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Heroin is Killing Young, Smart, and Mostly White Suburban Kids; Supreme Court to Announced its Decision on Healthcare Law this week; Colorado is on Fire; Debby Hits Florida;
Aired June 24, 2012 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON LEMON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Bearing down, tropical storm Debby appears to set a course for Florida's gulf coast and could cause severe flooding in the next 24 hours.
After thousands of years, democracy takes over in Egypt. Will the new man in charge be a friend or foe of the United States?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would have to have insurance. I don't think I could go without.
LEMON: But President Obama's signature accomplishment could be struck down by the Supreme Court as soon as tomorrow.
And an old drug back with a new and deadly vengeance, hooking and killing young, smart, and mostly white suburban kids.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Good evening, everyone. I'm Don Lemon.
We want to get you up to speed. And we are going to start with new developments just in to CNN regarding convicted former Penn State assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has learned Sandusky's defense team plans to appeal his conviction for child section abuse on the grounds that Sandusky had ineffective council. We've also learned that if the judge agrees to hear an appeal, attorney Joe Amendola would step aside as one of Sandusky's attorneys and would testify for the defense.
Sandusky's other attorney, Karl Romenger (ph), told listeners on a radio program Saturday that he and Amendola had asked to withdraw from the case before jury selection saying they didn't feel adequately prepared to defend Sandusky. The judge denied that request. And under Pennsylvania law, Sandusky's attorneys cannot file an appeal until after sentencing.
Sandusky is scheduled to be sentenced in about three months. He was convicted Friday night on 45 counts of sexually abusing ten children over 15 years.
In the Gulf of Mexico, tropical storm Debby is heading toward Panama City, Florida. It's a huge storm with drenching rain. Our meteorologist, Alexandra Steele will join us in a few minutes with an updated forecast from the weather center.
Cairo's Tahrir square filled with partiers tonight, not protesters.
Supporters of president elect Mohamed Morsi are celebrating Egypt's first democratic presidential election and literally, thousands of years. Morsi was declared the winner with 52 percent of the vote. He's an Islamist and a long-time member of the Muslim brotherhood.
At the White House, the Obama administration had this reaction. The United States congratulates Mohamed Morsi on his victory in Egypt's presidential election, and we congratulate the Egyptian people for this milestone in their transition into democracy. We look toward to working together with president-elect Morsi and the government he forms, on the basis of mutual respect to advance the many shared interests between Egypt and the United States.
In his first televised address, Mr. Morsi paid special tribute to his countrymen who died during last year's revolution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOCTOR MOHAMED MORSI, PRESIDENT OF EGYPT (through translator): I pledge once again that this blood will not go in vain. All this gratitude goes to the nation of Egypt and the armed forces. The best of armies, to the armed forces, to all those members of the armed forces from the bottom of my heart, I salute them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The Egyptian army still holds the real power in Egypt, so I asked our Christiane Amanpour, she is our chief international correspondent and global affairs anchor for ABS News, if today's announcement will make a real difference.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it does in fact make a huge difference. All you have to do is look over this balcony. I was down there, of course, a lot today to see what a difference it does make. It is the first democratic free presidential election in Egypt in thousands of years of history. It is a big deal for people here particularly as you mentioned that the army is still in effective control and has actually executed a rather massive power grab in the last week or so, where it dissolved parliament, it basically put in its own interim constitution and reserved a huge amount of powers for itself.
This all has to be worked out. What will the president be able to do? What will the constitution say when they actually write one? And what kind of powers will the democratically elected president have? But for moment, the people of Egypt are really very, very happy. We've spoken to so many of them who say just very simply, this is the first time we've ever been able to cast a vote that actually matters, the first time we've actually been able to choose our president.
He did receive only about half the vote. The other half of the people voted for the old guard, really, Ahmed Shafiq, who was Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. So there is a division in this country. And Mohamed Morsi is very aware of it and did pay tribute to all Egyptians. Christian, women, all minorities, all the sexes of society and said that he was going to be a presidents for all Egyptians -- Don.
LEMON: I want to ask you more on the substance of what's going on with the election. But what are we hearing now, Crhistiane? We are hearing - is that - are those fireworks or people shooting guns into the air in celebration? Just wondering.
AMANPOUR: No, no guns. Let's be very clear about that. They're fireworks. There seems to be an endless supply of sort of smallish fireworks. Nonetheless, the sky keeps getting lit up to the extent above this very crowd that's been gathering ever since the election results were made official. There was a crowd before, but it has become really big since then.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Christiane Amanpour. And we should tell you that Mohamed Morsi has vowed to represent all Egyptians and promised to preserve all of Egypt's international agreements.
In Colorado, fires burning out of control forcing thousands of people into shelters and cutting off access to some of the state's largest national forests. The latest to erupt, the Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs, 2500 acres have already been scorched. But temperature is hovering near 100 degrees. Additions are only expected to get worse. Six active fires are burning across the state.
Tonight, rescuers are trying to reach someone who survived the collapse of a roof at a mall parking garage in Ontario, Canada. The cave-in showered concrete and other debris down into the mall's atrium yesterday. Investigators don't know what caused the collapse. Searchers can see a body buried in the rubble but can't get to it. Twenty two people were injured. Then today, stunned rescuers heard something.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL NEEDLES, TORONTO F.D. URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE: Some of our search members this morning heard a couple of taps. They called for quick silence on the site, and there was a couple more taps. That was an indication to us that we were dealing with a rescue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The building itself is unstable, making any rescue potentially dangerous.
The White House and Congress are locking horns over the program known as fast and furious with the attorney general in the hot seat between them. We'll break it down next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The fast and furious controversy is headed to the floor of the U.S. house. The botches ATF operation led to the death of hundreds of Mexicans and a U.S. border agent Brian Terry.
On Wednesday, a house committee voted along party lines to hold attorney general Eric Holder in contempt of congress. The full house will take it up this week.
I talked about it CNN contributors Will Cain and Lz Granderson. And I asked Will, if the president's decision to invoke executive privilege means something is being hidden from the public.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The question is what is being hidden.
Look, executive privilege has been invoked. That means there's something the executive office doesn't want going out in front of the public. The question is what is that, Don?
You know, there's some on the right who allege some kind of conspiracy on behalf of the Obama administration and suggest this is a public policy ploy to put the second amendment in the spotlight and say that gun control is not working. I don't know if that's true or not.
We'll never know unless we see all the documents, but we do know that something is out there that the Obama administration does not want the public to see. It could be as simple as incompetence. It could be a program that was no good and incompetence and bringing that before a house inquiry. But we just don't know.
LEMON: Lz, could it be something -- we don't know what it was. Could it be something that should not be made -- the public should not be made aware of? I'm just asking. Go ahead.
LZ GRANDERSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Exactly. I mean -- I think back to the scene in "a few good men." You know, when Jack Nicholson's character is on the stand and you know Tom Cruise is I want the truth. And he said you can't handle the truth.
I really believe in that. There are some things the outside world doesn't need to know or definitely don't need that the outside world to know. This isn't something that was created by Eric Holder and President Obama. This has been actually something that's been going on longer than that.
LEMON: Yes. GRANDERSON: It's my understanding this is the third sort of incarnation of a fast and furious sort of operation.
LEMON: What I meant by that is if there were some security secrets that, you know, that we, the public don't need to know about this but this administration did run on transparency, Lz, and to hear the president years ago talk about executive privilege and that the Bush administration was hiding behind executive privilege and then have him invoke executive privilege, it doesn't bode well.
GRANDERSON: Well, keep in mind, this is the first time he's done so in his presidency. President Bush did the same thing six times in his presidency. President Clinton did it 14 times.
CAIN: That's irrelevant.
GRANDERSON: No, by comparison, I would think he has been the most transparent president, if you look strictly at that, then we have for Bush and as well as Clinton. So I'm not necessarily seeing this as an example of him not keeping his word. There clearly might be something in there, seeing how long this program has been in place, that we don't need out that could affect our relationship with Mexico.
LEMON: OK. I want to move on to the next topic. Why do you say it's irrelevant?
CAIN: No, however many times President Bush invoked is irrelevant to this inquiry. I think it's a totally legitimate question. Are there security issues that President Obama is trying to keep that from coming out?
Well, if that's the case, they have to go through all of these documents and categorize them and say why this is a threat to security. The burden is on them invoking executive privilege with all of those documents.
LEMON: Yes. OK. So, here's the thing. It's terrible, and I saw the Terry's interviewing, the parents, on FOX news. And it was - it's heart-wrenching for the family. Of course, they want some answers.
But to say from both sides that this isn't a political issue or it's not being politicized, I think it's disingenuous. Do you disagree? Lz first.
GRANDERSON: It's obviously being politicized because we're in the middle of a presidential election. And every single decision that has made by the president, everything that comes from the GOP is going to be politicized. I mean, there's no way to avoid it. It's unfortunate because I do believe national security should be the primary issue. But right now, it just isn't.
CAIN: Yes, politics is definitely a part of this. But just because you say something is politicized doesn't mean it's frivolous. In the end, politics is the check on this process. You know, this can go through all kinds of inquiries, but in the end, whether or not something was done wrong here, politics is the check. It will be the hammer on those who even did or did not do something wrong.
LEMON: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: My thanks to Lz and Will.
Tropical storm Debby is drenching the gulf coast and spinning off tornadoes. The latest on the storm, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Now to tropical storm Debby. Here's Alexandra Steele with the very latest.
ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right, Don. Here's the very latest with tropical storm Debby. It's actually the fourth named tropical storm in the Atlantic base, and it's the earliest we've ever had a fourth named storm. So, it is historic already.
But, here's a look at big picture. Now, it's a broad circulation, meaning it will impact a lot of people. Also, it's moving very slowly, so it's not going to come in, dump rain, and leave. We're going to see anywhere between 10 and 15 inches of rain, maybe even an isolated 25 inches. So really, the meat of this, the heart of this looks like it will be in northwest Florida, kind of the west coast of Florida, the northeast Gulf of Mexico.
What we've already seen is just a soaking of the west coast of Florida. The biggest problem with this has been the track, very disparate in terms of computer models. These are what we call the spaghetti models. Kind a looks like spaghetti, but each color is a different computer model and their projecting of where this tropical storm will go. Where it thing the path will go. And you can see the consensus certainly here is into the northeast gulf, but still there are some models that take it farther west.
Now, the national hurricane center looking at their official track had it before earlier in the day b-line towards southeast Louisiana. Not the case now. The newer advisories have it moving northeastward, making a b-line toward Panama City, keeping it, though, making landfall on Wednesday, keeping it though, as a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds at 70 miles per hour.
The biggest problem with this, though, because of its slow nature, kind of stationary now, will be the flooding. Also, the tropical threat here, in blue, these blue delineate for those tropical storm warnings, meaning the potential for heavy rain, isolated tornadoes, and of course, tropical storm force winds that extend out pretty far from the center of circulation.
So, here are the biggest threats. The heavy rain, the isolated tornadoes, which we certainly saw today in southwest Florida, rip currents, coastal flooding, and this are it. Because of this amount of rain, because of the slow nature of this, this looks like the bull's eye right here to Appalachia - toward Appalachia Bay. You see now where this purple in widest, that, in excess of 10 inches of rain.
So, it is only a scary system, but the destination, where it goes seems a little less important and the impact that we are seeing now. We'll continue to see with this heavy rain along the coast.
LEMON: Thanks, Alexandra.
Now to the big stories in the week ahead from the White House to Wall Street, our correspondents tell you what you need to know. We begin tonight with the president's plans for the week.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Athena Jones in Washington.
President Obama will travel to New Hampshire and Massachusetts on Monday and then on Georgia and Florida on Tuesday for campaign events. And he and the first lady host a picnic for members of Congress at the White House on Wednesday.
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: I'm Paul Steinhauser at the CNN Political desk.
The race for the White House could be rocked this week by an expected ruling by the Supreme Court on the controversial national health care reform law known by many as Obamacare.
And an expected high court ruling on Arizona's controversial immigration law could also make waves on the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, both President Obama and Mitt Romney spent part of the week raising campaign cash.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN MONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.
We are following a volatile week for the stock market and major bank downgrades, Wall Street has a lot of news coming up to digest this week.
We'll get the final reading on first quarter U.S. economic growth as well as the latest new home sales and home price data, but Europe will continue to be the major focus with European Union leaders set to meet in Brussels to discuss banking and fiscal union proposals.
And Spain is expected to formally request Eurozone aid for banks on Mondays. This will, of course, will all impact U.S. markets. So, we will keep a very close eye for you.
A.J. HAMMER, HLN HOST, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: I'm "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's" A.J. Hammer. Here's what we're watching this week.
I'm going to be joining the ladies of "the talk" as a guest on their show Monday. And then we're going behind the scenes of Bethany Frankel's brand new talk show.
Plus, Hollywood exits. We are getting exclusive details about the new reality show starring the ex-wives of Eddie Murphy and Will Smith.
LEMON: All right. Thank you, guys. This week we find out if President Obama's health care reform gets a thumbs up or down from the Supreme Court. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta details the path to Obama care, a path that starts 60 years ago. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Talk about jeopardy, game show host, Alex Trebek had quite a scare. He's recovering from a mild heart attack. He checked into a Los Angeles hospital yesterday and stayed there today for some tests. The good news is though, he should make a full recovery and return to the game show and begin taping his 29th season next month.
This week will likely be pivotal in the fight over health care we form. We're waiting for the Supreme Court decision on what has become a symbol of the Obama presidency. Whatever the outcome, it is a confrontation that has been building for more than 60 years.
Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the epic battle, past and present.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DOCTOR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): In putting his signature on what came to be known as Obama care, the president did what others had tried to do and failed many times since World War II, starting with Harry Truman.
ALLAN LICHTMAN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: He wants to increase the availability of doctors, of hospitals and have the government serve as a guarantor of insurance for all Americans.
GUPTA: But in congress, Truman's plan never got so much as a vote.
LICHTMAN: The American medical association, very wealthy, very powerful lobby group, also vehemently campaign the against Truman's health care plans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not want socialized medicine.
GUPTA: In the 1960s, a similar fight. Ronald Reagan, before becoming governor of California, recorded this message, pass Medicare and the United States would soon become like the communist Soviet Union.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice- over): One of these days, you and I, are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when we were free.
GUPTA: But Reagan's efforts fell short.
And in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the law creating Medicare, health insurance for every Americans over the age of 65 and Medicaid, for the poor.
And it wasn't just Democrats. Richard Nixon has big ambitions on health care.
STUART ALTMAN, FORMER NIXON ADVISER: Richard Nixon would try hard to the work for; put forth a very comprehensive plan which looks a lot in structure like the Obama plan. And then you remember when he a little problem with Watergate and Nixon resigned and health insurance totally died.
GUPTA: By the early 1990s, there was the Clinton plan to cover every American without spending more.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Health care reform must be achieved for the good of our country.
GUPTA: Too big, opponents said, too expensive, too complicated.
LICHTMAN: We're going to lose our doctors. We're not going to be able to make medical choices anymore. It wasn't true, but these kinds of arguments resonated.
GUPTA: Like Truman's plan, it never came to a full vote.
Around that time many Republicans like house speaker Newt Gingrich started talking up something called a mandate, a requirement that every American buy his or her own health coverage.
LICHTMAN: By having a mandate, you could have universal or near universal coverage and still preserve the private insurance system. So the idea of a mandate was a Republican idea.
GUPTA: By 2008, Hillary Clinton now running for president was pushing the mandate herself.
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: I cannot stress to you how passionately I feel about fighting for universal health care.
GUPTA: As he ran against the young senator, Barack Obama. Back then, though, candidate Obama was against it.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator Clinton says I'm going to make universal health care by mandating that everybody buy it. But if people can't afford it, it doesn't matter what the mandate is. They're not going to buy it.
GUPTA: By election time, he comes around to Clinton's position. And now Obamacare will likely rise or fall on that very pillar.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. Dr. Gupta, make sure you stay with CNN this week for complete coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on the president's health care plan. Does any law maker actually answer a question anymore? We'll get into it. "No talking points" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Tonight the art of the dodge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just remember the five ds of dodge ball. Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.
LEMON: Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and bring it home by dodging again. Works for the game of dodge ball, and in the game of politics when politicians don't want to answer questions directly.
By the way, that's how this no talking points segment was born just about a year ago when Senator Rand Paul tried to dodge my questions with talking points.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: So many in the --
LEMON: Hang on, hang on. Again --
PAUL: You're in the middle of my answer here.
LEMON: I know, but I'm asking to you answer the question. With all due respect --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That was during the debt ceiling debate. This time the immigration debate is bringing out the varsity squad of talking pointers. Team captain, Mitt Romney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS HOST, FACE THE NATION: Would you repeal this?
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it would be overtaken by events, if you will by virtue of my putting in place a long-term situation.
SCHIEFFER: I won't keep on about, this but just to make sure I understand, would you leave this in place while you worked out a long- term solution, or would you just repeal it?
ROMNEY: We'll look at that setting as we reach that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Obviously, the first question, will Romney repeal or keep the new Obama administration rule in place? The same as Candy Crowley's, Romney team coach, Ed Gillespie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It will keep the directive in place while he works out immigration reform in a more holistic manner.
ED GILLESPIE, ROMNEY ADVISER: Well, couple of thing, Candy. First of all, we saw what the president did this week was, you know, to take a short-term --
CROWLEY: Since time is short, I need to know about Romney.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So, Candy asked him twice. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: It's such a simple question. Would he keep that in place until he gets a broader reform?
GILLESPIE: Two parts to the question. Let me tell you the first part, first of all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK, no. Maybe the fourth time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: I got to run, but you can't tell me today whether he would leave that in place.
GILLESPIE: All of these are subject to review and repeal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: All right. So coming up now from the JV team, a possible GOP vice presidential running meat, Marco Rubio.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GREGORY, HOST, MEET THE PRESS: Can any illegal immigrant become legal in the United States without first going home? All right, so what's the answer?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: Well, the answer is three fold.
GREGORY: Can anyone here become legal who is here illegally without first going home?
(CROSSTALK)
GREGORY: I'm not able to get a definitive answer from you, which is can anyone become legal without first going home? This is going to be the brass tacks question here when you get to immigration reform.
RUBIO: Yes. But again, that -- the answer to that question depends on the environment in which it's being answered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: He never really answered the question either.
Just about everyone I spoke to in my unscientific survey, of course, both liberal and conservative, said they found the senator's less than forthcoming response to that question frustrating.
So, for those of you who think I'm picking on Republicans, here's one from your own party, Darrell Issa, who has been savage by the left lately. But both, Romney, Gillespie and Marco Rubio might want to take a play from his playbook on catching the immigration ball and not dodge.
GREGORY: Can any illegal immigrant become legal without first leaving the country?
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Very simple.
So, I'm going to end this "no talking points" segment with a quote and some wisdom from the late great humorous Will Rogers who says, "the reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything, it takes a long time to explain it."
Just stop dodging, please, and answer the darn question.
And that's tonight's "no talking points."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: In just a moment, an important and terrifying look at the recent surge of heroin use in this country. First, let's take a look at your headlines.
Jerry Sandusky's defense team plans to appeal his conviction for child sex abuse on the grounds that Sandusky had ineffective council. CNN has learned if the judge grants the appeal, attorney Joe Amendola plans to step aside as a Sandusky attorney. He would then testify for the defense.
Sandusky's attorneys had asked to withdraw from the case before jury selection saying they didn't feel adequately prepared to defend Sandusky. The judge denied that request. They'll have to wait to file their appeal until after sentencing that happens in about three months.
The former Penn State assistant coach was convicted Friday night on 45 counts of sexually abusing ten children over 15 years.
Right now tropical storm Debby is stalled in the Gulf of Mexico but headed toward the Florida panhandle. That's forcing evacuations tonight. Some are mandatory. Debby's 60-mile-an-hour winds have triggered tornadoes. One in central Florida killed a woman. But the big threat is drenching rain and fear of flooding. Some areas could get up to 15 inches of rain.
A celebration not a protest in Tahrir square. Mohamed Morsi has been declared the winner of Egypt's first ever democratic presidential election. He's a strict Islamist and a long-time member of the Muslim brotherhood, but he's vowed to protect the rights of women and to honor all of Egypt's international agreements.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. So listen, I really want you to sit down, take a seat, and listen to this. It could save someone's life you know or love. It is no longer hiding in the shadows of downtown alleyways.
Heroin has a new home, bringing its highly addictive, oftentimes deadly power, to the white picket tree lines streets of Suburbia. Here are just some fact for you, folks.
The average age that kids start using heroin, just before their 15th birthday, and most of them are white, and more of them prefer to shoot it up than taking it any other way. Why the increase here? It's cheaper than pills.
Drug agents say the crackdown on oxycodone and other pain pills have made pills way more expensive for users, 20 to $80 a pill. Heroin, way cheaper and more plentiful and now way more popular.
And two people who know that painfully well, John Roberts and Pam Anderson, both parents who separately lost their sons to overdosing of heroin.
And Mr. Roberts, thank you for joining us. Ms. Anderson, thank you so much for joining us.
We're going to start with you, Mr. Roberts. You're a retired Chicago police captain. You moved to the suburbs for a better life for you and your family. Your son Billy fell into drugs. Tell us what happened.
JOHN ROBERT, TEEN SON DIED OF HEROIN OVERDOSE: Shortly after we moved, Billy had just graduated from grad school and started in high school. And like a lot of kids in America, that's where they're going to be introduced to drugs and be tempted and to maybe experimentation.
And unfortunately, Billy making new friends in a new community, it seems like he got in with the wrong crowd. By and large, Don, the drugs are out there. It's in a lot of communities. I moved out to a beautiful suburb. I can see a farm from my back deck. This is a really nice area. And after 33 years in the streets of Chicago as a police officer, I never expected to find heroin.
But, why do I do what I do now? It's all over the counties of Chicago and many of our major cities. LEMON: And you know, the reason I say that is because most people when they say you think about drugs and you think about heroin. You think about rock stars or inner city urban areas and not the case anymore.
Pam, I let you tell me about your son, Matthew. He started taking pills as a student at UGA and then it went to heroin.
PAM ANDERSON, LOST SON TO HEROIN OVERDOSE: Yes. He started in his between his sophomore and junior year he with some orally taking pills and then moved to snorting and then, -- because it doesn't give you the same high. You have to keep jacking it up and jacking it up. And then, he moved into the intravenous and that's when we found out about it and pulled him out of school.
LEMON: And did you hear when I said most kids start to take -- the kids who do start to take heroin before their 15th birthday because it's so easily accessible? They can get that faster than a pack of cigarettes?
ANDERSON: Yes, they can. It's everywhere. In the college campuses what they are doing with it is like they are just passing bowls of pills and the pushers, if I can use that word.
LEMON: Of course.
ANDERSON: They give it out for free to get somebody hooked and then they start with a lower price on the pills and jack it up, jack it up as they are more addicted.
LEMON: Yes. And many people will start, Mr. Roberts, with starting to take Oxycodone or take pills. It goes from prescription pills because the prescription pills become too expensive for them, and so, they go to heroin because heroin is cheaper and start shooting it.
And of course, once you start to use heroin, it's not just addictive, you don't want that hot, your body needs that. And so, they are hooked and they are going to have an issue the rest of their lives. And at the beginning of this show, as we said, either you're going to end up dead or in jail most times.
ROBERTS: That's true. The problem is that there's the -- a lot of drugs out there. Not all of them -- in fact, I don't believe so much in the gateway theory. But I do believe one gateway drug is the painkiller, prescription painkillers. They are opiate based drugs. Kids can get those in most at the medicine cabins in our country.
Mom and dad, you have - you got a prescription. You don't use them all. You leave them there in case you need them. Our kids are going in there and getting them and you are exactly correct. They go out and they want more and try it again.
But they are already building a dependency and a tolerance for the opiate based drug but when they find they can I don't heroin and it's much cheaper, 10 dollars a bag. Here in Chicago, a suburban taking drive into the west side of the city of Chicago and buy a bag of heroin for $10 and they are preferred customers. When they see incoming, they will offer them, it's called a jab. A jab is ten bags for a hundred and they give them a baker's dozen to bring them back. Don't give them 12 to 13 bags for a hundred dollars and then that goes back out to the suburbs. So, that's one of the reasons why this epidemic is spreading through all of our collar counties. Is it --?
LEMON: Go ahead.
ANDERSON: It's even chirp here in Atlanta. I've heard as low as $7 a bag.
LEMON: Yes. There's a place here I've been reading called the bluffs where they - and there is even a documentary and then many -- a number of documentaries have been written about the bluffs where the kids from the suburbs go into the bluffs and they buy these bags and they know when they see these young affluent looking kids, white kids coming in, they know what they are there for.
ANDERSON: And they drive in, in their cars.
LEMON: Telltale signs?
ANDERSON: Telltale signs are things like they start missing their appointments, they cancel things. They are sleeping a lot. When they are beginning to come down from the high, they seem like they have a cold. They get the feverish, lots of sweating, very cranky, and raspy because of the heroin affects the respiratory system.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: It's tough. It's heartbreaking, but it's an important conversation with those two parents there. It takes a lot of guts to come out here and relive the worst moments of your life over and over again with the simple hope that it might save a total stranger's life, like this young man.
On this show, he described the hell he went through as a heroin addict. His story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Just a few moments ago you heard my conversation with parents, each who lost a child to heroin. After I spoke with them, I got a chance to talk with a young man who survived. He is a former heroin addict.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All the states you see in red, 32 of them have seen increases in heroin-related patients between 199 and 2009. And just this week, Houston police made their largest heroin bust ever, 17 kilos found stashed inside a ca, unheard of in their parts. And part of the reason it's becoming so popular, it's cheap, way cheaper than pills, offering much of the same high to users at a fraction of the cost.
So, who would know that better? No one would than Bill Patrianakos who started on pills. It got so expensive that he moved on. He switched to heroin.
So, Bill says he is clean now. He is sober and has been for four years. So, congratulations on that. We hope you stay clean and sober! What caused you to pull yourself away from heroin?
BILL PATRIANAKOS, RECOVERING FROM HEROIN ADDICTION: To pull away from it?
LEMON: Yes.
PATRIANAKOS: You know no addict really wants to stay on. But at a certain point, your life gets to a point where it becomes so unmanageable, so terrible that you have to do something. And my life, like all addicts, got that point.
LEMON: OK. Tell us about that. And as you talk to us about your story, we are going to show pictures of you sober and then pictures of while you were using heroin. Your parents knew that you were using drugs but that didn't stop you. And again, you started like most people start. You started with a painkiller and doing recreational drugs and then you moved into this because it's cheaper.
PATRIANAKOS: Right. Absolutely. You know, I started innocently enough with a little bit of marijuana. It seemed harmless at the time, moved down to pills. And then, the addiction set in and I wasn't even aware of it. And everyone else around me knew it was going on but before I even did it.
There was a lot of denial. There was a lot of delusion and it took a very long time before I could finally admit that I had a problem and that was when I could finally start asking for some help. So, yes, my parents knew and did their best to try to stop me but there was nothing was going to.
LEMON: How did you get it your first time?
PATRIANAKOS: I had a friend of mine and we were -- one of our, you know, normal nightly, you know, smoking runs, a little marijuana. And this one particular night, he had a little treat for me and it was a pill, box of oxycontin. And I tried it and loved it. I didn't just like it, I loved it. And from that point on, I was asking for more and more until I was, not only I was physically and mentally dependent on it.
LEMON: And dependent on oxycontin. And when you couldn't - oxycontin became too expensive for you.
PATRIANAKOS: Yes. Yes. At that point, I started to, you know, I was pawning things, stealing from my parents, my sister. You know, everyone who cared about me, you know, I could have turned them into enemies. I was doing whatever I could to get money to pay for it but even that wasn't enough and so I decided to move on to heroin because I heard it was cheaper.
LEMON: And it gave you the same high?
PATRIANAKOS: Absolutely at a lower cost.
LEMON: At a lower cost. How long did you use it?
PATRIANAKOS: About half the time that I did opiate was heroin. And yes, started out with snorting and, of course, to be -- to conserve my money, I moved on to shooting it.
LEMON: What do you say to kids who are watching or parents who are watching because, you know, heroin is, you know, it's been around for a long time and there -- it's been used among suburban teens, mostly white kids, since the '90s. But what they are seeing now, so many people dying now and the use of it has just increased over the last couple of years.
What do you say to parents and what do you say to people out there, anything you want to say to them about using heroin or about heroin?
PATRIANAKOS: Well, to parents, I would say, you know, know your child, talk to your child, don't rely on schools to do it. Lots of parents think they are just going to get caught in health class about drugs and their kids know better. Look for the signs. Look for -- if you think something is off with your kid, you know your child best and you should confront them about it.
And to kids out there, students, teens, whoever is in that range starting to use, I would tell them, you are the rule, not the exception. Before people start, they believe that they are the exception. They are going the ones -- they are too smart to become addicted. They know about addiction so that insulates them from becoming addicted. No, if you start this, you will end up in a bad place.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: I want to thank Bill Patrianakos for telling his story. We all wish him the very best of luck. Amazing story, of course.
All right, to moving on now. Jada Pinkett Smith, like you've never seen her before, teaming up with the CNN freedom project and taking on a tough issue, human trafficking. Check out her latest weapon in the fight against it right here.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)
LEMON: So that is Jada right there bearing it all in her music video entitled " (INAUDIBLE) or Don't Sell Bodies." It was directed by another heavy hitter, Salma Hayek. I had the chance to sit down with the actress, singer, wife of Will Smith and now, activist, on what drew her to such a cause. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JADA PINKETT SMITH, ACTRESS, ACTIVIST: Very multi-layered. I wish I could take credit for that, but my girl Salma, she fought for that. I have to be honest with you because when Salma Hayek came to me, OK, and said, we going to do this video, but you're going to be naked. I was like, pause.
LEMON: Wait a minute.
SMITH: Hold up. Salma, that's not happening.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, as you can see, it did happen. And you want to hear more? Be sure to catch my colleague, Soledad O'Brien's interview with Smith this week on "Starting Point." And you can catch my full interview with Jada Pinkett Smith right here next weekend on CNN. You don't want to miss what Jada had to say.
For years, a mystery has surrounded those huge statues on Easter Island. How did they get there? That mystery just may be solved.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Taking a look at the odd and unexplained in "Sunday night mysteries." Chinese sight seers got treated to quite a sight. Waves triggered by what they call a fast moving creature, possibly China's version of the Loch Ness monster. But a scientist who has worked at the lake for years says, he thinks salmon caused Thursday's wave.
And the mystery surrounding the statues at Easter Island got there may be solved. Researchers say, they now think the island's native inhabitants used ropes to simply walk the 30-foot tall 80 tons statues from where they were carved to stoned platforms around the island. A descendant backs the theory up saying quote, "experts can say whatever they want, but they know the truth. The statues walked."
So before we go here tonight, more often than we would like, life delivers us some really terrible circumstances, and it did just that for our CNN family.
This week our colleague and our friend Daniel Funk passed away, passed away on Wednesday. He was one of our tech experts here. And he never lost his cool, even when we asked him some pretty silly questions, and we did it a lot. Like, hey, Dan, why isn't my computer working? He would just; you know, walk over and press the power button and just kind of smile at us.
He grew up in McDonough, Georgia. He was a huge falcons fan and one of the kindness people you ever want to meet in your life.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and with his love ones and in particular, his mom and dad where I got to meet today, Carla and Bert Funk.
Take care of yourself. Dan was 29-years-old. We miss you already. Goodbye.
And, good night every one.
