Rick Steves’ Travel Blog

Last week, the Washington Post hosted a workshop in Seattle to highlight the growing importance of adult caregivers in our nation. I was asked to share my take on that issue after my experiences with my Mom, who suffered from Alzheimer’s until she died two years ago, and my Dad, who took care of her. Here’s a 10-minute conversation about the importance of giving adult caregivers a break from 24/7 responsibilities by making an adult day care service available in our communities.

We all need to be comfortable with bringing our aging loved ones out in public, and we need to appreciate the huge (and unpaid) workforce that brings comfort to this growing part of our society. All of us will eventually outlive both our bodies and our minds — but generally not at the same rate. As a society, we should be better prepared.

Our nation has been mired in a war against marijuana that has proven to be as wrong-minded and counterproductive as the prohibition against alcohol back in the 1930s. Recognizing the social and economic toll this war on pot was causing our country (not to mention the civil liberties concerns), I long ago embraced this cause. I’ve been advocating for the legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use for over a decade.

Until the last couple of years, people could hardly talk about marijuana in polite company. That’s why, five years ago, the ACLU produced a documentary called Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation,” and asked me to help write and host it. (Believe it or not, even that recently, TV stations were afraid to run this program — they wouldn’t even sell infomercial time for that topic before midnight.) If the ACLU wanted to start a conversation, they certainly did. And things have really crescendoed since Washington and Colorado actually legalized pot in 2012.

If you’ve followed my work, you know that I was very active as a co-sponsor of Initiative 502, which legalized marijuana in Washington State. Watch the stump speech that I gave all over the state during that campaign.

Here’s the press I’ve noticed, just in the last week, as our nation moves rapidly to take the crime out of the marijuana equation:

• Last Sunday, I had dinner with the leadership at NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in Washington DC. That same day, the Washington Post came out essentially congratulating NORML and other drug policy reform groups for an amazingly productive last couple of years.
• On Monday, I flew to Corpus Christi, deep in the south of Texas, to give a talk to a group of seniors. I explained to them (among many other lessons from my travels) why our nation’s war on marijuana is a counterproductive and costly mistake. I was impressed that a room full of senior Texans saw the practicality of ending this prohibition.
• On Tuesday, back home, I watched an hour-long show on CNBC reviewing how the first two months of legalized marijuana in Colorado is going.
• On Wednesday, I read that the president of Uruguay, José Mujica, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for making his country the first in the world to fully legalize marijuana.
• And on Thursday, in the Huffington Post, I found this article by John Wenzel (writer for The Cannabist and the Denver Post), sharing my take on the rapidly changing marijuana situation in the USA.

What’s next? I just met with my friends at the ACLU and other drug policy reform activists and learned why we’ll wait until 2016 for California…but it’s all hands on deck to legalize in Oregon later this year. To do what I can to help out, I agreed to spend five days on an “end the prohibition against marijuana” lecture tour in Oregon. I’ll announce dates soon. Learn more at New Approach Oregon.

If you’re in a state (or a state of mind) that is worried that all hell is about to break loose, trust me: The goal is to stop an expensive, racist, and non-productive war on marijuana and to regulate and tax its adult recreational use smartly. I firmly believe that, while use may spike with the giddiness that comes with being able to enjoy a joint legally, consumption will stay about the same in the long run — and we’ll end a violent black market and the other unintended evils that come with a prohibition. Stay tuned…

When I was a kid, I remember my sister, Jan, was fanatic about two things: snow and dogs. She spent every moment she could on the slopes. And I’ll never forget the day when, while driving our mom’s car, Jan had to choose between running over a little dog and totaling the car by running into a telephone pole. That was the last time I saw my mom’s Plymouth Barracuda.

Now, 40 years later, Jan is still crazy about snow and dogs. (And I still get nervous when she borrows my car.) In fact, she has spent the winter training with her team of dogs in Alaska — and on Saturday, March 1st, she embarks upon her third Iditarod race. Jan is sharing her story in a wonderful blog at her “Living My Dream” website. I’m so proud of my sister, and I’ll be rooting her on as she sets off on her 1,100-mile trek through the vast expanses of Alaska, alone in the wilderness with her hearty and loyal team of dogs. It’s an amazing and inspirational adventure.  If you’d like to stow away on her sled and root her on, follow her Iditarod 2014 blog.

I’m well into the final stages of producing our upcoming “Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today” special for public television. Doing this work, I’m struck by the value of actually meeting people in faraway lands.

Recently, a friend shared this photo essay from Iran with me. These photos (by Brandon Stanton, of Humans of New York fame) bring back memories of wonderful moments from my travels to Iran. Check it out. And as you look at these people, imagine them on your street, in your place of work, dating your children, sharing a retirement home with your parents. It’s a wonderfully small world and, as far as I can tell, people are generally good… motived by fear and love.

While I’ve never tallied it up, I imagine I spend 30 or 40 days a year traveling throughout the USA, visiting public television stations and giving lectures. When I’m in town to give a talk or host a pledge drive, I often sit down with the local affairs show host for an interview. I think the best interviewer I’ve encountered was Dick Pryor last year at OETA in Oklahoma City. Here’s that interview on OETA’s local affairs program, On The Record.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.