back. and let's say we had four peoplewe're producing four. we might sell, what,$3,000 worth of product out of the house? $4,000 worth of product? it costs almost $2,000 inelectricity a month to run

that operation down there,nutrients and so on. that's assuming mylabor's for free. so we've got two designatedgrowers splitting $2,000 in profit, $1,000 each. that doesn't even pay the rentof the fucking house. if they had just allowed peopleto sell to 50 patients or 100 patients, that could be economically viable down there. ryan archibald: the governmenthas recently announced changes

that will eliminate individualgrow operations, such as the one in mik mann's basement andthe steroid plant system we just saw in favor ofcommercialized with way pricier weed. jesse: so i'll show youguys the bedroom. ryan archibald: david and jesseare ahead of the game, and will be amongst the firstin line to apply for a commercial grow license. they want to show us anotherlarger grow op with a set up

they plan on expanding oncethe license is granted. jesse: it is hard to finddoctors who are compassionate that want to work withpeople and issue prescriptions to patients. every doctor i know hasno issues with pot. they just don't know how to goabout doing it, you know, the 33-page form that they need tofill out while the college is telling them that they're notsupposed to be doing this, and that they could be liable.

who wants to prescribe that? ryan archibald: so you'reessentially planning for the future of legalizationright now. you're starting. jesse: well, not so much thefuture of legalization, just the future of access forpatients that's realistic. i'm ok with a medicalframework. we just need to make it in a waythat a patient can go to a doctor, get a prescription,and then go get that

prescription filled that dayin the same way that every single other drug in canadais regulated. mothership? ryan archibald: ah, yes. let's see the real deal. jesse: that's morethe real deal. ryan archibald: thisis the real deal. there's the flowers. jesse: looks fuckinggreat, doesn't it?

ryan archibald: yeah. jesse: i know. it's one of the best roomsi've ever seen. ryan archibald: it'ssuch a happy place. jesse: it is a happy place. and the plants reflectyour attitude. we have really unhappy plants. and all the girls come by totrim, all the plants start getting happier.

i mean, you can visibly watchtheir leaves lift up. it's weird. ryan archibald: so whatkind of weed is this? jesse: we call it mama. it used to be an oldbiker strain. all these strains were developedillegally in grow rooms before there wasmedical programs. so people bred plantsthat produced a lot and were heavy hitters.

that was what themarket wanted. the market has now shifted. ryan archibald: peoplehave more choice. the more it's allowed, themore legal it becomes, is better for all the consumers. jesse: oh, absolutely. and it's also better forproducers as well. because it's not just aboutproducing yields. like, i enjoy doing this.

if we're just growing onemassive monoculture, that's not interesting from thegrowing side of things. it's kind of boring. it's only interesting if you'rea gangster and just want to make money. which i'm not. like, i'm a good grower. but i'm not an amazing grower. i'm a good grower.

i mean, this looks, oh,wow, this is awesome. but this is not hard to-- it'snot easy to replicate. but it's not impossible. with enough capital and someexpertise and the right strains, it's, you know. there'll be a whole bunchof us with that. so i'll be competing with guyswho will also have nice product and will be smart andgo get into the business. and we'll have to fight itout a little bit, great.

sounds wonderful, bring it on. and the mom and pop guys,they're gonna have problems. the days of making tens ofthousands of dollars out of your basement with your crappylittle grow where there's pesticides and shit everywhere, those days are over. you've got to have a productthat people are like, that is clean, that is nice, that iswhat i want to consume. ryan archibald: byebye, ma and pa.

jesse: adios, hippies. i love hippies, don'tget me wrong. hippies are great. i'm kidding about thehippie thing. by hippie, i'm just making thereference, like somebody who's treating it like it's somekind of god's gift. and it is an amazing plantthat does great things. but it's just a plant withmedicinal benefits and recreational benefits.

let's just treat it like that. yeah, dude. ryan archibald: yeah,this is-- jesse: look at thesethis pathway. isn't this ridiculous? ryan archibald: makes mefeel like a groundhog. jesse: yeah, yeah,there you go. yeah. ryan archibald: am i goingto reek like weed when

i get out of here? jesse: your body odor's so badthat i don't think you need to worry about it. ryan archibald: ok. jesse: i'm just kidding. ryan archibald: i'lljust smell like this for a few days? david: oh, yeah, no,you are going to absolutely stink, yeah.

you're going to walkout and have a very strong odor of marijuana. ryan archibald: now that ireeked of weed, our next stop was to go talk to the rcmp. escort required. these are the guys we'regoing to talk to today. murray power: my name'smurray power. and i'm an inspector with theroyal canadian mounted police. and i've been with themounted police for

24 years this january. i am presently what we call theoperations officer for our greater vancouverdrug section. my criminals liketheir high end. ryan archibald: how often dolegal grow ops end up, i guess, turning bad, and you findthat they're distributing outside of their allowance orwhat they're allowed to do? murray power: no doubt there'sthose out there that have exploited the spirit of themedical marijuana industry.

and they are organizing forillegal purposes, whether it's growing over the limit or insome ways obtaining a license through false pretense. these things do happen. they're difficult to prove. and it just makes our jobmore challenging. i appreciate them thatdo stay within the limit of their license. i think the licenses arevery generous, from

the ones i've seen. so i don't think anybody who'sdoing based upon what they're given has anything to complainabout with regards to the quantity or the volume thatthey're allowed to grow. ryan archibald: we were speakingto some last night. their concern, or the problemthey have with it, is they can't actually make it aprofitable business for the allotment of plants that areallowed per patient. murray power: they can't makea profitable business?

is that what they said? murray power: i don'tknow if that was the spirit or the intent. ryan archibald: well, no one'sgoing to do it for free. they can't do it for free. somebody needs to put the timeand effort in to grow it for medicinal purposes, iguess was the point. murray power: yeah, yeah. yeah, i just won't go down thatroad, because i'm just

not sure if a profit was partof health canada's plan. ryan archibald: well, drugstoresmake profit. murray power: yeah. ryan archibald: anyway. as we've been sitting here, i'vebeen smelling the stench of marijuana come off me. so i apologize for bringingthat into your lawful environment. murray power: i thought youwere going to say it's

coming off of me. i'm thinking, hey. that's ok. i'm used to the smellof marijuana. ryan archibald: yeah,i'm sure you are. murray power: i can smellit from miles away. and it's just not goodstuff, you know? ryan archibald: despite thefact that there's an established medicinal marijuanasystem in canada,

"not good stuff" seemsto be the predominant view held by the rcmp. inferring the same for thegovernment's beliefs, which poses one of the key challenges pro-legalization faces. well, it's another rainy day invancouver, aka vansterdam, the center of marijuanaactivism in canada. so we want to spend a few dayshere and talk to some of the people on the front lines forthe battle of legalization.

activists like david malmolevine are credited for the lax law enforcement thatforms the basis of weed culture in vancouver. he's devoted his life to thecause of ending prohibition and keeping the secret historyof herbal medicine alive through his peculiarherbal museum. david malmo levine: right now,white people think medicine is whatever a doctor handsyou, and anything else is just a drug.

but i like the native northamerican indian definition of medicine. they say medicine are thingsthat are good. it's a very broad definitionof medicine. that's king esarhaddon movingaway from this cannabis into his ancient hotbox device. he'd put his head in there. and fumes would rise from theincense altar, and he'd get really high, talk to his gods.

ryan archibald: the tour of thismuseum started out with a lot of interesting historicalfacts, but everything ultimately spun intoconspiracies, which i had a little trouble following. david malmo levine: witches andgnostics and hippies, they all mean the same thing. a gnostic is someone who'sknowledgeable. a witch is someone who's wise. and a hippie is someonewho's high.

so they're all clued in tocertain rituals activities and secrets of herbal medicine. italians in the cia-- thefour-armed god shiva-- george herbert walker bush-- john the baptist-- fidel castro-- the assassinationof president kennedy-- that's whyjesus got nailed. oh, and the best aphrodisiacof all, marijuana. makes a minute feellike an hour.

how handy is that, eh? why i went to jail was fordealing herbs out of the place called the herb school. and it wasn't just cannabis. it was opium, a little bit ofopium, some magic mushrooms, some botanical dmt extracts,a lot of hashish. it should be everybody's rightto grow them, to sell them, and to use them because theycome from mother nature, and they have a greater safety andefficacy record than all the

pills do and all theconcentrates of hard drugs. when people realize that,they're like, oh, i can see why they'd want it to be illegalbecause i can supply myself with my own painkillersin my backyard and pay no money ever. my nickname in jail was therabbi because i had this long beard to try to keep guysaway from me, kinda. the guy in the cellnext to me, his nickname was baby girl.

so i think i got away witha pretty good nickname. it was a university for crime. go in with a bachelor of pot,and you come out with a master's in extortion. it really is kind of like agladiator school, where they teach you how to be brutal,to either be a victim or a victimizer. hempbc, which was what the bcmarijuana party and cannabis culture headquarters used to be,that got raided many times

in the 1990s. it was almost like every otherweek we were being raided. and we just got used tonon-violent arrest resistance and shaming the police. we would ask them where theevidence of harm is, what aside from dry mouthand red eyes were they concerned about. where are the marijuanacancer wards? where are the marijuanadrunk tanks?

where is the marijuanainsane asylums? you're scapegoaters, you'reattacking harmless people, and you have no right to do so. they get tired of those lecturesafter a while. and they stop coming around. mayor philip owen in the 1990swas a prohibitionist. he thought, we weregoing to come down hard on these potheads. after we kept talking to himover and over and over again,

he just came around to ourview and became an anti-prohibitionist andan activist, really. spoke out againstthe drug war. brought in the supervisedinjection site. and now vancouver is one of themost tolerant cities in the world for illegal drugs. ryan archibald: though stillillegal, there are several storefront medicinal marijuanadispensaries in vancouver. and since there isn't anofficial set of standards,

their appearances range fromthat of a college dorm room to a more clinical aesthetic. dana larson opened one of thefirst dispensaries in the city and is a key figure in themovement to decriminalize marijuana in british columbia. dana larsen: there's about12 dispensaries in vancouver right now. i think we're one ofthe bigger ones. so this is our daily menu, justof the cannabis buds.

we also have hash and extractsand lotions and tinctures and that kind of stuff. but bud's probably the mostpopular single product. ryan archibald: can anybodycome in off the street and just come in here andorder anything? dana larsen: no, we screen ourpatients quite carefully. and that's really what makesthe difference between a dispensary and someone justselling cannabis. i'm quite confident that thepolice have sent in undercover

officers to say, oh,my back's sore, i forgot my doctor's note. can i buy some cannabis? and the answer is no. i've also worked with otherdispensaries to make sure that we're all following thesame standards. i worry that a rogue dispensarythat decides to sell to anybody or somethingcould hurt it for the rest of us and make us look bad.

we have to operate at a higherstandard, i think, than other businesses because we'reunder such scrutiny. people bring us in productsall the time. they bring us cannabisstrains. they bring us theirhomemade stuff. the vast majority we reject asnot being good enough or high-quality enoughor standardized. but ultimately, it's mostlymade in people's homes. ryan archibald: assuming fromall legalized grow ops?

dana larsen: no, there's no--nothing we do here is legal. in fact, we actually wouldqualify for two-year mandatory minimum sentences underharper's new laws. we have a good relationship withthe vancouver police, and we have a good relationshipwith the city council. i don't feel we're in anyimmediate danger here. but it's certainly not acakewalk, either, and there is a risk involved. and if things did change invancouver, within a month or

so of raids, they could haveus all shut down if they decided to go that route. i believe that the war oncannabis, and really the broader war on drugs, which iwould call the war on the world's most useful andwonderful plants, i think it's one of the most important socialissues of our time. whether it's the environmentalbenefits of growing hemp for industrial use and foragricultural use, or whether it's the medicinal benefitsof the cannabis plant.

and whether it's just the taxdollars we're spending prohibiting cannabis and themoney that we're losing from not having a legallyregulated system. or whether it's theinternational conflicts. our troops in afghanistanare definitely tied into the opium trade. i've always felt that ending thewar on drugs, legalizing, regulating, controlling thesesubstances, is the way to go. and cannabis is theone to start with.

i'm working on a campaigncalled sensiblebc. and the sensiblebc campaign isto try to have a referendum in british columbia to dowhat they did in washington and colorado. 80% of british columbians don'tthink possession of cannabis should be a crime. and about 75% want to see alegalized, regulated system for cannabis in britishcolumbia. so it's a very goodtime right now.

mik mann: you also wrote a bookcalled "hairy pothead and the marijuana stone." dana larsen: when i was readingthe harry potter books to my daughter, and i read allseven of them and did all the voices, i might add. but for me, i could easily seehow this translated into a cannabis world. and a lot of the alchemical,magical kind of stuff that she refers to, a lot of my studiesshow that that's actually

cannabis-related stuff anyway. that's the bong-hit of fire. which, kind of like thegoblet of fire or whatever from harry potter. this one was actually signedfor us by daniel radcliffe, who played harry potter. he appreciated thebook as well. ryan archibald: and is smokingpart of your writing ritual? dana larsen: smoking is partof my life ritual.

so i use cannabis when i'mwriting my book, but i use it when i'm not writingmy book, also. ryan archibald: although thepot scene in vancouver has been allowed to grow withlittle interference from police in recent years, thethreat posed by the government's war on drugs isstill acutely felt, most especially at marc emery'scannabis culture headquarters, ground zero for pot activismin vancouver. we checked in with jodie emery,who's been carrying the

torch for the movement since herhusband, marc, deemed the prince of pot, was put injail four years ago. jodie emery: so here is the bcmarijuana party headquarters. and it starts with thehistory on the walls. the most ancient history at thebottom, all the way up to more recent modern historyat the top. we've got a store on the mainfloor, marc emery's cannabis culture headquarters store. and on the second floor,we have the

museum, the herb museum. and then up on the third floor,the top floor here we're in right now, thebc marijuana party headquarters lounge. and we have the "cannabisculture" magazine office and the pot tv studio also on thistop floor here and utilizing some space downstairs as well. vancouver has always had astrong hippie counterculture established here.

kitsilano used to havea lot of hippies. there's the gastown riots, thegrasstown riots, with the police beating up a potprotest long ago. so there's a lot ofhistory here. mik mann: marc emery had a seedcompany called marc emery direct seeds. and he funneled all themoney from that back into activism projects. his motto was "overgrowthe government."

marc emery: oh, lordy, lordy,the antichrist himself is coming to vancouver. good god. john walters. ryan archibald: john walters wasthe drug czar during the bush administration. and led a luncheonin vancouver. marc emery: and we'regoing to be there. in fact, this is 212grams of pure block

blonde lebanese hash. we're going to slip that intohis briefcase so that when he returns to the united states,he gets arrested. hopefully they throwthe book at him and put him way for life. this stuff smells amazing. ryan archibald: and then whilehe was speaking, they proceeded to heckle him. john walters: of the six millionpeople who could

benefit from treatment that needit in the united states today, 60% are dependenton marijuana. [murmuring] marc emery: there's threemillion of us here who smoke pot, and none of usneed treatment. ryan archibald: so he got veryupset, and you know, he immediately, oh, who the hellare you, i'm john walters. well, he say, i'm marc emery. and then they startedan investigation.

jodie emery: this wasthe seed office. on july 29, 2005, the deawith the vancouver police raided it. they came into the store. there was nowhere in the worldyou could get that many seeds. and mark always promised thatthe money generated would go to legalization activism. and he gave, that he couldremember, $4 million at least. throw the money out, that'swhat the seed money's for.

the whole point was to give itaway and to fund the movement. it was a significant blow. they said it was a significantblow to the legalization movement, and it was. ryan archibald: mark ended upgetting five years in a us prison, which he'sserving now. but it clearly didn't work. and as a matter of fact, theprosecutor in washington state who prosecuted marc emery hassince turned around and been

instrumental in the legalization now in that state. that was john mckay. john mckay: as the former chieffederal prosecutor, i enforced our marijuana laws. i've come to believethey don't work. filling our courts andjails has failed to reduce marijuana use. and drug cartels are pocketingall the profits.

it's time for a new approach. jodie emery: unfortunately forcanada, we've got harper. so we've got a drug war dinosaurin power who's going to be dragging us intothe dark ages. on the same day that coloradolegalized six plants for every adult, our mandatory minimumprison sentences for pot came into effect. six plants will get you aminimum of six months if you own your property, nine monthsif you rent your property.

it'd be a year if you're nearschools and children. so our laws here are gettinga lot worse. we're getting new prisons builtand a lot of money spent cracking down on pot whilethe americans are going the other way. they have a faileddrug war example. why are we implementingit here? and secondly, they're legalizingit already. so they told us we couldn'tlegalize it until they do.

and now they're doing it. so can't we do it now? don't leave us behindin the dark ages. there's so much horriblestuff coming our way with harper in power. this place, god, i hopeit stays here. but they might crackdown really hard. kirk toussaw: well, the mostinteresting thing to me when it comes to the harper war ondrugs and on cannabis users

and growers is how complete arejection of conservative ideology the war ondrugs actually is. i mean, it's really the issueon which a so-called conservative turns exactly intothe caricature that they make of their politicalopponents, big government, big spending, wastefulbureaucracies. and yet that's exactly whatthey're guilty of when it comes to the war on drugs. and so the question markis, why do they

continue to pursue it? it's got to be about power,and it's got to be about social control. and the drug waris an effective tool of social control. it's an effective tool ofcontinued marginalizations of certain population subsets. and it's an ability to funnelgovernment dollars toward special interest groups like theprivate prison industry or

the police lobby. and you can do it while sortof beating yourself on the chest and blathering on aboutprotecting the youth of canada and looking like a heroto sort of parents and people out there. ryan archibald: the conservativegovernment, my biggest problem is, is theyrefuse to listen to evidence, fact, science. and their answers, they don'tanswer questions.

ross lander: they have anideology that would prevent them from giving in to thepublic on something that they think is bad. they think it is bad. once it's bad, the publicshouldn't have it. and that's they're ideology. stephen harper: now i know somepeople say, if you just legalized it, you'd get themoney, and all would be well. but i think that rests on theassumption that somehow, drugs

are bad because they'reillegal. it's not that. the reason drugs are illegalis because they are bad. and even if these things werelegalized, i could predict with a lot of confidence thatthese would never be respectable businesses runby respectable people. ryan archibald: respectable ornot, the illegal marijuana trade continues regardlessof harper's war on drugs. and ironically, the government'sharsh laws are

doing more to support marijuanacriminals than breaking down their networks. it took us a bit of sniffingaround, but we finally found a black market trafficker willingto speak to us and share his deep knowledge of theunderground drug trade. ryan archibald: we're in theinterior of bc, up in the mountains, on our way to grandforks, a town right on the canadian-us border known andrenowned for its growers and smuggling activity.

and we're going to talk to amayor there who used to be a grower himself. it was once estimated that 1in 10 houses in grand forks were grow ops. and where it wasn't uncommon forhockey bags full of weed to be smuggled down theriver to the us. and in fact, the mayorwas elected as an openly pro-pot candidate. but other than having a rathercute urban deer problem, grand

forks was a pretty peaceful,idyllic little town. so it's pretty much commonknowledge that grand forks has a great deal of growops in it. brian taylor: the counterculturemoved out here in the '60s and '70s. and there were a number ofgrowers here who were growing a variety of outdoor plantsbut not sorting the sexes. and all of a sudden, therealization came that if you stopped them from beingpollinated, that you would get

sensimilla, and that would bea highly valuable product across the line. so fortunes were made here bya variety of people who took advantage of that window andgrew outdoors here in good volumes and moved theirproduct across the line with ease. there were no restrictionsat the border. people weren't evenlooking for it. ryan archibald: how wouldlegalization affect this town

of grand forks? brian taylor: it's beenrecognized as of about two years ago as a major economicdriver of the region. so my concern about legalizationis that we keep the production of a legalizedproduct in the kootenays, so we keep it out in the countryand not in the cities in large grow ops that are run bycompanies down there. i think we could have a thrivingwine industry type model that would really keep theeconomic benefit here in

the kootenays and avoid whatwill be a big economic hit if we lose it and it goesto vancouver or goes to the lower mainland. i have a band, buck nakedand the saddle tramps. ryan archibald: oh nice. good name. brian taylor: and we play allthe seniors' events and seniors' halls andthings like that. if you're looking for someoriginal music, we have a

couple of recorded that youcould probably make use of. one called "the marijuanasong" kind of hit big. it was popular around town tothe point where some of the kids learned it and startedsinging it at daycare. [music - brian taylor,"the marijuana song"] ryan archibald: so we were senton our way with a joyful marijuana song. and after all this, there werestill many questions that needed many more answers.

the changes to health canada'sgrow program, mixed with police crackdowns, have sentwhat is one of canada's most successful crops intoan identity crisis. and it's still a wonder as towhether the future of bc bud is in the black marketor as a newly commercialized commodity. in the short term, whileamericans are legalizing weed, canadians can look forward tomandatory minimums placing them into a nice and cozy cellin a super-prison for

something as simple aspassing a joint. derek corrigan: i think in allof british columbia, there is a reaction saying, oh my god,how did washington get out ahead of us on this issue? how did that happen? they made a decision that showsthey're far more aware of the realities of the modernworld than we are here in very liberal canada. stephen harper: we're fallingbehind the states.

what the eff? david: now that'sthe crazy thing. jesse: no doubt. david: like, we should feelashamed about ourselves. we always had this great moralhigh ground that we could be smart and be smug about. and now we're justsmug assholes. brian taylor: we'relosing ground. we're asleep at the switch.

if we were smart, we would havehad a post-prohibitionist plan in place. but the only ones who aretalking about post-prohibition are various kinds of advocateswithin the movement at this point. the government hasn't startedtalking about it. i was hoping that it would bemoral suasion that would turn us in the direction ofending prohibition. but it's going to be money.

mik mann: with colorado andwashington legalizing, there's no more of that, well, the us,you know, they'll shut the border down. we can't-- that's gone. that moral authority hammerthey were holding over the world is finished. and prohibition is unraveling. what will accelerate it, though,is once you start

seeing the money. again, in washington, incolorado, in the first year alone, the savings inenforcement costs, that's what's going to becomeapparent right away. and as soon as they see that,other people, everybody else is going to want a pieceof that pie. jodie emery: the war's not over,and we're never going to win, and it's going tobe victory forever. we're always going to have theprohibitionists trying to make

it illegal again. so it's a fight that will goon well past our lifetimes. but we have to work with thepeople who can change the law. and that happens to be thepeople who have been enforcing the law against us. murray power: i don't see itcoming anytime soon, that's for darn sure. it won't be in my career. i think our governments are--

they've said nothingto suggest that anything's going to change. david malmo levine: what happensin the united states often has a bigger effect onvancouver or british columbia then what happens in ottawa. obama getting a second term andcolorado and washington state legalizing might just havemore of a psychological effect on the police in thistown than ottawa's attempts at bringing in mandatory minimumsdid or does.

we'll see. i'm hopeful. i'm full of hope. you've got to be full of hopeto be in this business. being a drug peace activist. without hope, it's prettydepressing. [music - buck naked andthe saddle tramps, "the marijuana song"] ryan archibald: so what is itthat makes bc bud bc bud?

-i think it's the consumer. i think it's the peoplethat live here. it's like a culture here. you want the best weed, and ithink it creates a demand of higher quality, really good,crystally, awesome bud. and that's why bcbud is the best. want to do a fourthtime or what? [laughter]