Comedian Russell Brand has lived life as an addict — now he's calling for a revolution in the way we treat addiction.
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00:00Drugs can be incredibly dangerous and negative.
00:02What I'm saying is, making them illegal isn't working.
00:05It doesn't work. It doesn't prevent people from using drugs.
00:14I was busy being a drug addict at that point,
00:15because I come from the kind of social conditions
00:17that are exacerbated by an indifferent system
00:19that really just administrates for large corporations
00:21and ignores the population that it was voted in to serve.
00:31From the onset of adulthood,
00:32drugs and alcohol were my way of just coping with the world.
00:35The addicts are the people that are on the highlands.
00:38They know the storm is coming.
00:39They have one less layer of skin.
00:41They get addicted to the smack and to the food
00:43and to the sex and to the porn.
00:45But everyone, I believe, on some level,
00:47is suffering from this feeling of absence, this feeling of loss.
01:01David Cameron says profit isn't a dirty word.
01:03I say profit is a filthy word,
01:05because wherever there is profit, there is also deficit.
01:07A political system that reduces you
01:09to a component of an economic machine
01:11is never going to fulfil you.
01:12It's not that I'm not voting out of apathy.
01:15I'm not voting out of absolute indifference
01:18and weariness and exhaustion from the lies,
01:20treachery, deceit of the political class
01:22that has been going on for generations now.
01:24That's the problem with current affairs.
01:26You forget about what's important.
01:28You allow the agenda to be decided by superficial information.
01:31What am I saying? What am I talking about?
01:33Don't think about what I'm wearing.
01:34These things are redundant.
01:44For me, it's more important that we regard
01:47people suffering from addiction with compassion
01:50and that there's a pragmatic rather than symbolic approach to treating it.
01:54The communities that you belong to will support you
01:57and you can change your patterns,
01:58you can make amends for your past,
02:00you can continue to stay present.
02:01And a vital part of this program is prayer and meditation,
02:04continual connection to the moment
02:06so you don't lose yourself in your past
02:08or the projections of your future.