When I got out of the military, I finished up my education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and I had some mentors who said, 'You got what it takes. You should consider going to graduate school, getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience.' I didn't think I had what it took until somebody who had a Ph.D. told me I had what it takes.
— Carl Hart
Number one in high school, when I was sort of entrenched in the street life, if you will, the major thing that kept me plugged in the mainstream was athletics. I played basketball throughout high school. I also played football, but I played basketball throughout high school.
My kids are really into social justice.
One of the things we know about people is that people are not very courageous in general.
Too often, ill-informed rhetoric has led to emotional hysteria that obfuscates solid evidence regarding the real problems faced by poor people and, in overwhelmingly great proportions, by black people.
I have a hard time arguing with stupid people.
Researchers, treatment providers - we all have a stake in the drug hysteria game.
I grew up in the hood in Miami in a poor neighborhood.
All of my childhood, we were on welfare. My mom received Aid for Families with Dependent Children - welfare. Without that, we wouldn't have had subsidized housing. Most of my childhood, we had a two-bedroom apartment, but eventually we got into the projects, where we had four bedrooms. That was great.
In the mainstream, I'm suspect because I'm black. I have dreadlocks, I have a goatee. I mean, I'm just suspect. In my classroom and at Columbia, I'm not as suspect because it's clear I know what I'm doing, but I am still suspect.
Most of the stuff that parades as drug education in this country is just rubbish with no foundation in evidence.
You have to be open-minded, and you have to be critical, and you have to let go of your predispositions about what you've been told that doesn't have foundations in evidence.
As a parent, a scientist, and educator, what I know is that it's always better to provide the education that will help keep my children - all people - safe, even if I don't want them to engage in the behavior.
It is always a good time when I visit the 'Melissa Harris Perry Show' on MSNBC.
When we make decisions based on factors other than the available empirical evidence, we are less than objective, which means we are no longer acting as scientists.
I did most of my Ph.D. in Washington. They used to bring black kids through the lab for tours, and I was one of the few black researchers.
It takes some courage to say you were wrong.
I had to go to England to really learn about American racism in a way that corroborated my reality. That was critical.
Politicians move when the public requires them to move.
In the hood, you have a problem with somebody, you have to deal with it. The outcome is pretty immediate.
I think people are curious at some level, and they want to alter their current state of being. I mean, that could be from curiosity, that could be from stress, that can be from some other sort of ailments or problem that they are experiencing or could just be from boredom, but humans have always attempted to alter their consciousness.
I strongly discourage any intellectuals, regardless of race, from speaking on matters for which they have limited or no expertise.
If you are funding researchers to look primarily for pathology, not surprisingly, that is what they are going to find and report on.
Sleep is probably the most important biological function. If you don't get enough sleep, you can get psychiatric illnesses and all types of different illnesses.
When patients reject official advice and proved medicine, they become more susceptible to quackery.
Skills that are employable or marketable, education, having a stake or meaningful role in society, not being marginalized - all of those things are very important.
Drug reformers get seduced by politicians who co-opt our language but who make no meaningful change. And when we don't hold politicians accountable, we contribute to harm.
I'm the only tenured black faculty in the sciences at Columbia, in the middle of Harlem.
If drugs are bad, any respectable society should do something to deal with them.
All children will do things that you may not want them to. That's part of parenting.
If we stay focused on data and the real issues, we can tailor our inventions to enhance public health and safety while decreasing the likelihood of racial discrimination.
Perhaps, for once, we should try interventions that are informed by science and proven to work.
I went to college in the Air Force, and I went to college at the University of Maryland, who had college campuses on Air Force bases.
The way we have been thinking about brain science is that people show you pretty pictures, pretty images, and you think that that tells you something about how they behave. It doesn't.
I had a grandmother who was really strong, who doted on me, who wanted to make sure that I didn't go off the beaten path, although I did.
Disregard belief systems that aren't based on empirical studies.
The notion that scientists are dispassionate - first of all, that's wrong. Scientists are extremely passionate.
The listening community has the obligation of distinguishing informed opinion from tweets.
The strange proposition that black intellectuals - regardless of their training - are 'race experts' mainly because they are black is naive and potentially dangerous.
When you go to jail, you are under the supervision of the state. You are housed with people who are criminals, so that becomes the expectation. People learn to become better criminals in jail and prison.
We need better public education and more realistic education.
Trump has been - has shown himself to be the most ignorant president that we've ever had. He has shown himself to be the one that disregards law more so than any other president we've had.
If we were going to look at how pharmalogical drugs influence crime, we should probably look at alcohol.
Drug reformers need to be hyper-vigilant. I understand that when you've been oppressed so long, so thirsty for truth, that when someone comes along and gives you a sip of water, you think that they're the savior. But in that water there may be cyanide.
You don't have money, you can't do science. But that's part of the price that I pay.
It's not a crime to make a mistake; in fact, it's human. I certainly have made mistakes.
I am a drug expert and the father of 3 black males.
I am committed to the people who are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars being used to fund unethical people and corporations.
If politicians did care about their constituents, they would work harder to seek out people like me. They don't.
I went into the military because I didn't get a scholarship, a basketball scholarship I thought that I would get.
