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Mike Scotti Reaches Out to Veterans Fighting Depression; Marijuana Legalization Debate Continues; Interview with Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler

Aired November 11, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.

At number one, 50 U.S. troops have arrived in Anbar province to assist and advise Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIS. Fifteen hundred additional non-combat personnel could be deployed there soon.

Israel is vowing to crack down on violence after a rash of vicious knife attacks. Palestinians allegedly stabbing an Israeli woman to death at a West Bank bus stop Monday after killing an Israeli soldier earlier in the day.

President Obama is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this morning in Beijing. The president also has had some brief exchanges with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the APEC Summit with Iran, Syria and Ukraine among the items they discussed.

New York Dr. Craig Spencer being discharged from the hospital today. Health officials say he is Ebola free, no longer a threat to the public. That means there are no known Ebola cases in the U.S. right now.

Today we honor America's veterans. With President Obama in China, Vice President Joe Biden will take part in the traditional Veterans Day observance. He will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. You can watch that here on CNN.

We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It is now time for "Impact Your World." And as Mic told you, it's Veterans Day. You knew that already. And you should also know that the battlefield is not the only threat to our fighting men and women. At least 22 veterans commit suicide every day. Former Marine Mike Scotti is trying to bring those numbers down and he has an important message to share with you on Veterans Day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE SCOTTI, FORMER MARINE: My name is Mike Scotti and I'm a former Marine who fought as part of the initial invasion in Iraq in 2003. I just happened to have a video camera with me and I just videotaped kind of what was going on.

The car ran the road block and the Marines had no choice but to light it up. It turned out to be a father and his baby girl.

When I first got home, I just went down a hole. I started spiraling down and just went, you know, almost all the way. The first couple of months was garden variety depression. And then, you know, I started to become angry. You're angry that your friends are getting killed or wounded over there and angry that the country you sacrificed for sometimes seems to forget that it's fighting a war.

You know, you start having the thoughts of, you know, what are you going to do? Am I going to kill myself? Am I going to join up, you know, and go on active duty and go back to the war and try and get myself killed?

When it started to come together as a film and it was a rough cut and I saw other veterans see it, and I could - I watched their - I would watch them watch it and it really, really started to click for me was that this wasn't just my story, this was, you know, everybody's story, every veterans' story.

Sorting out what you experienced over there can feel like it's impossible. You live in a sort of limbo where everything gravitates towards uncertainty, chaos, and disorder.

I realized that there was a lot of people out there who were sad or suffering or keeping these feelings inside of them. The advice that I would give to veterans, call your buddies, you know, write about it, do something creative. If you think you need help, ask for it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: And when they ask, they need to receive that help. If you want to donate to help veterans or if you or anyone you know is struggling with PTS, go to cnn.com/impact. Cnn.com/impact and you'll get a list of people who can help.

And we want to show you right now a picture of the - this is a live picture of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Obviously always someone standing watch. Vice President Biden will be placing a wreath there. Just one of the ways that we hope that people reach out to veterans and honor their service and to their families as well on this day.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Looks like a beautiful morning there in Arlington. Sunny skies. It looks great.

All right, well, with the number of states allowing marijuana expanding, New York City is now going to allow its police to change their approach to punishing those who carry pot. Should marijuana be legalized? What could the fallout be of taking pot, as Chris calls it? We'll break all that down.

CUOMO: Now here is something that will certainly be controversial. It is against the law to feed the needy in parts of one Florida community. Sounds absurd, but it is not. It is true. They are saying this is part of the problem and part of the solution. We're going to have Fort Lauderdale's mayor on and we will test him. Please join us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Officials in New York City are making a sharp turn in the way they handle marijuana possession. Police officers will give offenders tickets instead of arresting them. Take a listen to what New York City's mayor, Bill de Blasio, had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, (D) NEW YORK: When an individual is arrested, even for the smallest possession of marijuana, it hurts their chances to get a good job, it hurts their chances to get housing, it hurts their chances to qualify for a student loan. It can literally follow them the rest of their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C., have all legalized marijuana, but a new study finds that prolonged pot use changes the development of the user's brains, especially young people. We'll show you what their brains look like.

CUOMO: So we debate. The question on the table, should marijuana be legalized? Here to discuss, CNN medical analyst Dr. Alexander van Tulleken and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.

Gentlemen, we set the floor. You have the legal and you have the medical. They kind of go together. They kind of don't. Let's start with the medical, all right. How bad is this for you? This is oregano, by the way.

CAMEROTA: Show how -- this is how much you're allowed to carry.

CUOMO: Right. This is allowed. This is 25 grams, right?

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes.

CUOMO: This is what they're saying equates to personal use. So if you get arrested with this on you, you won't get arrested, you get a desk appearance ticket, a summons and you pay a fine, all right? So what does it do to you?

VAN TULLEKEN: The question of how bad it is for you, you've got to distinguish between how bad it is for users and how bad it is for everyone else. And then within users, you've got physical harm, social harm and psychological harm. And what we can say, we still need a lot more data on cannabis marijuana, but what we can say is, it's massively less bad for you than alcohol, which is our most popular drug, both socially and physically harm to others and harm to users and it's significantly less bad for you than tobacco as well.

CAMEROTA: Well, hold on a second. VAN TULLEKEN: Yes.

CUOMO: It gives you brain damage.

CAMEROTA: Well, before I talk about the legal ramifications of this, let's talk about this because a new study shows that it actually does affect users' brains, even more so than we may have known. Let me show you your brain on drugs, if I may, doctor. So the lower line here is a pot smoker's brain and the top one is a non-user's brain. What do you see the difference? Show us what we're looking at and what's the difference.

VAN TULLEKEN: So what you're looking at is a region of the brain, the (INAUDIBLE) frontal cortex, which governs behavior, addiction, (INAUDIBLE) reward seeking behaviors. And what you can see in this study is that the pot smoker's behavior - the pot smoker's (INAUDIBLE) frontal cortex is smaller. But the crucial thing here is, this is what's called a cross-sectional study. What we know is, this region of the brain is smaller in pot smokers. We don't know whether that's because people who have a smaller region in that bit of the brain choose to smoke more pot or whether the pot smoking causes it. So we've got association not causation.

And the study -- this is a lovely bit of science. It's really clear, but all the reporting that says pot smoking shrinks your brain, this is not what you get from this study at all. This study doesn't tell you pot's dangerous. It doesn't tell you what these changes occur. It simply says, here's a bit of the brain that is really important to study if we want to know more about this drug.

CUOMO: What's the problem with legalizing it from a legal perspective?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, we've experimenting with this, obviously, with Colorado, with the state of Washington. My own personal view is, we should let those experiments run for a little while, see what the impact is on society. However, we're on a fast track here, I think, to legalization nationwide. We saw what happened in Washington, D.C. And I've got to tell you something, Chris, even here in New York, when I started out as an assistant D.A. back in the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll '70s, the rule that we had in the D.A.'s office when I was a prosecutor, we called it the ten-pound rule. Ten --

CUOMO: You were in Brooklyn, though.

CALLAN: That's right. Ten pounds or less, you know what would happen in arraignments? The D.A.s would dismiss the charges. We had too many murders, rapes, robberies to deal with to bother with marijuana.

CUOMO: Well, that's what the police chiefs -

CALLAN: Then crack - but then crack came along.

CUOMO: The police chiefs in the states -

CALLAN: Yes. CUOMO: They have an association. They had said, making these cases are over -- they overwhelm us. We want to focus on higher value crimes. But a lot of people say this leads, you know, people into higher value addictions.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, that's the argument for legalizing it, is that it doesn't clog up the prisons with, you know, low-level pot smokers. But the argument I would say against legalizing it is the brain argument that we were talking about, because that area of the brain, that region is responsible for reward. And what it says it does is it helps us all determine what is good for us. If you're toying with that part of the brain, as a teenager, isn't that -- couldn't that be dangerous?

VAN TULLEKEN: I - I would - I would absolutely - I think there's no question that almost all the drugs we use are bad for us overall. There are very few drugs where you could say, yes, this is good for you. I would say this is definitely less dangerous than other more popular drugs. And so when we're talking about legalization, it doesn't have to pass the test of being safe, it just has to pass the test of, how do we reasonably behave with other comparable substances.

CAMEROTA: Does alcohol also change the brain chemistry, though?

VAN TULLEKEN: Alcohol change - alcohol raises your risk of cancer, heart disease.

CUOMO: It's terrible.

VAN TULLEKEN: Alcohol is terrible for you. Increased domestic violence, sex -- every possible way alcohol harms other people and users more.

CUOMO: Is it addictive? Is the weed that they're making now, with the THC content being so high, and that's the active chemical ingredient obviously, is it addictive?

VAN TULLEKEN: It's less addictive than alcohol. It's less addictive than tobacco. So you do see dependence with regular use, but not as much as other drugs that we regulate less.

CALLAN: And the argument is, of course, the biggest argument here in New York City, it stigmatizes young African-American and Hispanic youth who tend to be the majority of people who get arrested for these things. They're having a tough enough time getting jobs. We don't have to pile on with a criminal record for a small amount of marijuana.

CUOMO: Yes, the question is, you know, and it was interesting, I heard the mayor saying that, you know, as part of a read through on why to do this, that goes to a bigger issue though, why are those the kids that are getting arrested because they're not the only ones smoking weed, you know what I mean? They're getting arrested for reasons that aren't fair to begin with otherwise. What do you think happens? Do you think it passes the test? Do you think it's going to be made legal?

VAN TULLEKEN: For me, whether or not it's going to happen, I don't know. For me, I would make it legal. I think that reduces social harm. I think it makes the users safer. It stops them from being involved in crime. It stops them -- in any - in almost every way, it seems to me legalization is better, medically and socially.

CAMEROTA: And, Paul, you say, wait a little while or do you think -

CALLAN: Well, I think good public policy would suggest white a while. It's a great thing about federalism, you can let the cities and the states test something, see if it works, see if it affects kids in a bad way, employment in a bad way. That's the sensible way to go. But I think politically we're rolling toward legalization in all of the big cities and a lot of the big states. So, you know, I think this train's out of the station.

CAMEROTA: All right, we'd love to hear what you have to say about this. You can weigh in. We're both on Twitter and Facebook. The comments are already pouring in to my Twitter feed about what we should do about pot.

Thanks, guys. Great to see.

VAN TULLEKEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, helping feed the needy, it could land you in jail. A Florida law bans people from giving food to the homeless in outdoor public areas and it's coming under fire. So we will talk live with Ft. Lauderdale's mayor who says the rules should benefit those living on the streets.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: A Fort Lauderdale city ordinance is sparking outrage, not just there, but across the country. It's now illegal to feed the homeless in outdoor public spaces, and the law is being enforced. There are arrests. In fact, one person arrested is a 90-year-old man named Arnold Abbott. He is 90, like I just said. He's been serving meals to the homeless for decades and now faces jail time for doing it. Take a little listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ARNOLD ABBOTT, ARRESTED FOR FEEDING THE HOMELESS: It's our right to feed people. It's a first amendment right and I believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and we should be allowed to feed our fellow man.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO: Alright, let's bring in the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Jack Seiler. That is not a good image for you and what you're trying to get through here as public policy, having a 90-year-old guy who believes in the brotherhood of man being arrested for feeding the homeless. Why are you doing this?

MAYOR JACK SEILER, (D) FORT LAUDERDALE: Well, one, he was not arrested and taken into custody, so that is one of these kind of items that go by rolling, it's not accurate. Secondly, it is not illegal to feed in public in Fort Lauderdale. We actually expanded the number of feeding locations in the city of Fort Lauderdale. I think when these new stories broke nobody actually read the ordnance, they kind of went off sound bites and headlines, and so I'm glad we're getting this opportunity to clear it up. Over the last three days I've received just thousands of e-mails apologizing for the misinformation that was out there.

CUOMO: So, what's the rule?

SEILER: What we're really trying - -The rule is is that we have created zones in the city of Fort Lauderdale to disperse the feedings, but actually increased the number of areas you can feed the homeless. We've now opened up every house of worship in the city of Fort Lauderdale as a legal place to feed the homeless. In fact, what the news nationally didn't cover is just last Sunday, Arnold Abbott fed the homeless at a local church without incident. It went off beautifully. We were pleased, he was pleased.

So, the rule, as I've stated, has been misstated by the national press and the national media. You can feed in the city of Fort Lauderdale. There are more feeding locations with this new ordinance than there were before. There are just distances between the feedings. We created a zone where there needs to be 500 feet between the feedings in order to disperse the feedings and not have an overwhelming impact on any one neighborhood, or any one area. Now it's spread out throughout the city.

There are numerous churches complying with this law, there are numerous charitable organizations and not-for-profits complying with the law. They're all very pleased with the new law because we're feeding more indoors, we're having a greater impact on the homeless.

CUOMO: Right.

SEILER: We're actually assisting the homeless, and like I said with that earlier story about us arresting a 90-year-old man was just not accurate. He was not arrested and taken into custody. He and I did a television show on Sunday. And, look, people here in Fort Lauderdale know we have done more for the homeless than any community in south Florida. We opened a homeless assistance center, we've expanded it, we've expanded the benefits of the program.

CUOMO: How does this help the homeless?

SEILER: Well, this allows the homeless to be fed in a more safer, secure, sanitary setting. It allows the homeless to be fed in more locations, not less locations. It allows our homeless outreach officers, we're the only city in south Florida that has two full time homeless outreach officers.

CUOMO: But why don't you want them being fed anywhere? Why can't they just be fed anywhere?

SEILER: We do.

CUOMO: Like a human being. No, anywhere. You can feed them anywhere you want.

SEILER: Well, I think you were just starting to say, we want them fed like human beings. Exactly right, and that's why we are setting up areas to feed the homeless in a safe, sanitary way, to assist them and there are homeless outreach officers who are also using that opportunity to find out are we dealing with veterans who we have the most progressive program in the state to get veterans off the street.

CUOMO: Right.

SEILER: Are we dealing with victims of domestic violence? So, our goal is to assist the homeless. We did a comprehensive program, all the experts came out and said this is the right way to approach it. It is a very compassionate, kind way to approach it. And by the way, let me state for the record, Arnold Abbott, the 90-year-old gentleman you saw, is a kind, compassionate, good man. I think the world of him.

CUOMO: Nobody is going to disagree with you about that.

SEILER: Right, I agree, and our goal is that we want him to continue to feed the homeless in Fort Lauderdale. We want him to continue to assist the homeless, we just want him to do it in the proper location ,and he did it already. Last Sunday showed he can do it.

CUOMO: Right. Look, it's not hard to do. You're feeding the homeless. The problem is that not enough people want to do it, right? We're supposed to be encouraging people to help the homeless, instead of walking by them, pretending that they don't exist. And we also don't want people to hide the homeless, and the concern about something like this is that it seems you're trying to get the homeless out of certain areas. Maybe they're unsightly, maybe the community doesn't like it, maybe there's a little nimby action going on, that's what it smacks of.

SEILER: Well, that's absolutely inaccurate, and that's another situation where something has been repeated incorrectly. They are still allowed in every single public park, they're still in every public park. They are allowed throughout downtown, they're still throughout our downtown. We are working in an area to provide feeding locations that disperse them from a specific area that got overwhelmed. The situation and point here was there was a woman's club in a downtown park that essentially had to shut down because of issues with public urination, public defecation, the park was overrun. And so the thought was, okay, we'll continue to feed the homeless in downtown, but let's spread them a couple blocks. The location where the food was prepared and the location where the food was cooked was a legal feeding location just a few blocks away.

CUOMO: I hear you, Mr. Mayor.

SEILER: The misinformation by the national media has been very frustrating, because everybody here locally supports this ordinance and understands that this is a comprehensive approach to assisting the homeless. And, like I said, we are the most progressive city out there in terms of it. Now that the new information got out, all weekend long it was just we apologize for the incorrect reporting. CUOMO: Well, I don't apologize because I wanted to give you the

opportunity to clarify yourself, because the priority is making sure that the homeless are helped and treated with dignity. And if that's what you're saying that you're doing, then it's good to have you on the show to get the message out. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate it. Good luck with taking care of the homeless.

SEILER: Thank you, and happy Veterans' Day to all those out there today. We appreciate your service

CUOMO: Appreciate it, and a lot of those homeless are veterans, as you know. So, they need our help especially. Alright, thanks to the mayor for coming out.

CAMEROTA: Definitely, great to clarify all of that. He explained exactly what the city is doing, that was helpful.

Well, some of the most beautiful brides-to-be you will ever see. A very special Veterans' Day edition of the Good Stuff coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: A Veterans' Day edition of the Good Stuff to tell you about. All brides are beautiful, you know that, right? But this is a little bit of a special situation we're going to tell you about. The brides here, they're particularly special, and here's why. They're active duty members of the U.S. military.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): They're all engaged, obviously, due to be married next 18 months. That's the window we're dealing with, and they're marrying fellow soldiers. So, they're getting a very special gift this Veterans' Day, wedding dresses just for them, completely free of charge. Brides Across America is the charity, they're giving the free dresses to troops all over the country, again, and we thank them for their service this Veterans' Day.

PEREIRA (voice-over): Well done.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (on camera): We just wanted to spread the word of good deeds done well.

CAMEROTA: Love that.

PEREIRA (on camera): That's beautiful.

CAMEROTA: That's going to save them a lot of money. Those things are expensive.

PEREIRA: Especially on this Veterans' Day.

CUOMO: There was one there that I would have looked beautiful in.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: A lot of news this morning with Randi Kaye. Let's get you to the "NEWSROOM" with Randi Kaye, in for Carol Costello. The dress comment through me.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: I like that dress comment, though. Alright, thanks guys.