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Columbian Drug Trade, H1N1 National Emergency Declaration, Child Stars; Northwest Flight 188, Columbia's cocaine war

Aired October 24, 2009 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WHITFIELD: Hello, again, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu a national emergency. Mr. Obama says the move would take an in part because of the potential for the pandemic to overburden health care resources. The declaration allows the secretary of health to waive federal regulations on medical facilities so that they can respond more quickly to the pandemic. Administration officials stress the move is a proactive measure and not related to the recent spread of swine flu.

The CDC says more than 1,000 Americans have died from the h1n1 virus, so far. Nearly 100 of them are children. In addition, 46 states are now reporting widespread flu activity.

The crew of Northwest Airlines flight 188 wasn't asleep and it wasn't arguing. That, according to the co-pilot who spoke with a reporter yesterday. Flight 188 was out of radio contact for 78 minutes during a Wednesday night flight and went 150 miles past its destination. The Minneapolis airport before it turned around and then landed safety. The co pilot Richard Cole says there has been a lot of misinterpretation about what happened, but he won't say much more than that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD COLE, NORTHWEST FLIGHT 188 PILOT: Nobody was asleep in the cockpit. No arguments took place. But other than that, I cannot tell you anything that went on because we're having hearings this weekend and we're having hearings on Tuesday. All that information will come out then.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): No arguments took place?

COLE: No.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): That's the statement that's out there all over the place.

COLE: There were no arguments at all. That wasn't even an issue. Absolutely not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Cole suggested that the 144 passengers on board were never at risk saying quote, it was not a serious event from a safety issue. The mother of the young boy from the run away balloon saga says the whole thing was a hoax. That according to court documents, an affidavit shows Mayumi Heene told deputies the incident was meant to help the family get media attention. They did. Her husband Richard Heene denies the incident was faked. The local sheriff says he will recommend charges against the couple. Some of the charges are felonies that carry a maximum sentence of 6 years in prison.

This lead in a New Jersey town after a Catholic priest there was found dead inside his church rectory. Police say Reverend Ed Hines was killed either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. They are urging residents to be cautious until a suspect is a caught. Many in the small town say the 61-year-old priest will be greatly missed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CATHY PHILLIPS-BODIE, SCHOOL CROSSING GUARD: He put 100 percent into it. It was -- I don't know if anyone could take his place. It seems like he blessed me. For some reason, I have that feeling in my soul. Sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: It's the first homicide there in nearly 20 years.

Suburban homes allegedly turned into marijuana farms. It's a case in California's Central Valley where 9 people are in custody. Bail has been denied for one of the defendants because officials believe he's too much of a flight risk. Nine other suspects may have already fled the country. They are all accused of lying to buy 51 homes, and then they allegedly gutted them to grow pot inside.

So, coming up in the 4:00 Eastern hour, we are taking an entire hour to talk about medical marijuana and the announcement this week by the federal government that they are going to ease up on prosecuting users and distributors of marijuana in the 13 designated states where medical marijuana use is legal. We'll get answers to your questions and sharing a lot of your comments. Join us at 4:00 and go to my facebook page and blog at CNN.com. We'll get your comments on the air.

A trail of blood leads from the United States back to a source in Columbia. Straight ahead a special in-depth report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The theory in practice as someone in London or Los Angeles gets high on coke. A young man gets pumped with bullets.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE), (via translator): Maybe these youngsters live until they are 20. They will grab what they can until they are 20. If they survive longer, it's a bonus. If they die, they always knew that was the risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Correspondent Carl Penhaul with the inside look at Columbia's cocaine war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: We're doing something a bit different today. In the next half hour, you'll see a special from CNN's Carl Penhaul. It's called "Bloodline, inside Columbia's cocaine war." We'll be back on the other side of the special to catch you up on other headlines. Right now, take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): Due to the graphic nature of this content, it may not be appropriate for some viewers.

CARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The days of Pablo Escobar are long gone. The cocaine is still flowing. These days, it's the Mexican border towns that grab headlines for drug violence. It's the Mexican cartels that are the most feared. The cocaine that makes them rich comes from Columbia, just as it did in the '80s and '90s.

If anything the Columbian gangs are getting smarter at smuggling drugs. A powder trail literally connects South American to Mexico and the United States, another trail stretches eastward to Africa, and then to Europe. The demand is still there and the profits are still fueling a cocaine war in Columbia. I'm Carl Penhaul this is world's untold stories, "Bloodlines."

A father shakes his fist at heaven and asks why. That's his son in the coffin. Blown away by a gang on the payroll of Columbian cocaine campos. 17-year-old Twanky Malorda (ph) was at the school gate a bullet in the head, another in the neck. His aunt says he wasn't part of any gang.

MARIA DEBORAH OSPINA, VICTIM'S AUNT (via translator): He wanted to be somebody in life and help his family progress. He waned to study at university, become a great lawyer and win justice.

PENHAUL: Fallen gang fighter, or innocent victim. His aunt blames his murder on turf wars that are once again gripping.

OSPINA (via translator): I guess he was killed because of the gang wars. You can't go into certain places and can't cross certain lines. They hit you where it hurts most. They kill your family.

PENHAUL: Many appear to be gang members. Some are packing guns. Mourners hoist the casket. Then carry off their dead down narrow alleys. I head out across to try to figure out why drug violence is spiraling. Up here, there's a statue of the Virgin Mary. Catholics believe she protects souls in purgatory. Life here revolves around two things, guns and drugs.

CHIEF, MEDELIN GANG LEADER (via translator): Here, it's the rules of the street. The rules don't change. They will always be the rules here or anywhere else.

PENHAUL: He's the gang leader, they call him Chief. My sources say he's made so many enemies he can't step outside his patch.

CHIEF (via translator): We're all human and we all get afraid. I'm afraid my life will end suddenly before I can do anything to get out of this war.

PENHAUL: Everything comes to an end chirp the lyrics of a salsa classic on the radio. For now, there's work to be done. Gang members roll marijuana or pose with their fire power. By night fall, they will have 1,000 joints to deal on street corners they control. Columbian authorities say drug pedaling is worth $6 million a month. Carpel capos believe that's worth fighting for. The day before we met, Chief buried one of his own.

CHIEF (via translator): I couldn't bear to look in the coffin. They killed him downtown. We don't know who did it. The day they brought his body back up here, we killed that crack head bitch.

PENHAUL: That conversation cut sort, (inaudible) this gang sent to delivery. Look out posted in case police or rivals try to muscle in.

The gang members are telling us the kilo of cocaine they have been waiting for all afternoon has now arrived. So we're going to follow them to a different location to see how they cut it. They have raided mom's kitchen for the tools they need. The job now to break down a brick of pure cocaine cut it with caffeine and dentists anesthetic. They sell a gram for as little as a dollar; depending on how heavy they cut it.

Business mixes with pleasure. Their biggest pleasure inhaling the cloud of cocaine from the liquidizer. They are cutting cocaine now with a fruit juicer for about the last hour. There's dust going everywhere. Everybody is high as a kite. They have been smoking marijuana; they have been doing lines of cocaine and drinking beer. Now, might be a good time to leave. Before I go I'm curious if Chief ever thought of getting out of the drugs, guns and violence.

CHIEF (via translator): I dream of sailing away in a sailboat, alone and far away.

PENHAUL: But before he can live that dream, he first has to survive the nightmare of a cocaine war.

(UNIDENTIFED FEMALE) (via translator): I heard the shots. That was it.

PENHAUL: This is the headquarters of CSI. A reaction unit of the city's crime scene investigators known here at CTI.

(UNIDENTIFED FEMALE) (via translator): Have you got a murder up there? Can you confirm the location?

PENHAUL: That report just came through of a street killing in an area the investigators are calling a hot zone. They say that one of the last times they went up there, they came under gunfire. They said to stick close and be careful. There's all the marks of a gang slaying. The latest victim in a war that erupted when cocaine bosses fell out. Investigators chart the progress of that war with close up photos of bullet wounds and precise measurements of where the victim fell. Neighbor's young and old stand and stair. None will give evidence.

DORA SALDARRIAGA, MEDELIN CTI (via translator): We have a witness, but he won't speak because he lives in the neighborhood. If he talks, he's afraid the next corpse will be his.

PENHAUL: The 23-year-old is tagged and bagged. The body is carried away through narrow alleys, followed by a procession of women la meaning another untimely death.

MARIA TERESA RODRIGUEZ, VICTIM'S GRANDMOTHER: Translator: I heard the shots and then a man came to the door and told me Darwin (ph) was shot.

PENHAUL: A slow afternoon shift becomes a nighttime killing spree. A teenager gunned down with a 38 revolver on a side walk in a western neighborhood. Another man in his 30s killed as he tried to flee a lone gunman. He made it as far as this Evangelical prayer house just before worshippers would do to hold a celebration.

OMAR GOMEZ, EVANGELICAL PREACHER: We thought it was balloons bursting, but then we saw it was a guy pumping bullets into another.

PENHAUL: The investigator gathered up 9 millimeter bullet fragments shell casings the walkie talkie crackles with reports of another shooting.

PABLO CASTANO, MEDELIN CTI (via translator): We're going for the fifth body and we are only a 1:45 into our shift.

PENHAUL: By the time dawn breaks, they will recover 12 corpses all apparent victims of the cartel war. That's far from unusual. Every single weekend in August, CSI teams are called out to 47 drug related murders. They need more equipment and more personnel. But, more than anything, they need the killing to stop. He's head of the rapid reaction squad.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE) (via translator): This is not like in another country where you have maybe two murders a week. Here, we have 15 to 20 murders a day or every two days.

PENHAUL: So who are the men pulling the trigger? I meet two long serving cartel hit men. One calls himself Red. Says he went through assassin training school at 14. He confirms police reports that the current waive of violence has been spiraled by cartel in fighting. But says --

(Satellite lost)

PENHAUL: Next we get two very different takes of why Columbia's drug war is headed.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): We Columbian's meet in Mexico the trampoline into the United States.

PENHAUL: Just how imaginative are the traffickers are getting smuggling their cocaine out of Columbia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PENHAUL: Back in the '80s and '90s, Columbia's cartels were infamous the world over. It was reportedly raking in $60 million a day. But, extradition treaty with the United States coupled with government crackdowns has forced the Columbians to change business models. So just how powerful are the Columbian traffickers these days? The two very different perspectives, I talked to Columbia's deputy defense minister and to a long time Medilian. I can't identify him because he's still trafficking.

SERGIO JARAMILLO, COLOMBIAN DEPUTY DEFENSE MIN: If you think about it, there's not a single cartel left in Columbia. It doesn't mean we would never claim that we don't have a drug trafficking problem. The big drug cartels that used to wield economic power and tried to translate it into political power, they are a thing of the past. What the Mexicans have been doing, is going ever more upstream. So, the organizations that in the past used to be close to the streets in the U.S. and Europe are taking a back seat.

TRAFFICKER (via translator): Things have changed a lot. First the Columbians had the biggest percentage because the Mexicans didn't know how to work. I was one of the ones teaching them how to set up airstrips and how to receive and dispatch aircraft. First, the Columbians gave the Mexicans 30 percent of the merchandise in return for handling the drugs and getting them through to the U.S. Now, the Mexicans have taken almost total control.

JARAMILLO: Some of those Columbians are willing to reduce significantly their profits by selling to the Mexicans instead of directly to the U.S. markets. Because then, they don't risk extradition. They take a 50 percent cut or even more.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE) (via translator): We Columbians need Mexico as a trampoline into the United States because of its huge frontier. Then the Mexicans put a break on receiving our gear. It was a plot so that they can increase the percentage the Columbians had to pay. They wanted a bigger share to open the borders for the Columbians. Now, as a result of the cartel war in Mexico, you can earn almost double what you could before. The price of cocaine in Mexico went up almost considerably. Before, you could sell a kilo of cocaine in Mexico City for around $8,000. Now, it's between $17,000 and $19,000.

JARAMILLO: We have two main routes for drugs now. One from the pacific, as you know, is an extremely difficult terrain and up the pacific, up Central America to Mexico and another one with like eastward through the neighboring country from the east to Europe. The standard figure you will hear is that it's about 30 percent to Europe. Some people, in the law enforcement business, think it's getting close to half.

What do you do if you are a rational drug trafficker? Do you send your drugs to the U.S. and get $25,000 a kilo and risk getting extradited or send it to Europe, get double that and have no legal problems? Unfortunately, all the countries between Columbia and Europe are doing little to stop the trade. It will be a major problem for the Europeans. You cannot have those volumes going on without a major impact, not only on the youth of Europe, but on the institutions. Major drug trafficking means major corruption.

PENHAUL: Columbian traffickers are now flying into West Africa. Smugglers and other sources close to trait and the cocaine is transported by land and river into Venezuela and then flown on to the Cape Verde Islands. Most cocaine still ends up in the United States. To achieve that, the Columbian gangs are looking for schemes to shipping the drugs in Central America and Mexico.

Planes tracked something plowing through the choppy seas. The Columbia Navy and U.S. Coast Guards are on the tail of a hand built submarine. The cargo eight tons of pure cocaine, according to authorities, that is almost $500,000,000 worth in the streets of Europe or America.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): Hands are in the air.

PENHAUL: The crew surrenders without a fight, but the bust goes bad. The traffickers send the cargo to the bottom of the pacific. The Coast Guard says it's a tactic to destroy evidence of the crime. Watch this crew bail out in a different chase. Minutes later, another six tons of cocaine sink. Pursuits on the high seas like these are rare. That's because the subs are almost impossible to detect. Few are designed to go fully underwater.

CAPT. MARIO RODRIGUEZ, COLOMBIAN COAST GUARD (via translator): The semi submersible is more difficult to detect. It has a low profile in the sea. They paint them a certain color to camouflage them.

PENHAUL: The Navy believes the cartels may now be smuggling out almost half their cocaine in fleets of subs using Columbia's Caribbean and Pacific coasts.

RODRIGUEZ (via translator): Narco traffickers are looking for new ways to commit their crimes and authorities are trying to prevent that.

PENHAUL: At Pacific Coast base, second mate Carlos (INAUDIBLE) shows me around some of the subs that have been confiscated. Fiberglass on a wooden frame, twin diesel engines, the price tag, around $1 million. Most of it is not for the materials, but to buy the silence of the boat builders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Maybe they are not crazy, but ignoring the danger.

PENHAUL: Under the hatch, it feels like a floating coffin.

(on camera): It's hot down here now and once it's in the open waters with the sun beating down on it, the temperature could soar and there are only a few breathing tubes here.

(voice-over): The semi-submersibles travel three main smuggling routes, according to the Navy. Direct to Mexico or Central America takes around six days. The longest route, through the Galapagos Islands take two weeks. Along the northern reaches of Columbia's Pacific coast, speedboats remain the No. 1 enemy. They dash into Panama or Costa Rica in as little as six hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They choose their route depending on the cargo they want to transport and based on their analysis of our ability to detect them.

PENHAUL: I join a coast guard team on a speedboat there call Midnight Express. Buena Victoria's Columbia's biggest sea port handling thousands of containers every day, all potential stow away sights for drugs. There's a huge tuna fishing fleet, too. Ship's captains may be tempted by easy the money, but wary of the consequences.

CAPT EDWARD PICON, COLUMBIAN NAVY (through translator): They risk losing their families. If the drugs are lost, their families will be killed.

PENHAUL: But rampant poverty in Ventura makes a fertile recruiting ground for the drug cartels. The port city slums, the shacks built on stilts below the high tide mark.

JAIRO CAICEDO, COMMUNITY LEADER (through translator): People in the drug business are keen to get into the neighborhoods, below the high tide mark because it's easy to move around and travel in boats.

PENHAUL: It's a desperate panorama. There's just one pipe 80 families to draw water for washing, cooking and bathing. To the toddlers, the board walks are a playground. Youngsters kick a football along a sandy strip until the tide comes in. Teenagers smoke marijuana. Mothers try to keep up appearances as they tend to their babies, or scrape together the next meal. Community leader Jairo Caicedo says he doesn't know for certain of drug smugglers on his patch, but he well understands the temptation.

CAICEDO (through translator): Some people see themselves forced into this, especially if you are poor and have a big family. Somebody just appears and say take this parcel. You don't care whether it's drugs or anything else, you are looking for a way to survive.

PENHAUL: Night falls and a navy patrol boat heads out on a fresh mission to four rust bucket cargo ships to hunt for cocaine. A captain radios word he's only transporting cattle, gasoline and food. Lashing rain and moving boats are making this a treacherous task for Lieutenant Dennison Rameras (ph) and his men tonight.

Above deck, they urge passengers to report anything suspicious. There's a report of another vessel dangerously overloaded with 70 tons of cargo aboard in the dark, it seems almost impossible to check thoroughly for drugs. Nothing is found. One of the cargo ship's crew seems to resent the search.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The economy is really difficult right now. There's more unemployment than jobs. That's one of the biggest things fueling crime.

PENHAUL: For the Columbian navy, it's a war of stealth, trying to stem the tide of cocaine on and under the waters. A war in which traffickers are using homemade technology to sink to new depths.

(on camera): The Columbian cocaine trade gnaws away at the freedom and security of those involved in it and many others who are not. Despite the millions spent combating it, the police work, the extradition treaties and the gang wars, it survives and prospers. And it's looking for new markets to keep the world hooked.

I'm Karl Penhaul, in Bogata.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: You have been watching a 30 minute special reported by Karl Penhaul on the Columbian drug trade. I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. We have got a lot of news straight ahead for you. We're going to delve into a lot of top stories including swine flu and at the beginning of the hour, 4:00 Eastern, join me for my special, "Mellowing on medical marijuana."

So, when we come back, President Barack Obama preparing for the possibility of infection rates on H1N1 to climb even higher.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEVS: All right, we're back in the NEWSROOM, I'm Josh Levs. We've been telling you today, President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the swine flu. Mr. Obama is saying that this move was taken in part because of the potential for the pandemic to be a -- overburden resources throughout the country.

This declaration is allowing the secretary of health to waive federal regulations on medical facilities to they can respond more quickly to the pandemic. Now, administration officials stress the move is a proactive measure and not related to what we have been seeing lately, this recent spread of the swine flu.

And I'm here to tell you about that. You can actually track this outbreak and how it affects your area all the way down to your city or if you want to check out another part of the world.

Let me go straight to this piece of video we have for you, here. And then I'll show you the Web page where you can access it yourself. Check this out. This was October 6, then October 7, October 8. Every time you see a new little button appear there, that's a new case of H1N1 in the world. This is from healthmap.org and what's been happening is they've been tracking the confirmed cases, re reported cases and then sometimes when you see things kind of toggle back and forth. You find that they get the latest information to you right there at healthmap.org.

Now what I'd like to do is bring you over to this Web page so you can see how to -- zoom into my screen, right here. All you need to do is choose an area, so I chose the United States. It gets you here. I'm going to use the keyboard for a second.

Every time I click on one of these, it gives the latest information about the reported cases or in some cases the confirmed cases, there. A couple more Web pages to show you, then I'll show you where to access everything at CNN.

Google Flu Trends is taking a look at where people are searching quickly for lots of information about the flu. When you see the red, that's what Google says means that there's a lot of flu activity. They assume a lot of people searching for info means that there's more of a spread. Flu.gov from the government. And we have our own page, CNN.com/h1n1 packed with info, everything you just saw is right here.

Let's get up one of my graphic. Every link that I just showed you is right here, CNN.com/josh. We are following that and right now, we are following your Tweets and messages about medical marijuana for our 4:00 team hour, coming right up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in the NEWSROOM. A deadly train crash in Egypt, today. Two passenger trains collided just outside Cairo. Officials say at least 15 people are dead. Another 24 were injured. Rescuers workers are now trying to remove the bodies and the injured from the wreckage and so far no word on the exact cause of the accident.

U.N. officials are due to arrive in Iran this weekend to inspect that recently disclosed nuclear enrichment facility. Iran hid the facility from the world for years. The visit comes as Tehran reviews a plan to send much of its uranium to Russia for enrichment. Tehran wants until the middle of next week before making a formal response to the U.N. backed plan.

And U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates says NATO is determined to stand with the U.S. and win the war in Afghanistan. Gates says he was encouraged after meeting with NATO defense minister in Slovakia. They offered broad support for General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and his strategy to beef up the capabilities of Afghan forces. McChrystal also has called for tens of thousands more U.S. troops. Several NATO countries say that for now, they will not send more troops to that war zone.

An ominous warning about the runoff election between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah. The Taliban is threatening Afghans with violence if they go to the polls next month. That's just what they did during the first round in August. They launched several deadly attacks and cut off the index fingers of at least two voters.

A bill making it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is on its way to the White House. President Barack Obama says he'll sign the extension of the hate crime law.

CNN's Dana Bash reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN SR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Todd Metrokin came here for late-night pizza last summer, he offered a slice to some people sitting outside.

TODD METROKIN, HATE CRIME VICTIM: I thought it was a nice exchange. And as we were walking away, my friend mentioned, you know, that he said -- he called me a "faggot" under his breath.

BASH: As they walked through this Adams Morgan neighborhood in D.C., Metrokin didn't realize they were being followed until they were suddenly attacked.

METROKIN: The attack occurred right about here. They were calling us names, faggot.

BASH (on camera): What was the last thing you remember?

METROKIN: The last thing I remember was the first hit.

BASH (voice-over): He woke up in the hospital, looking like this: bruises and broken bones, even a shoe mark on his face.

METROKIN: Somebody had to actually stomp on my face while I was on the ground to achieve that. And that's when it became just so crystal clear to me the kind of hate that requires someone to do that.

BASH: Attacks like this will now be a federal offense under legislation expanding the hate crimes law which now covers race, color and religion to also include victims targeted because of their sexual orientation.

Many Republicans object, arguing violent crimes are already illegal and this creates what they call thought crimes. But supporters note this would punish acts, not beliefs. And points to government figures showing crimes against gays and lesbians are on the rise and say federal dollars, attention and penalties this new law would provide are needed.

BARACK OBAMA (D), UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: And I will sign it into law.

BASH: Politically, the White House hopes passing this long- fought priority in the gay community will ease frustration that President Obama is slow to act on their issues.

(on camera): Gay rights groups are praising Democrats for passing what they call the first piece of "civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay and transgender Americans." But privately, gay rights activists say the president has a long way to go to tamp down on simmering anger that he's dragging his feet on other big priorities like reversing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And more in the NEWSROOM, right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(AUDIO GAP)

On my blog, as well as FaceBook, and Rhonda says, "The legalization of medical marijuana is a no-brainer. Tax revenue would increase taxpayer dollars, would be saved by freeing up space in jails and prisons that house presently illegal pot offenders."

And this from Franklin saying, "Drug dealers deal with a lot of drugs and you are by proxy immediately exposed to a lot of other actually harmful drugs when dealing with a dealer instead of a regulated environment."

All right, you can get in on the debate at the top of the hour. Send us your feedback at CNN.com/Fredricka Whitfield also on FaceBook, FredrickWhitfieldCNN and Josh Levs will be along as well. We've got an incredible panel of people to be part of this conversation, answer a lot of your questions on "Medical Marijuana," the mellowing of, across the country..

All right. Reality TV shows. Children are often the biggest draw. But are these little showstoppers getting hurt by this experience?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, it seems like Americans can't get enough of reality TV. Viewers tune in by the millions, especially when children are the stars. But are these unknowing children, child celebrities, that is, becoming victims of their own popularity?

Here now is CNN's Carol Costello.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Peter!

COSTELLO: On the reality TV program, "SuperNanny," children steal the show. Kids at their very worst on national television with parental consent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you know how stupid you are?

COSTELLO: Also, mom and dad can get advice on how to parent from super nanny Jo Frost. The show's a hit, as are so many others that feature children.

Some say Richard Heene used his adorable assets for a shot at adult fame. And remember Octomom? She and 14 kids are currently in production.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Just saying'," should kids be reality stars?

SCOTT STERNBERG, REALITY TV PRODUCER: I don't use children in any of our reality programs.

COSTELLO: Scott Sternberg produces reality TV shows like "The Academy."

STERNBERG: Once you put a child in any kind of a serious situation where there can be repercussions, then you're changing those children's lives forever.

COSTELLO: Children like the Gosselins of TLC's "Jon & Kate plus 8." When the series began, mom and dad were bickering, but affectionate. Now they're in the midst of a bitter public divorce, part of the fight, whether those cute kids can remain reality TV stars.

JON GOSSELIN, REALITY TV SHOW ACTOR: I don't think it's healthy for them. And I think my kids should be taken off the show.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't fight!

COSTELLO: But both the kids' mom, Kate Gosselin and TLC, want the kids to remain on TV, without dad. Even though Kate Gosselin was quoted in Vanity Fair Online that her kids have been "acting out" because they miss their dad.

LESLIE ABBOTT, "TRADING SPOUSES" MOM: I think people are blinded by fame and lose perspective, lose perspective of reality.

COSTELLO: Leslie and Carl Abbott along with their teenage son starred in "Trading Spouses," a reality show now on CMT. The Abbotts say they survived reality TV because of one thing, a strong, intact family.

LUKE ABBOTT, "TRADING SPOUSES" SON: I don't need to be on another one. Once is enough, but I don't have any regrets about going on the show at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)