September 18, 2002: Underground Expeditions - Bonnie Crystal | Legalizing Marijuana - Billy Rogers

Art Bell brings two guests to the program on a night covering vastly different territory. In the first segment, Billy Rogers, campaign manager of Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement, discusses Question 9, a ballot measure that would make Nevada the first state to legalize possession of up to three ounces of marijuana for adults over 21. Rogers details how the initiative would ban public smoking, criminalize sales to minors, and create state-licensed shops generating millions in tax revenue.

Art then welcomes close friend and technologist Bonnie Crystal, a Silicon Valley inventor whose video noise reduction technology shrank satellite dishes in the 1980s and whose company Telogen is developing revolutionary flat panel displays. They revisit the ongoing mystery of Art's 1,000-foot loop antenna, which Crystal helped install, and its persistent 350-volt charge from the atmosphere. After experimenting with bleeder resistors and enduring repeated shocks, Art finally reduces the resistance enough to eliminate the voltage.

Crystal describes her work as a cave explorer, including discovering the deepest freefall pit in the Southern Hemisphere during a Peru expedition, a thousand-foot vertical drop only eight feet in diameter. The conversation also touches on her book about CB radio culture, her ham radio operations, and the Egyptian pyramid controversy involving photographs that appear to differ from footage aired during a recent live television special.