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Life & Times Transcript
11/01/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Are we turning police officers into double agents in the war on pot? Sheriff Donny Youngblood>> It seemed a lot ambiguous to me to say here's a certificate and you're going to give me money and this is a license to go have the marijuana dispensary and I'm going to take your money and then, in a short time later, I'm going to come back in with the DEA and I'm going to send you off to federal prison. Val Zavala>> And then, two Oscar winners face off in a crime drama, but our critics will decide if it's arresting cinema. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> It seems kind of crazy when you think about it. One branch of government is whacking down marijuana plants while some local governments are giving permission to hand pot out legally. It all began more than ten years ago when Californians passed the medical marijuana law. So will we ever get our pot policies together? KCET's Jeffrey Kaye goes to the Sequoia National Forest where the Feds are taking machetes to marijuana. Jeffrey Kaye>> This summer, law enforcement agents converged in trucks and helicopters to prepare for a series of assaults. Commander Neil Cuthbert>> "I know we got four gardens today, or we have five. One of them is a little far, so we're going to try to knock out four." Jeffrey Kaye>> Their targets were marijuana gardens scattered in California's Sequoia National Forest roughly two hours north of Los Angeles. From the air, agents scoured mountainsides searching for the state's number one cash crop. To avoid detection, marijuana growers have turned increasingly to remote areas of national forests and state parks. Once they found the pot plants, drug police from federal, state and local agencies hoisted up and swooped in. They are part of C.A.M.P., the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a twenty-four year old program run by the state of California and funded mostly by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. Neil Cuthbert is a commander with C.A.M.P. Commander Neil Cuthbert>> We have a major impact on these organizations. Fifty-eight million dollars eradicated today. That is a major, major impact. Jeffrey Kaye>> The money goes for irrigation systems, pesticides and pay for the seasonal workers who tend the farms. Agents have made only a few arrests of workers. They have also engaged in shootouts with men guarding the marijuana crops. Usually, the reconnaissance helicopters scare off workers. In this case, all that was left of them was the crop and the encampment left behind. >> A lot of them are undocumented immigrants. Jeffrey Kaye>> Are they paid in cash or are they paid with the crop? >> They say that they get paid in cash. Some have, say, from a hundred to two hundred dollars a day. Jeffrey Kaye>> But there's an ironic aspect to the eradication program. Even as agents destroy clandestine pot farms in the mountains, in many California communities, stores sell marijuana for medical purposes with the full knowledge of local law enforcement. California is one of thirteen states with medical marijuana laws. >> "One in, one in." Jeffrey Kaye>> The California statute was passed by voters in 1996 as the Compassionate Use Act. Tommy Smalls>> Well, if they're in pain like a herniated disc, dislocated back or spine, I recommended Indigo. It pops the seed a lot better. Jeffrey Kaye>> The California law allows a person with a written recommendation from a physician to go to any of hundreds of storefront dispensaries to purchase pot. >> "I'll taken an eighth of this." Jeffrey Kaye>> But federal drug laws don't recognize any medical use for marijuana which falls in the same drug category as heroine. Mary McElderry, Assistant Special Agent in charge of the DEA's Los Angeles office, says pot dispensaries are just illegal drug dealers. Mary McElderry>> There's no distinction between the marijuana that is grown in the field and cultivated and distributed on the streets as the marijuana that's sold in the dispensaries. Marijuana is illegal under federal law and, consequently, there's no regulation for obtaining it. Jeffrey Kaye>> McElderry says that state law cannot prevent the DEA from enforcing federal drug restrictions. In raids on storefronts, the DEA has seized marijuana and cash. The raids are generally backed up by local law enforcement. That's a practice that causes conflicts in communities which have either adopted hands-off policies or which have their local police license dispensaries. Jim McGowan used to run a marijuana dispensary in the Kern County city of Bakersfield. Jim McGowan>> This license here was issued by the Kern County Sheriff's Department for a period of one year. This one was issued on December 14, 2006. Jeffrey Kaye>> So the same sheriff, Donny Youngblood, whose deputies destroy marijuana in the mountains was issuing licenses to pot dispensaries. That contradiction disturbed him. Sheriff Donny Youngblood>> It seemed a lot ambiguous to me to say here's a certificate and you're going to give me money and this is the license to go have your marijuana dispensary and I'm going to take your money and then, in a short time later, I'm going to come back in with the DEA and I'm going to send you off to federal prison. Well, that just didn't make sense to me. Jeffrey Kaye>> So he refused to issue any more licenses. Sheriff Donny Youngblood>> In fact, I'm going to work the DEA to eradicate the ones that we have because they're such a contradiction in what we're trying to accomplish here. Jim McGowan>> These were the storage containers that we stored the cannabis in. Jeffrey Kaye>> Youngblood's decision put McGowan out of business. McGowan says that his dispensary [technical difficulty] came with an ultimatum and an offer. Jim McGowan>> And they told me that, if I closed the doors and didn't open back up, they'd forget about me. I said, "That's great. What if I don't?" They said, "If you don't, we're going to arrest you, prosecute you and do our best to give you twenty years in prison." I said, "It's not much of a choice." Don Duncan>> "DEA, go away! DEA, go away!" Jeffrey Kaye>> Activist Don Duncan made a similar choice. He shut down his dispensary in Hollywood after the DEA broke down the door, cleaned out his supplies and froze the store's assets. But defiantly, he still runs dispensaries at two other locations hoping that the state law will at some point offer protection. Don Duncan>> Right now, we have a situation in California and in Los Angeles where medical cannabis is legal, collectives like this one are legal and tolerated and yet, under federal law, all of that conduct is illegal. It's very, very important that we harmonize the federal laws with the laws in the state that allow for medical marijuana so that patients and providers and facilities like this can be safe. Jeffrey Kaye>> Dennis Zine is trying to make sure that happens. Dennis Zine>> "We believe there's a role for the DEA and it's not for the DEA to go out and take down the medical marijuana facilities." Jeffrey Kaye>> Zine is a Los Angeles City Councilman and a Republican who spent thirty-nine years on the Los Angeles police force. Dennis Zine>> I've had compassion as a police officer, compassion for human beings, compassion for people. People suffer from cancer. People suffer from AIDS. Diseases and illnesses are going to kill them. Why would we cause them to have more anguish and more pain? If someone's in the hospital, they'll give them morphine. There's a lot of drugs that are legalized by the government and they sanction those. So we tell DEA to back off. I've sent a letter to the DEA administrator to leave us alone. We are going to regulate, we're going to control. We don't need you coming in and taking control of something that we want to handle on a local level. Jeffrey Kaye>> The DEA argues that, for the dispensary owners, it's not about compassion. It's about money. They point to a recent indictment of men who operated dispensaries around California, one out of this Hollywood house. Mary McElderry>> There were homes purchased. There were high-dollar cars purchased. There was land overseas purchased. These people were reaping great financial rewards from the distribution of marijuana from these dispensaries. They had seven locations and ninety-five million dollars of sales. Jeffrey Kaye>> Los Angeles lawyer Eric Shevin says that there's lots of money around because it's a cash business. Although he represents dispensaries and people charged with violating marijuana laws, he thinks anyone running a dispensary is asking for trouble. Eric Shevin>> You've got to be crazy to open a dispensary when you know that you're going to be in strict violation of federal law where the penalties involve mandatory minimum prison sentences, multiple millions of dollars in fines, and you're singling yourself out by standing on the street corner waving a red flag saying, "Here I am violating federal law. Come get me." Jeffrey Kaye>> At the same time, he says that the marijuana eradication program is a doomed effort. Eric Shevin>> Basic economics would tell you that, if demand goes up and supply goes down, price goes up. So since price is not going up, I think we know what's happening. We know demand is going up, so I guess supply must really be going up. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> For years, we've been hearing about over-crowded classrooms, over-populated schools and we've been building more schools to accommodate them. But now we're beginning to hear something very different: declining enrollments across the state. What on earth is going on? For some answers, I talked with Mary Boger, a board member and long-time education advocate with the Glendale Unified School District. She tells me that half the school districts in the state are experiencing lower enrollments. LAUSD has lost more than twenty thousand students this year compared to last. In Long Beach, enrollment is down ten percent. In Orange County, twenty-four out of twenty-seven school districts report declining enrollments. And since the state allocates money on a per-student basis, fewer students mean less money coming to many southern California schools. You're dealing with this problem very graphically with some pretty tough decisions. What's happening here in Glendale? Mary Boger>> Well, we, like about half of the school districts in the state, are experiencing declining enrollment. We have lost three thousand five hundred students from a population of about thirty thousand students since 2001. Val Zavala>> That's ten percent almost? Mary Boger>> Just about, just about. Val Zavala>> Over the last six years. Mary Boger>> Yes. Val Zavala>> People would say, well, gee, that's three thousand fewer students to teach. You're going to save money, there's going to be smaller classes, you don't need as many teachers. This is great. Mary Boger>> Oh, we'd love it to work out like that, believe me (laughter). We really would. But it doesn't work out that way. Students will not leave in compact classes of one grade. They leave two sixth graders and one fifth grader and four third graders and a half dozen kindergartners. So we cannot reduce our staffing as rapidly as we lose our students. We always have the overhead, lights and paper and copy machines and telephones. All of those things go right on and go right on at the same level even though we lose the students. Val Zavala>> So how much has Glendale Unified had to cut? Mary Boger>> We've already cut about six million dollars from our budget and, this year, we will most likely need to cut another million to a million and a half. Val Zavala>> What's causing this decline? Mary Boger>> Well, it's a combination. It's the perfect storm, as it were. We have a lower birth rate in the state of California, but we are also suffering from higher property values. Young couples cannot afford to buy homes here and raise their children here. We also have a problem of people who normally rent who can no longer afford the rents because the rental rates are rising as are the property values. So with the declining birth rate and the ever-rising property values, as I said, we have the perfect storm for declining enrollment. Val Zavala>> So if young couples with children cannot afford to buy homes in certain areas, where are they going and are those schools somewhere else in more affordable communities over-crowded? Mary Boger>> Yes. Those other school districts are growing districts and they are, for instance, Riverside or San Bernardino County. Both of those areas are growing school district areas. Val Zavala>> So we have declining enrollments in some communities, rising enrollments in others and also the LAUSD is in the middle of the biggest building boom in their history. In fact, I think they call it the biggest public works project in the country happening now. Are we building schools for students that aren't going to be there? Mary Boger>> Well, not necessarily because just as students don't leave in tidy parcels of classrooms at a time, they also don't all leave from the exact same areas. In Glendale Unified, the southern portion of our district has declining enrollment, but many of our northern district schools are impacted. So just as we have declining -- overall, we are declining, but that decline is more pronounced in the southern portion of our city than it is in the northern portion of our district. I'm sure that Los Angeles Unified is suffering from the exact same kinds of dilemmas. Val Zavala>> So you have some schools that are facing declining enrollments and that means less money from the state because the state, as most people know, gives districts money on a per-student basis. Mary Boger>> Correct. Val Zavala>> So you've got less money to work with for these students and yet the student needs are the same. Glendale faces a lot of cultural issues, diversity issues, that a lot of the districts do, right? Mary Boger>> Yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact, we have been talking with our staff throughout the district about our sixty-forty-twenty statistics. Sixty percent of our Latino students, forty percent of our Caucasian students and twenty percent of our Asian students are not proficient in both math or English. These are statistics that make us as board members and as a caring population of educators very, very concerned. We're very proud to be able to show you statistics that will show you that, for instance, our Latino population has improved twenty percent in its proficiency. So we're making the right choices and we're doing the right things. Val Zavala>> So you're on your way up. Mary Boger>> We're on our way up, but we can't do that without the programs and the programs require funding. Val Zavala>> So your programs are making progress. They're showing real advancement, but it might all be derailed by this declining enrollment issue? Mary Boger>> Yes, because we are constantly facing this need to do more with less. I think everyone can appreciate and understand that you can only cut for so long and so much and then you start to hit the real meat of your programs. All across the state, that's what declining enrollment districts are concerned about. Val Zavala>> I understand Pasadena has actually closed three or four school campuses? Mary Boger>> Closed elementary school campuses. Val Zavala>> Which seems so counter-intuitive because we've heard for so long over-crowded classrooms, schools to capacity times three or four, so build, build, build, please money to build, and now this declining enrollment. We're just not used to thinking like this. Mary Boger>> No, we're not. For Glendale Unified, our bond was very necessary not only because our school district doubled in student population in ten years, but because our buildings themselves were in most cases at least thirty years old and just needed to be refurbished. Val Zavala>> So within Glendale, for example, you have some schools in some parts of the city that are under-enrolled and others are over-enrolled. Could we be seeing busing happen again to even out the student body population? Mary Boger>> I don't think so. Speaking as an individual school board member, it has been my experience that parents don't want to put their children on buses. I for one as a parent would not want to put my kindergartner on a bus and send them off to the other side of town. We know the value of a local school. We know the value of parents living in the community, in that part of the community where their child's school is, so that they can be a part of their child's education. Val Zavala>> So declining enrollments, whether they be from the lower birth rate or high home prices, this is not a short-term problem. This is going to be with us for another five, ten years, even more than a decade? Mary Boger>> Probably another decade and a half. They are telling us that, in 2010, we will see a tiny upsurge in enrollment, perhaps two percent. And during that decade, perhaps another two percent of growth. But we are really looking at a plateau that's going to last for a long time and we're all going to have to look carefully at how we spend our dollars for education. We can only hope that Sacramento will look with equal care on how they are providing their dollars for education. Val Zavala>> Mary Boger, with the Glendale Unified School District board, thank you so much. We really appreciate your thoughts. Mary Boger>> Thank you for coming. You're always welcome at Glendale Unified. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is in a long and successful American tradition, that of the mobster picture. "American Gangster" stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Ridley Scott directs the film which tells the story of real-life New York drug kingpin, Frank Lucas, of the 1980s. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media and Claudia Puig of USA Today. Claudia, what did you think of "American Gangster"? Claudia Puig>> I thought it was great. Some gangsters like Tony Soprano are done in by their lusty appetites. Others are done in by the authorities. But in this case, Denzel Washington's drug kingpin was done in by his fashion sense (laughter) or lack thereof. It's a chinchilla coat, actually. He is mesmerizing as this drug kingpin that Russell Crowe is after. He's on his trail. Russell Crowe plays a detective who is very honorable. He has a lot of integrity, but mostly on the job and his personal life is something else altogether, whereas Denzel is kind of the opposite of that. He believes in family, much like Don Corleone, that has some similarities to the epic feel of "The Godfather". Of course, he'll kneecap somebody or do whatever needs to be done as the drug kingpin. It's a really well-made movie. Ridley Scott was the director. He's teaming up again with Russell Crowe who he directed, of course, in "Gladiator" and not so well in "A Good Year" last year (laughter). It's a good thing he's back to this turf. Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Jean? Jean Oppenheimer>> I think it's a really entertaining film, but I'm not as enthusiastic actually as Claudia is. It's odd because most of what I'm going to say about it is complimentary. One thing I really liked about it is that it has these very atypical and rather intriguing characters as the leads. Plus the film is anchored by two really wonderful performances by Denzel Washington and, I think actually especially by Russell Crowe. The thing I think I liked best about the film, aside from these two lead performances, is how Frank Lucas, who's the Denzel Washington character, his ingenious ideas about importing heroine from Southeast Asia -- this was during the Vietnam War -- is really the epitome of good old American business ingenuity. It's a little bit of a play on that that he is living, in a sense, the American dream. That touch was just something I liked. Larry Mantle>> The film, "Martian Child", stars John Cusack as a writer who adopts a young boy who claims to be a Martian. It gives a new meaning to the idea of raising an alien child. The film costars Joan Cusack and Amanda Peet. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Jean, what did you think of "Martian Child"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Larry, I am just a sucker for films with adorable child actors who play really sort of alienated creatures who feel either abandoned by their parents or feel they're not at all like their other colleagues and school friends. That's what this film has. It has a wonderful performance by a little boy named Bobby Coleman who really acts as though he almost is from Mars. He's just this adorable character. I liked John Cusack in it. I don't think the film actually holds together in some ways. John Cusack as the father who's adopting this child really seems to take it, well, not unseriously, but as though it's just going to be a breeze. You never see him sort of reading or trying to find what he should do for the kid. I felt that that wasn't very realistic, but I liked the relationship and I liked the little boy so much that I came away really enjoying the film. Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Claudia? Claudia Puig>> I think I liked it a little bit less, but I should say that I'm really a sucker for John Cusack (laughter). The kid was cute and he was a good actor, but I think that, when John Cusack is on, he is so good. You know, "High Fidelity" and some of the romantic comedies, and I think he's moved on to this next step. I liked the rapport between him and the little boy. They're both kind of misfits in different ways. However, having said all that, I felt there were times when it strayed into kind of cloying territory. It's a little maudlin, a little tear-jerky, but I think it was John Cusack actually that pulled it back because he has that kind of little edge and the dry wit, so he kind of saved it for me. I did think that it was a good performance by the little boy. I think that there were aspects of it that were not terribly realistic, but I think it was meant to be maybe a little bit more allegorical perhaps. Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead", directed by Sidney Lumet. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead", Claudia. What did you think? Claudia Puig>> This is a really powerful movie. It kind of illustrates how one bad idea can just become worse and snowball and just unravel and destroy peoples' lives. It's anchored by two really good performances, Philip Seymour Hoffman who is always good and Ethan Hawke who is quite good as his slightly less intelligent, kind of more sensitive brother. Philip Seymour Hoffman is kind of a ruthless sort of guy. It's a very, very well-told story. This is Sidney Lumet's forty-fifth film. You know, he's done films like "Network" and "Dog Day Afternoon", amazing films, and this is right up there. He's eighty-three years old. It's non-linear, so it kind of goes back and forth in time. But it starts with the climax and then kind of goes back and forth from there, which I think is a really intriguing way to go if you can do it right, and he sure did. Larry Mantle>> Jean, do you agree? Jean Oppenheimer>> I think it's a terrific film. I think it manages to be exhilarating and uncomfortably sordid at the same time. It takes you places that you really don't want to go, sort of psychologically and emotionally, but it does it so well. There's a line late in the film where one character says, "This world is an evil place" and that's really sort of what the film is about. Philip Seymour Hoffman is at his sort of doughy best. Ethan Hawke, an actor I normally don't like, I think is wonderful and I think you're just engulfed by atmosphere here. Not in terms of, you know, cinematography or production design, but really psychologically through the characters, what they create. Yeah, I think it's a really powerful film. Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Claudia Puig of USA Today and Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media. Please join us again next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> For a longer version of FilmWeek, tune in to KPCC public radio Fridays at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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