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Just Saying No to Drug War; Weiner's Twittergate Still a Mystery; Pint-Sized Entrepreneurs; Deadly E. Coli Outbreak in Europe; Cyber Attacks and Computer Forensics; Less Talk, More Pills
Aired June 02, 2011 - 13:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: All right, you've been listening to the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. Hello, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. We've been waiting for him to enter the race, the Republican presidential race. He should be doing that during this speech of his.
But certainly he has been taking aim at President Obama on economy, on jobs, on home prices. He said what's been happening in this country certainly breaks his heart. He said to the president, "you've had your chance" so he's certainly looking for his.
The only credit he did give him actually was for getting Osama Bin Laden. The clear message from Mitt Romney was that things are not right in this country, and he promised a complete repeal of Obamacare.
We'll have much more on this for you coming up throughout the show and in our next hour as well. Candy Crowley is at that speech and she will talk with us much more about this.
The other story we're following today is this, if I asked to you name all the wars America is engaged in right this minute, you might overlook one launched 40 years ago this month. Yes, I said 40 years.
President Nixon announced a war on drugs in June of 1971, and for all the dollars spent, and all the people jailed and all the lives lost from then until now, no one is declaring victory. To the contrary, a global commission now says, and I quote, "the global war on drugs has failed with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." This is not just any commission.
Members include former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Voguer, former U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and aviation tycoon Richard Branson. They pointed out that just in the past decade. Worldwide illegal drug use has kept on rising, anywhere from 8 percent in the case of marijuana to almost 35 percent for opiates, heroin, morphine and the like.
In the U.S. alone just over 14 percent of the population use some kind of illegal drug in 2008. That is the top line here, and the trends don't seem encouraging. So what should the U.S. and the world be doing?
The Global Commission on Drug Policy says some drugs especially but not only marijuana should be legalized and regulated. The panel says that would undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard health and security.
It also recommends treating, not punishing users who do no harm to others and we need to educate young people with more than mere slogans. Now before we get much further into this, I want to bring in a man who's fought the drug war from a California courtroom for years.
Jim Gray is a retired trial judge in Orange County. He's also been a Republican candidate for Congress, a libertarian candidate for Senate and he's written a book entitled "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed."
He joins me by phone now from Newport Beach. Judge Gray, thank you for talking with us about this. Do you agree what's being done isn't working? Do you agree with this new commission's advice?
JUDGE JIM GRAY, SUPREME COURT, ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (via telephone): Randi, yes and absolutely. You know, based on my experience, I was a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, a trial court judge, as you said, here in Orange County.
It's clear that drug prohibition is really the biggest failed policy in the history of our country. You know, 40 years now, $1 trillion, ruined lives, et cetera, and now we have this commission report.
Honestly, I felt that when we've had Proposition 19 on the ballot here in California in 2010, the wind was finally at our backs to address drug policy reform. Now this commission report, I think we actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
People are getting it. They're understanding and we're going to change this failed and hopeless policy.
KAYE: And what it led you to declare failure? I mean, did you see an endless stream of offenders in your courtroom?
GRAY: Absolutely. You know, we were churning low-level drug offenders through the system for no good purpose. We would arrest and incarcerate even heavy big-time dealers. Does that mean cocaine was no longer available on the streets of our towns and cities?
No. Meant it was an employment opportunity for someone else. You can look at Mexico, and we see, of course, they have the former president of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. They don't have drug problems in those countries.
They really don't but they have unbelievable drug money problems, and it's our drug money, of course, that is killing these tens of thousands of people now in Mexico and it goes on and on and it's of course coming into our country as well. It is not a good thing.
KAYE: The Obama administration is really dismissing this report certainly taking issue with it. We reached out to the Drug Policy Office and while no one was made available for an interview, we did get a statement.
I just want to read you part of it, "The Obama administration's efforts reduce drug use are not borne out of a culture war or drug war mentality, but out of the recognition that drug use strains our economy, health and public safety.
The bottom line is that balance drug control efforts are making a big different. Today drug use in America is half of what it was 30 years ago. Cocaine production in Colombia has dropped by almost two- thirds.
And we're successfully diverting thousands of non-violent offenders into treatment instead of jail by supporting alternatives to incarceration. Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated, making drugs more available as this report suggests will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
So Judge Gray what is the U.S. doing right in your view, if anything?
GRAY: Well you know it's amazing, because once people get to Washington they seem to lose their practicality and their insights. We have former presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, all having used marijuana or others, Vice President Gore as well.
And in fact when Obama was running for office, he was asked did you use marijuana or did you inhale, ha, ha, national joke and he said I thought that was the whole idea. Now he becomes president and, of course, you get tied in to the politics, but the people are ahead of the politicians on this.
They're ahead with regard to Prop 2-15 here in California for medical marijuana and now 14 other states around the country and Washington, D.C., so it's up to the people to do this, and we actually have an initiative that's going to be on the ballot in November of 2012.
We've submitted it to the attorney general already, called regulate marijuana like wine, initiative of 2012, and it's going to work, and it's going to sweep the country. Once again, this failed policy is going to be repealed by the people.
The politicians are really good at followership and they'll follow the people because just use your information. Regardless of my experience or anyone else's, everyone watching, this just use your own and ask the question, are we in better shape now because we spent all of these trillions of dollars in the last 40 years, incarcerated all of these people, ruined people's families, caused people in Mexico here to die and be kidnapped, et cetera?
It's time to repeal drug prohibition and this commission report is a major step toward that goal.
KAYE: All right, Judge Jim Gray, thank you for your time and thank you for weighing in on this very controversial issue. We much appreciate that.
GRAY: Good luck to us all.
KAYE: Thank you.
And we want to know what do you think about this topic? Has the war on drugs been successful? What do you think?
Join the conversation on our blog, CNN.com/Ali and you can also post on either Ali's or my Facebook and Twitter pages. Definitely let us know what you think about this one.
Jurors get to hear for themselves how Casey Anthony lied to detectives. Ahead the tape played in court today that could hurt her case.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Weinergate as it's come to be called just keeps getting more bizarre. The drama over Congressman Anthony Weiner and what may or may not be a lewd picture in his underwear that was or was not tweeted by a prankster is still a mystery. The congressman's answers still evasive. Remember this odd outburst?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Does that seem reasonable?
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I love to get answer.
WEINER: You do the questions, I do the answers and this jackass interrupts me?
KAYE (voice-over): Well, following that angry episode, Congressman Weiner decided that he wanted a do over so to speak. He sat down with our Wolf Blitzer and that brings me to today's sound effect.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Is this you?
WEINER: I can tell you this, we have a firm that we've hired to -- I've seen it, I've seen it. A firm we've hired to get to the bottom of it. It doesn't look familiar, but I don't want to say with servitude.
BLITZER: Well, we want to resolve it once and for all. You would know if this is your underpants for example.
WEINER: The question is, I appreciate you continuing to flash that at me. I can tell you this, that there are, I have photographs, I don't know what photographs are out there in the world of me.
BLITZER: You didn't send that photo to that woman in Washington State?
WEINER: I did not send that to that woman. BLITZER: But you're not a 100 percent sure whether the photo is actually you?
WEINER: What I am going to say is that we're doing everything we can to try to answer that question and we're doing an investigation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: I want to bring in Wolf Blitzer who is joining me now from Washington, D.C. Wolf that was a fascinating interview, but right there, we just saw Congressman Weiner's response to some of your questions. But before we go any further, I just want you to listen with me to his response to some other reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will not flat out deny that that photograph is not you.
WEINER: Here's what I will say. I will say we're trying to figure out exactly what happened here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is kind of strange, sorry, you can't tell me definitively that is a photo of you or not a photo of you?
WEINER: I don't want to say with servitude. It may be didn't start out being a photograph of mine or now looks something different or maybe something from another account that got sent to me. I can't say for sure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Wolf is it me or do his responses sound like broken record, very rehearsed. What are your impressions?
BLITZER: Well, I think he's clear. He's saying he absolutely positively did not send, did not tweet that photo to that young woman, that college student in Washington State. On that he's firm and insisting he didn't do it.
He's being vague, he's being unclear on the other issue, is that picture, that sensitive picture, the controversial picture, is it really him, and he simply doesn't know. He's got a firm that's investigating it.
He's got lawyers now that are looking into it, but he can't say for sure it is or is not him, which raises obviously some questions. We have been looking into it, Randi, and it's apparently not that hard for someone to tweet a picture and to make it look like it's coming from someone else's Twitter account.
We'll be exploring that in "THE SITUATION ROOM" later today. It's apparently not that difficult to do that, so if in fact that photograph is of him, he's saying he doesn't know how it was tweeted to that woman in Washington State. It may be him, may not be him. KAYE: But you kept showing him and pressing him about this photo. You showed it to him several times, anyone watching that interview and I know a lot of people certainly did, had to be wondering how could he not know if that photo is of him?
BLITZER: You know, he says he looked at the photo and he doesn't know for sure. He can't say definitively you know, it sort of gets a little overly graphic, those are his underpants, not his underpants, who knows.
But look he was a single guy for a long time, only been married for less than a year and what he did when he was a single guy with photos. I asked him have you ever taken a photograph like this of yourself and he didn't deny it.
There are a lot of photos of him running around, college, afterwards, who knows what photos are out there, what kind of photos people had access to, they could have stolen if you will and tweeted it to that woman in Washington State. These are questions that remain unanswered.
KAYE: Wolf Blitzer, thanks so much for coming on and talking a little bit more about that interview because it truly was fascinating.
And we'll be sure to tune into "SIT ROOM" later on --
BLITZER: Thank you.
KAYE: And see what you can find out about sending photos there on Twitter.
Thank you.
Well it is day eight of testimony in the Casey Anthony murder trial. Today jurors heard a long tape recording of detectives grilling Anthony about lying to them. She was being questioned about the disappearance of her daughter, Caylee, back in 2008.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I can tell you for a certainty that right now looking at you I know that everything that you've told me is a lie, including the fact that you know, your child was last seen about a month ago and that you don't know where she is. See, I am very confident just by having talked to you in this short period of time that you know where she is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: And joining me to talk about talk about today's developments is criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor B.J. Bernstein.
You listen to that and it sounds like -- they're basically giving her a chance to stop lying, come clean, right, before this gets any deeper? B.J. BERNSTEIN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Exactly. I mean, the officers at this point, remember, this is supposedly 30 days after she goes missing and the first time she's really doing an interview in- depth, saying what happened. And the problem is, it was a convoluted list of lies that the officer started realizing early on and they started going, tearing her apart to see if she would break down. And instead they just got more lies.
KAYE: If the jury believes that she was lying, and they can prove that successfully, where does this go?
BERNSTEIN: Well, they could believe it, but this is what the defense attorney already previewed in the opening argument. He said she's going to lie on tapes. He has already acknowledged that this tape that this jury heard today is filled with lies and that that doesn't matter because the true story is going to come out in court.
And that's a tough road for a criminal defense lawyer, but it's the only road he really has is to acknowledge that these are blatant lies. She said she worked at Universal Studios, and in fact she didn't work at Universal Studios.
KAYE: Right. They followed her there and there was no job apparently.
BERNSTEIN: Exactly.
KAYE: Also on the stand today was a man Casey Anthony claims to have dated. Claims this is the guy who introduced her to that phantom nanny who she said she had left her daughter Caylee with.
I want you to listen to this and then just get a quick reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSE BAEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And you let law enforcement know that you don't have a child named Zachary (ph)?
JEFF HOPKINS, WITNESS: That is correct.
BAEZ: And that you are not rich from a trust fund?
HOPKINS: That is correct.
BAEZ: And that you did not have a girlfriend name he did Zanida (ph) Gonzalez?
HOPKINS: Correct.
BAEZ: And that you never introduced Zanida Gonzalez to Casey?
HOPKINS: No, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: How damaging is that, B.J.? BERNSTEIN: It just is another layer on this cake of lies and what, you know, the defense attorney's going to have to do is say she was lying at this point. She's lying at this stage because she is having all these problems from her childhood and dealing and coping with what really happened. But again it's really hard to say how many times can she lie? We proved she lies and now we're supposed to believe her.
KAYE: She'll have to take the stand, right?
BERNSTEIN: I can't see how -- she's not going to come in there and explain, you know, what was going through her night. If not that is a big blank for the jury and it's going to be tough for them to plow through.
KAYE: All right. B.J. Bernstein, good to have your expertise here in studio. Good to see you.
BERNSTEIN: Thank you.
KAYE: And you can watch special coverage of the Casey Anthony trial all day long on our sister network HLN.
At 11, here's a question for you. Were you helping your mom cook dinner? How about running your own business? Well, I sure wasn't. I was only worried about my allowance. But in two minutes we'll introduce to you a pretty impressive 11-year-old who's building an empire from her skills in the kitchen. You will meet her next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Welcome back. All this week we're taking a special look at pint-sized entrepreneurs who are shaking up the business world. At age 11 my next guest is building her own empire out of original recipes and cooking tips for kids and families. And today she is the creator of Lizzie Marie Cuisine and the star of the WebMD series "Healthy Cooking with Chef Lizzie." She also just signed a branded entertainment and TV development deal. Some call her the next Rachel Rae. I call her pretty amazing.
The mini-preneur Lizzie Marie hails from Georgia and she joins us in studio.
First I want to know, I guess, really, how did you get started cooking and when?
LIZZIE MARIE, CREATOR, LIZZIE MARIE CUISINE: Well, I've been cooking since I was two-years-old and when I was six-years-old I was really interested in horseback riding lessons and sat my parents down at the kitchen table and I asked them, can I take horseback riding lessons? And they agreed and then I asked if I could pay for the lessons by myself. And they asked how are you going to do that? So I suggested that I sell my healthy homemade baked goods at a local farmer's market and that's really where it all started.
KAYE: So what inspired you from eating your mom's cooking to making the healthy, original recipes you're creating?
MARIE: Well a lot of the recipes have been passed down through my family and after I'd been selling my homemade baked goods at the local farmer's market for about a year I found that I really liked sharing my passion of healthy cooking with others and that I wanted to reach a larger audience so I asked my dad if he could make me a web site.
KAYE: And he did.
MARIE: Yes. He's really good with computers so he's like the geek in the family. So --
KAYE: I'm sure he'll appreciate you saying that.
MARIE: Yes.
KAYE: That's very nice.
What were some of the obstacles, if any, you had in getting this business of yours started?
MARIE: Really the only main obstacle was finding a farmer's market where you didn't have to really pay for a table because it can be pretty expensive. And at the time I was only six-years-old. I mean, I had to talk with my parents a lot, and we had to do a lot of brainstorming because I needed to find what I wanted to tell people about and what recipes specifically.
KAYE: And how do you manage it all? I assume you're still in school, right?
MARIE: Yes, I'm still in school and I have a manager and he helps a lot with finding events. And then my mom is also really, really helpful. So it's really a group effort.
KAYE: So do you help your mom cook or the other way around, she helps you cook now?
MARIE: Well, we usually take shifts. Sometimes on the weekends I'll help make dinner and then she'll make dinner during the weekday. So, like I said, it's a group effort. Like, if I make dinner then she'll offer to clean up, because she's saying you worked hard to make dinner so I want to help you.
KAYE: I think you're an inspiration. Do you think you're an inspiration for other kids who should be eating healthy?
MARIE: Well, that's really what I hope because lot of kids in America you know, all they know is McDonald's and fast food and I really want to teach kids that it can be really fun and easy to cook really healthy with the whole family.
KAYE: Kids and adults. That's good advice. I'm going to see what recipes you have after this commercial break, OK? So stick around. MARIE: OK.
KAYE: Up next, a Massachusetts city gets blindsided by a rash of deadly twisters.
(VIDEO CLIP)
And we'll show you much more of that amazing video coming out of Springfield today.
Plus what is behind the rare outbreak there? That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Well, it has become a familiar headline. Tornadoes wreaking havoc on small towns across the heartland but what happened in Massachusetts last night was anything but familiar. Take a look.
A rash of tornadoes ripped through Springfield, the state's third largest city, killing at least four people. The powerful storms pummeled 19 communities in the area. One struck downtown Springfield at rush hour -- just look at that -- with virtually no warning. Several stunned drivers captured the chaos on camera.
(VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Yes. You can only imagine that conversation, right? The storm snapped trees, hurled cars and destroyed several homes and businesses. One woman says she saw a twister hit a building her daughter was in just moments before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The front of the building collapsed, and she would have been dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was walking down the street and I saw the whole tornado, the whole clouds, me and her go like this and we started running down the street we ran and the whole thing collapsed, we ran into the bakery and we didn't know what to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Today thousands are still without power as residents deal with the daunting task of cleaning up.
To find out more on how you can help those devastated by recent tornadoes go to CNN.com/impact. Right there you will find all the organizations, everything you need about the ways that you can help those in need. That's once again CNN.com/impact.
It's new, it's deadly, and extremely rare, the latest on the E. Coli outbreak that is spreading in Europe, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: New concerns today over the deadly E. Coli outbreak sweeping Europe. The World Health Organization says the rare strain is especially lethal and has never been detected in an outbreak situation before. Beyond that, they're mystified with no idea about where it might have originated.
So far the strain has killed 16 people and sickened more than 1,000 in at least 10 European countries. The CDC says that two people have been hospitalized in the U.S. with kidney failure, that's after returning from a trip to Germany.
In a major blow to farmers, Russia today said it's banning all fresh vegetable imports from the European Union.
Spain has been especially hard hit. CNN's Al Goodman is following developments from there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT : Spain says it's been hurt economically by a rush to judgment by officials in Hamburg, Germany who last week implied Spanish cucumbers were to blame for the E. Coli jut break. But when those same officials seemed to backtrack this week, Spain went on a major counteroffensive led by the deputy prime minister.
On Wednesday, he first threatened possible legal action against Germany, and later in the day at a meeting with executives of the Fresh Produce Export Association, he said Spain could seek economic compensation from Germany or the European Union.
But the first step is to repair the damage to Spain's image abroad, and he called on Germany to help out. He said Spanish produce is not to blame for the E. Coli outbreak and he pointed out there have been no cases of illness originating in Spain. He urged Germany to find the source of the problem quickly.
ALFREDO PEREZ RUBALCABA, SPANISH DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do. It's about restoring the image of the products and now, in general, Spanish agriculture, which has suffered a crisis.
I repeat, this has nothing to do with Spanish agriculture, as we've said repeatedly, this proves the analysis that we've been doing.
GOODMAN: Spain's produce exporters say they're losing $290 million a week. It's an $11 billion annual industry that employees 300,000 people, and the downturn in sales comes at the worst possible time with Spain having 21 percent unemployment.
Al Goodman, CNN, Madrid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: And as I'm sure you've heard, Congressman Anthony Weiner is saying his Twitter account was hacked. Hundreds of personal Gmail accounts compromised this week and this April, in one of the biggest cyber attacks ever, Sony's PlayStation 3 network was shutdown. So the question is, how is all of this happening, and are you safe as a consumer?
We take an eye-opening look at high-tech safety right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: In what is becoming a more and more bizarre story, New York Congressman Anthony Weiner can't or won't say if that lewd picture sent from his Twitter account is of him. He will only say his Twitter account was hacked and he has a legal team looking into it.
Are your social media accounts really safe? Would you know? Jason Tanz, senior editor at "Wired," joins me right now.
Jason, in the wake of this situation with Congressman Anthony Weiner, how can it be proven if a picture did or did not come from someone online? Do these pictures have fingerprints in some way?
JASON TANZ, SENIOR EDITOR, "WIRED": Yes, that's exactly right. Every photo carries with it metadata which will tell you the device that it was taken with, sometimes it'll have some very specifics about the picture itself.
And in fact a Reuters blogger named Anthony DeRosa looked at that metadata and did find that Congressman Weiner takes photos usually takes photos using his BlackBerry. This photo was taken from a device that was not a BlackBerry. So there is some discrepancy there.
KAYE: And can you actually tell, I mean, can someone track who sent the photo?
TANZ: Well, that's a little bit trickier, in terms of who sent it. But, yes, most of the activity that you conduct online is logged using your IP address, so that information is there somewhere. The IP address of whoever posted this is probably on the Twitter log somewhere, it's just a question of getting to it and that can be a little bit harder than you hoped.
KAYE: And can all of this information, I mean, depending on how accurate it is, of course, can it be applicable in court?
TANZ: Well, that's a good question. I don't see why it wouldn't be. You know, everything that you do online you essentially leave a digital trail, as we're all learning. So it's just a matter of digging and uncovering that trail, and that should certainly be applicable in court, I think, yes.
KAYE: And what do you think we can do? You know, we hear about all of these people being hacked, apparently. What can we do as consumers to protect ourselves?
TANZ: So for the most part, this is really about passwords. You know, it's unlikely that if this was a hack, that that came through the Twitter, you know, fortress. It probably was a simple matter of figuring out Congressman Weiner's password one way or another, and then cracking into the account that way. So what we can do is have much stronger passwords, obviously.
We cannot respond to phishing scams, which are fake e-mails that you get asking for your password. You know, just don't ever respond to one of those online.
Also, when you are on a site like Twitter, make sure that you're going through the secure site. Make sure that the URL at the top of your screen says "https://" and you can actually change your settings so that as a default you will go to the secure version of the Twitter site. That way using a pub like Wi-Fi like at Starbucks or something like that, it's going to be a lot harder to crack into what you're doing and get all of your information.
KAYE: All right, very interesting information that you presented to us. Thank you, appreciate it, Jason.
TANZ: Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
KAYE: Are insurance companies encouraging psychiatrists to spend less time with patients and prescribe more pills instead? We are taking an in-depth look coming your way next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Today, many of the nation's 50,000 psychiatrists are talking less and prescribing more meds, in large part because of insurance policies that favor shorter office visits. Some psychiatrists say that they have gone to medical school, have bills to pay, have mouths to feed and that they must limit talk therapy to maintain a lucrative business.
So has the proverbial therapy couch become an antique? Will patients suffer from less talk? Here's what Deb Feyerick found out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this cozy psychiatrist's office, there's no couch, no time for patients to get comfortable. Dr. Daniel Carlat works fast --
DR. DANIEL CARLAT, PSYCHIATRIST: Messages from people.
FEYERICK: -- seeing three to four patients an hour.
CARLAT: I'm not your therapist. We don't have time to do anything other than to establish that you have certain symptoms and that these are symptoms that I can medicate.
FEYERICK: Unlike other kinds of therapists, psychiatrists are licensed medical doctors, able to prescribe drugs. Now a growing number, like Dr. Carlat, are talking less and prescribing more.
CARLAT: We have pills to treat depression, anxiety. We have pills to take the voices away.
FEYERICK (on camera): Is it right to say, you can take a pill for that and you'll be all better?
CARLAT: It's right if the pill works.
FEYERICK (voice-over): It's the latest trend, limiting talk therapy to approximately 20 minute sessions one every two months, just long enough to diagnose and write prescriptions.
DR. PHILLIP MUSKIN, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I think that's cutting it very close to the bone. I know that I'm not comfortable doing that.
FEYERICK: To doctors like Phillip Muskin and others with the American Psychiatric Association, pills make your symptoms but not the underlying problem, which is why they believe talk therapy is crucial.
MUSKIN: Treat the depression and you have somebody who is not depressed, but you still have the impact of an awful childhood. Medication doesn't treat that.
FEYERICK: Charles Barber, who wrote about the phenomenon, says the health care system has a lot to do with prescribing pills as a one-size-fits-all remedy.
CHARLES BARBER, AUTHOR: Managed care has sort of cast its lot in with the medications. And so, it's possible to see a lot more people a lot more quickly and yet reimburse more. So that's a huge part of it.
FEYERICK: Carlat followed in his father's footsteps, however, chose limiting talk therapy because of financial realities.
(on camera): Psychiatrists can double their income simply by diagnosing medications?
CARLAT: Double or triple their income or quadruple their income, depending where they are.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Carlat defends his choice, saying not only does he refer patients to seek talk therapy, some patients are happy to get their prescription and go.
CARLAT: We're in this business to improve people's lives and help them be happier. And if a pill can do it and they don't need anything else, that's perfectly fine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: And that was Deb Feyerick reporting for us.
