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Marijuana and the NFL; Arnie Spanier on Super Bowl; Obama on Marijuana; Merchandise Counterfeiters Cash in on NFL and Super Bowl; Fighting Sex Trafficking at Super Bowl

Aired January 31, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you be willing to randomly test for marijuana?

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: The first answer to your question is I am randomly tested and I'm happy to say I am clean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The commissioner says he's clean, but what about the players in the NFL barred by contract to smoke marijuana?

Thing that a lot of people are throwing around is, should that change?

First, I want to bring in a guy who braced the field before Super Bowl Sunday and on Super Bowl Sunday a couple of years ago.

So nice to meet you.

AMANI TOOMER, FORMER NFL RECEIVER: Nice to meet you, too, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The first thing I said is, where was your Super Bowl bling?

TOOMER: I wore it time and it was so gaudy I put it in my pocket. You love to have it, but once you get it, you don't wear it out.

BALDWIN: It doesn't go with a lot.

TOOMER: It goes with a lot, but --

BALDWIN: They go with a lot of things.

Big game in 2008, undefeated and undefeated New York Giants. Nice work. Take me on the field when you guys won.

TOOMER: We lot of the Super Bowl earlier. I knew what it was like to lose. My first instinct is we are going back to the Super Bowl?

BALDWIN: Was it really the first time?

TOOMER: When you lose it's such a traumatic thing. I feel sorry for those who lose, but we played the Patriots the last game of the season and did really well against them.

We thought we matched up well and let them off the hook. We felt like we had a great opportunity and everyone said we couldn't and they would have an undefeated season. We had a little say in that.

BALDWIN: That's interesting the first person to bring up losing, we think so much about winning, what does that feel like when you are walking off the field and you lot of that big game?

TOOMER: You have a magical season. You are a hero. You lose the game and they are popping confetti and it's a crime and you have confetti on your confetti is not for you.

BALDWIN: I saw like 110 million eyeballs watching the game.

Do you feel that or once that whistle is blown, it's game on?

TOOMER: The first Super Bowl I really felt that and it was distracting, but the second Super Bowl, the fear of losing again had me focusing on the game and what I had to do. I was blocked in. That's what helped the team, the experience and the players that had been through the other side of it. They realized it's really a football game. With all the pageantry and for your fans and family. You had a job to do playing football.

BALDWIN: I have to ask you about this. Roger Goodell was asked with these questions among other things, would it help players?

I can't imagine being slammed by folks on the field. This is what Roger Goodell said today. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOODELL: We will continue to follow the medicine. Our experts right now are not indicating that we should change our policy in any way.

We are not actively considering that at this point in time, but if it does, down the road sometime, that's something we would never take off the table if it can benefit our players at the end of the day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Here it's interesting, too. You look at the two states that are playing one another, Washington state and Colorado, legal.

Do you think, once the next union contract is negotiated, that that should be an issue, that that should be discussed? Whether players using it medicinally or recreationally?

TOOMER: I've never tried marijuana, but I talked to Darrell Strawberry who had a substance abuse problem and I interviewed him on my radio show. He said it was a gateway drug for him.

I don't know if it would be a good idea so you are exposing a lot of people who may not try it or may have already and make it more accessible. I think it might open the gate to cause more harm than good in the future.

BALDWIN: Amani Toomer, nice to see you.

TOOMER: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Let's move along and talk live, all the way from Buffalo here in the great state of New York, sports radio host Arnie Spanier joins me now.

And we -- nice, with football in hand, he is ready to rock 'n' roll. Arnie, we talked before. Yes. We talked before.

Let's talk about the fact that this Super Bowl happening. It's not too, too cold right now. But this is a first outdoor Super Bowl in a cold weather state ever.

You're looking at the forecast for Sunday. The weather forecast doesn't look horrendous. Do you think this is turning into a good idea?

ARNIE SPANIER, SPORTS RADIO HOST: Brooke, it looks like it's going to turn out OK. I can't believe it. The weather is going to be somewhat normal. It's not going to be torrential snow and rain and sleet.

People are going to have a good time and a comfortable time, and most important, the weather won't affect Peyton Manning, because I don't want any excuses. I want him on his best. I want him to win this game.

BALDWIN: Guys, forgive me. Amani stood up and this is what's happening. I just lot of my feed. I cannot hear you. Arnie, I cannot hear you.

Can we quickly --

SPANIER: Brooke, it's OK. It's OK, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Work on your passing game. They're going to plug me in, live.

OK, here we go. Are you with me?

SPANIER: I'm with you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, so, forgive me, because I missed your answer, but I'm just going to roll along quickly.

Quickly, did you say yes or no, it's a good idea this is happening --

SPANIER: You know what? Like I said it's going to work out. There will be no excuses for Peyton Manning. There won't be terrible weather, no snow, no sleet, no rain.

So, good for him, and I'm glad it's going to work out.

BALDWIN: Let me also ask you, and I was asking Amani because he lived in Weehawken, New Jersey, while he was playing for the Giants in New York.

And he was like, it's the people's Super Bowl, and the whole debate over is this a New Jersey Super Bowl, is it a New York Super Bowl?

What's your answer, Arnie Spanier?

SPANIER: It's a New York Super Bowl. Please. New Jersey? Isn't that where they dump nuclear waste. I mean, come on. That's like the little sister. Stop it.

New York, New York, we all know what it's about. Nobody knows about New Jersey.

If you polled like 10 people maybe one out of 10 would even go, is it really in New Jersey? Is that even in the United States?

Come on! It's a New York Super Bowl.

BALDWIN: I can hear the people, the good people in the great state of New Jersey, probably using language I can't quite use right now.

Arnie Spanier, thank you so much for joining me from Buffalo. We will see how it goes on Sunday.

Coming up, the Super Bowl, two days away, a lot of people, of course, are gearing up for it, including criminals.

Counterfeiters, they are selling fakes of everything from tickets to merchandise. We will tell you, if you're in the market, what to look out for.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I stand by my belief, based, I think, on the scientific evidence, that marijuana for casual users, individual users, is subject to overuse just like alcohol is and should be treated as a public health problem and challenge.

But, as I said in the interview, my concern is when you end up having very heavy criminal penalties for individual users that have been applied uneven and, in some cases, with racial disparity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Those comments, you just saw, CNN exclusive with our very own Jake Tapper, Jake back in Washington from that one-on-one in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

And, so, I like that you asked him, of course, because you're asking because of the comments in that essay from "The New Yorker" and definitely a change in the president's tone.

Would you qualify that as walking his words back? What did you make of that? JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": I think he was standing by his words.

I think what's interesting and what a lot of people who are experts on this debate, whether it's the drug czars on the right or the people who want to legalize marijuana on the left, what a lot of people are suggesting is that there is an inherent contradiction between what the president is saying and what the policy of his administration is.

The president is saying that he thinks of marijuana as something along the lines of cigarettes or alcohol, things that can be abused, that there's a public health crisis, but there's also this legal issue with racial and class disparities when it comes to sentencing.

And he thinks the experiments, as he calls them, in Colorado and Washington should go forward.

Now, that's just not the administration policy. The administration policy, beyond what the president said about not going after people in Colorado and Washington for smoking marijuana because their states have legalized recreational use, the administration policy is marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic along the lines of heroin or ecstasy.

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Web site, they don't support legalization. So there is this contradiction.

And something else from the interview that wasn't aired just now is I pointed out to the president that it's the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Obama administration, more generally, that can decide whether or not marijuana should be a Schedule I drug.

I asked him if he supported removing it from the list. He didn't answer that question. He suggested that Congress makes that decision.

And Congress certainly has an influence, but he also does, too.

It's a very interesting situation where he is not completely in line with official policy of his own administration.

BALDWIN: And that is just a piece.

Here we sit on Super Bowl Boulevard. I know you asked a question I tweeted out this morning about -- what was it? Hillary versus Biden, Broncos versus Seahawks.

We'll wait for it. We'll wait for the answer. You hit the spectrum --

TAPPER: I wanted to give him a choice, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I loved it.

TAPPER: I knew he didn't want to weigh in on either one. I said, OK, I will -- this is my interview. You can pick one. You can pick one. But you have to -- it turns out by the way, Brooke, that just because it's my interview doesn't mean necessarily that he has to play by my rules, I learned.

BALDWIN: That is true. That is true.

Let's just -- that's the tease for the good people watching. You have to watch Jake's entire sit-down with the president in just a couple of minutes on "THE LEAD."

That starts at the top of the hour. Bravo, Mr. Tapper. We'll be watching for that. Thank you so much.

Coming up, we are talking Super Bowl back here on Super Bowl Boulevard, and, of course, the counterfeiters are selling fakes of everything from tickets to the merchandise.

Would you know how to spot a fake ticket? We will talk about that, coming up next.

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BALDWIN: The NFL wanted outdoor football, and here we go. They are going to get it.

What they don't want, and I'm speaking right now of the NFL, is the contagion of counterfeits. I'm talking tickets, jerseys, millions of dollars, who knew?

Here's CNN's Poppy Harlow.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Along with the big game come the big bucks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything's bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, we got no UPCs here. Got no holograms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got any NFL stuff, any Super Bowl stuff?

HARLOW: Federal agents, getting a leg up on criminals peddling fake jerseys, hats, even fake Super Bowl tickets.

This undercover agent is texting an unsuspecting seller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, yes, I have them. It's ready to go.

HARLOW: In Jersey City, feds found this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be at least 500 pieces, maybe 500 to a thousand.

HARLOW: Are these real?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

HARLOW: Did you know that they were not real?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just wanted them.

HARLOW: Hundreds and hundreds of fake jerseys and fake Super Bowl gear for sale in plain sight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This should have been lasered on, the tag here at the end. Instead it's stitched on. Very substandard product.

HARLOW: About how many did you sell?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably say about 100.

HARLOW: Raking in heavy profits.

He bought these for 15 bucks a pop online and sold them for up to 70 bucks, but the real deal will often cost you hundreds.

Why is this worth taxpayer money? Why have all these agents out here take this guy down? Why is it worth it?

BRAD GREENBERG, SPECIAL AGENT, ICE: It's taking away jobs from the American public, and money is being moved through various criminal organizations and being funneled back for the use of drugs, weapons.

HARLOW: Why are we seeing more big, criminal enterprises getting involved in counterfeit game, not just drugs anymore?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're getting involved in the counterfeit game because of the profits that are involved.

HARLOW: Higher than -- higher profit margin than drugs?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, absolutely.

HARLOW: Higher profits and sweetening the deal for criminals, often much less if any jail time, if they're caught.

ANASTASIA DANIAS, V.P. LEGAL AFFAIRS, NFL: I think certainly having harsher penalties will always be a disincentive.

HARLOW: Anastasia Danias leads the NFL's fight against counterfeit.

This is a Broncos' jersey, number 88, we bought yesterday. Is it real?

DANIAS: I'm not seeing any of the tell-tale security features, like the NFL hologram. Some of the stitching is coming off.

HARLOW: So this is fake?

DANIAS: I believe that this is fake. Yes.

HARLOW: It's not just jerseys. Fake Super Bowl tickets scam people out of thousands of dollars. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First line of defense is the hologram. This graphic is painted in what's known as thermo-chromic ink. So, if you heat up the ink, it will disappear.

HARLOW: Online, the fight is even harder with a burgeoning multibillion dollar market for fakes.

GREENBERG: It's a fast and safe delivery. Anybody who is selling genuine product would not be worried about safe delivery.

If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

HARLOW: 28 bucks?

GREENBERG: 28 bucks for a jersey that typically is $300.

HARLOW: And some sites selling fakes are doing so with the sole purpose of stealing your credit card information.

It's an uphill battle for agents against a fierce black market seemingly unafraid of the consequences.

Why risk it?

GREENBERG: Money. It's about greed.

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HARLOW: And the money is huge. This is that jersey, right? Look at this.

BALDWIN: This is not the real deal?

HARLOW: No. And look at it. That's what it is missing, the hologram.

But some of the fakes have holograms. The profit margins are absolutely huge. It's sort of like this game of Whack-a-Mole for feds. They shut one Web site down. Another pops up five minutes later.

They cannot -- they're trying to get a handle on this. It's one thing to buy a fake jersey. Imagine buying a fake ticket, thousands of dollars. You can't get in.

The NFL says do not buy from anywhere on the street, a lot of Web sites online. Question them. You can buy through the NFL Ticket Exchange or from someone you really trust because if you get ripped off for thousands, what a disappointment --

BALDWIN: So you think you're being careful, and you kind of just never know, I guess.

HARLOW: Yeah, but it's a huge, huge multibillion dollar business.

BALDWIN: Wow, Poppy Harlow, thank you. Nice to see you.

Back after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, terrorism is not the only crime authorities are working to prevent right around Super Bowl Sunday.

The big game creates a much bigger demand for prostitutes, many of whom are forced into sex work.

So, joining me now, Nita Belles, she's the regional director for Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans.

You're here, obviously, to shine a spotlight on this. It happens 365 days a year.

NITA BELLES, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, OREGONIANS AGAINST TRAFFICKING HUMANS: Right.

BALDWIN: But why especially around the Super Bowl?

BELLES: The Super Bowl is an opportunity for every venue that it has to make their area have less trafficking.

So they get a lot of change ahead of time. They gather law enforcement and other people. Awareness is raised. Services are provided and so that's --

BALDWIN: I was watching the local news here last night in New York City, and it was one of the big stories. There was a bust in Brooklyn. They are out and about trying to stop this.

What are the signs and these prostitutes born right here in the U.S.?

BELLES: Right, and I like to call them trafficking victims.

BALDWIN: Trafficking victims.

BELLES: If they are forced into prostitution, that's trafficking victims.

Although there are some who actually choose prostitution.

And the signs would be -- and this isn't for the prostitution. This is for sex trafficking.

BALDWIN: Yeah.

BELLES: The signs would be somebody who is timid or afraid to look at you, maybe controlled by somebody else, somebody who is being watched all the time, somebody who they are not going to be able to ask for help.

They are traumatically bonded to that trafficker.

BALDWIN: You are here. You are working with the state attorney general. You're working with law enforcement. Your book, "In Our Backyard" by Nita Belles, thank you so much for joining me, but we are out time. But calling attention to this major, major problem.

I'm Brooke Baldwin here on Super Bowl Boulevard. Thank you so much for watching.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.