tv PBS News Hour Weekend PBS January 15, 2017 5:30pm-6:01pm PST
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captioning sponsored by wnet >> stewart: on this edition for sunday, january 15: countdown to the inauguration-- why the first 100 days has become a benchmark of presidential performance. american police officers; more worried about their safety on job. and in our signature segment: can this plant reduce opioid addiction? next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg.
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corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. ditional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, alison stewart. this is pbs newshour weekend. >> stewart: good evening and thanks for joining us. the inauguration of donald trump as the nation's 45th president is five days away. today in washington, there was a dress rehearsal for the ceremony marking the transition of power from democrat barack obama to his republican successor. but at least 19 democratic members of the house of representatives say they won't attend, including georgia congressman john lewis, the civil rights icon who has served in congress for 30 years. lewis said in an interview broadcast today he considers mr. trump's presidency illegitimate,
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because of russian hacking of democratic party computers and email leaks embarrassing to hillary clinton. today, vice president-elect mike pence said he'd like lewis to change his mind. >> to question the legitimacy of the election and to say that donald trump will not be a legitimate president was deeply disappointing to me and also to hear that he was not going to attend the inauguration this friday. i hope he reconsiders both statements. >> stewart: confirmation hearings for seven trump cabinet-level picks, including secretaries of state and defense, are done. this week, eight more hearings are scheduled for secretaries of treasury, energy, and health and human services, as well as education, commerce, and interior. senate committees will also consider nominees to lead the environmental protection agency and serve as ambassador to the united nations. china and iran are pushing back on foreign policy trial balloons floated by mr. trump. china's foreign ministry opposes trump reconsidering the nearly 40-year old u.s. "one china" policy-- recognizing the mainland china communist
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government in beijing but not the democratically elected government on the island of taiwan. the chinese foreign ministry said in a statement: "there is only one china in the world, taiwan is an inalienable region of china, and the government of the people's republic of china is the only legitimate government representing china." iran said today it will not renegotiate the nuclear disarmament deal with world powers implemented last year, and criticized by mr. trump. iran's deputy foreign minister said at a news conference in tehran today, quote: "if he rips it up, we will burn it." while a presidential term is four years, what the president accomplishes in his first 100 days in office has become the measure-- fairly or unfairly-- of a successful start. the reason dates back to the 1930s, and it's become both an opportunity and a burden, as special correspondent jeff greenfield explains. >> reporter: on october 22 last year, donald trump went to gettysburg, pennsylvania, to define his presidential priorities.
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the key was not just what he >> what follows is my 100 day action plan to make america great again. >> reporter: why 100 days? because trump, like every newly elected president for eight decades, has come to power in the shadow of this president's first 100 days. >> the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. >> reporter: franklin delano roosevelt took office in march of 1933 with the nation in the grips of the great depression. >> people could literally not pay their bills when they were checking out of their hotels, who came down for the inauguration. the banking system had collapsed. unemployment was at 25%. the stock market had plunged. so everyone agreed that there had to be bold action. >> reporter: and that's what fdr delivered. within a week, he declared a" bank holiday," which closed all banks for four days, and ordered others reforms that bolstered the financial system. he flooded congress- then
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dominated by democrats and liberal republicans- with bills saving farmers from insolvency and putting thousands of jobless to work building infrastructure and parks. >> hundreds of dams will make lakes in regions where large bodies of water are unknown. >> reporter: by early summer, congress had passed 15 major bills, and "the 100 days" became shorthand for decisive presidential action. when people look back they saw that he had done a lot in 100 days, but it was never the plan. the plan was just to do a lot. >> reporter: and that has posed a challenge for every president ys?how much can you do in 100 >> since this new president, trump, has promised to "make america great again," there's particular pressure on him to deliver something in the first 100 days to demonstrate he's moving the country forward. >> the torch has passed to a new generation of americans.
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>> reporter: this pressure is often unwelcome; john f. kennedy was so exasperated by it that he made sure to disavow it in his speech. >> all this will not be accomplished in the first 100 days, nor will it be finished in the first 1,000. >> reporter: moreover, presidents rarely have the massive congressional majorities fdr had. ronald reagan got his tax cuts through a democratic-controlled house of representatives, in part because of the goodwill after he was nearly assassinated. bill clinton got his first budget through congress with one vote to spare in the house and one in the senate- the tiebreaker cast by his vice president. barack obama's stimulus package escaped a senate filibuster by just three votes. more importantly, apart from roosevelt, does a president's first 100 days give us a very good measure of a chief executive? >> historians look back not only on the first 100 days but on the whole presidential term and if they end up being there for eight years, it dwarfs those
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first 100 days. >> reporter: as for mr. trump, he'll have republican majorities in the house and senate, and he can use his executive powers to change some policies within days. but he also lost the national popular vote and is entering the white house with the lowest approval ratings of any incoming president in modern history. these will be significant challenges for a president who promises bold, swift action. >> stewart: the epidemic of opioid abuse in the united states, primarily of painkillers and heroin, has claimed more than 300,000 lives since 2000. 33,000 people died in 2015 alone. tonight's signature segment tells a new chapter in the story: a substance that's either an addition to the roster of dangerous opioids, or an alternative path to escape the
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spiral of addiction. the substance is called kratom, and key agencies overseeing u.s. drug policy are debating what to do about it. newshour weekend special correspondent mike taibbi reports. >> reporter: if you haven't heard of kratom-- sometimes called kray-tom-- you will. it's a coffee-like plant native to southeast asia whose leaves can be ground up into capsules or to used make tea or mix with juice or other liquids. for centuries kratom has been used as a replacement for opium or to wean users off it. in the u.s., kratom is currently easy to buy on the internet, in specialty bars as tea or some other liquid mixture, or in pill form in shops like grateful j's in delray beach, florida, which also sells tobacco and smoking paraphernalia. >> we got this last week. and we're already almost gone. we get new stock once a week. it sells. >> reporter: so it comes and it goes. >> it comes and it goes. >> reporter: a small packet of capsules or crushed kratom leaf sells here for between $20 and
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$30. while many use it medicinally, others also say they simply enjoy its slight euphoric effect, similar to drinking a cup of coffee or having a beer. university of florida medicinal chemistry professor christopher mccurdy has been collecting samples and studying kratom for more than a decade. >> i receive emails at least on every other day basis from users or other researchers that are interested in this material, saying, you know, "this stuff's been incredible for my patients," or "it's been incredible for me personally. looking back at what we've found in the laboratory with the animals, we think it has profound potential. >> reporter: whether people say they use it to curb an addiction, to self-medicate for pain, or just to feel good, the sale of kratom and kratom products is now largely unregulated and widely available without a doctor's prescription. florida state representative kristen jacobs has fought to have kratom banned in her state as it is now in six other states
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and 15 countries. >> the problem is, because it's completely unregulated you don't know when you buy one of those cute, decorated packages, or you buy it in a juice, or in a tea, you don't know how much of it has been mixed in. you don't even know if there's any kratom in it at all, it could be some other substances. >> reporter: you're convinced it's every bit as dangerous as other opioids? >> yes, i am. >> reporter: the drug enforcement administration may agree with her. last august, the d.e.a. announced it was ready to list kratom as a schedule 1 drug meaning it has a" high potential for abuse" and has "no currently accepted medical use," listed under federal law alongside heroin, lsd, ecstasy, and marijuana. >> i do think that this is a bad drug, and it needs to be regulated. it needs to be, in my opinion, to be scheduled as a schedule 1 drug. >> reporter: but there's another side to the kratom story. in laboratory experiments on mice, mccurdy and his colleagues say they have shown how kratom can wean users off opioids. they took mice, like these, addicted to morphine and then
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deprived them of the drug, thrusting them into withdrawal. then, they replaced their morphine with kratom. >> we would look at low doses, medium doses, high doses. we even went to doses that were off the chart for what a human would use, and this is a mouse! and we didn't ever see any toxicity with the plant material itself. >> reporter: and none of them died? >> none of them died. and we never saw any seizure, we never saw any side effect essentially. >> reporter: those side effects include respiratory distress, breathing slowing and sometimes stopping, that causes most fatal overdoses from opioids. >> we haven't published the but what we've seen is a clear medical potential for this to treat opiate addiction and withdrawal. >> reporter: no question in your mind? >> no question in my mind. none at all. >> reporter: because of widespread protests and appeals from 51 members of the house of representatives and nine senators to reconsider, last october, the d.e.a. walked back
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its plan to immediately list kratom on its schedule 1 roster, and opened a public comment period. after 23,000 public comments submitted to the d.e.a. and 140,000 petition signatures to keep it legal, kratom's fate now remains up in the air. gina rivera was one of the people who submitted a pro- kratom comment. several years ago, she began taking prescription painkillers to manage chronic back pain. >> i got in a car wreck seven days after my 21st birthday. >> reporter: after three surgeries, she was prescribed opioids and became addicted, even through the birth of her child. >> when i got pregnant with my daughter, i was taking four 30mg oxycodone a day, and then two 10mg methadones a day. so 20 milligrams of methadone, 120 milligrams of oxycodone. >> reporter: every day? >> every day, if not more than that. sometimes i would take more if i was in more pain. it's probably about 12:30, which means i'm going to take a green kratom. >> reporter: rivera says it was a doctor who cast her a
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lifeline. >> he leans in close to me and, after tears running down my face, he says "have you heard of kratom?" and i said "no, i haven't." and he looks at me and he goes, "well, i can't tell you about it, i might lose my job, so i urge you to go search the internet, seek help on the internet and search up kratom." >> reporter: she did. and since then she has mixed kratom into her morning juice. >> i use it every day, because i use it in place of medications that i would already be on anyway. i would be on opiates if it weren't for kratom. >> reporter: a florida realtor we'll call "steve," who agreed to speak to us if we didn't use his real name, is another kratom believer. he says he drinks kratom tea everyday and says it helped him kick his addiction to the opioid painkiller percocet. >> i knew i was losing my marriage. i knew i was losing my career, and when it got to the point where i was possibly going to lose my kids, i realized that i just had to stop. i can't tell you like the
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research behind kratom. i can just tell you how i feel: that i have energy. i'm in great shape. i work out. i've developed another career that is going very well. >> mitragyna speciosa is just the latin name for the plant. >> reporter: scott hemby, a professor of pharmaceutical science at north carolina's high point university, is now partnering in kratom research with chris mccurdy. in his lab, hemby is looking more closely at kratom's two psychoactive compounds to determine the extent to which kratom is addictive. one of those compounds is called 7-hydroxy. and hemby's initial results show that lab rats will continue to take 7-hydroxy again and again when they're presented with it. >> it may have addictive properties like morphine does. >> reporter: and that's a red flag-- the potential addictive or abusive use. >> what we find is that it has the potential to be abused, that's correct. >> reporter: despite kratom's
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potential to be "addictive," hemby says he appreciates the anecdotes by users who praise kratom, and believes research on kratom must be allowed to continue. >> in terms of pain relief management, in terms of addiction medicine. the potential there is huge and i think it would be, we would not be serving the public interest if we completely pushed these off the shelf for investigation in the future. >> reporter: the d.e.a. does cite 15 deaths in the u.s. since 2014 as kratom-related, but 14 of those people had other drugs in their system at the time of death. addiction treatment specialists like ryan johnston of fort lauderdale's cornerstone recovery center oppose the use of kratom for those struggling with substance abuse, because they're substituting one drug for another. >> it's a minor mood-altering substance. so our clients are not permitted to use it. what we find, is that it leads them back to the behaviors of what surrounds them when they're using, let's say, opiates, and oftentimes leads them then further down back to their drug
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of choice. >> so right now we only have the red horn capsules. >> reporter: without any regulations for kratom, what exactly is in these capsules is a mystery. >> right now, it's a "buyer beware" marketplace for any of the supplements that are out there. >> reporter: that is one of th"" kratom concerns" listed by epidemiologist jim hall, a member of the food and drug administration's advisory committee on drug safety and risk management. his unpublished 2015 background paper for the florida legislature also cited respiratory depression, delusions, and aggression as negative side effects. >> if it's to be used medically, as many users claim they are self-medicating with it, self- medicating with their opiate withdrawal syndrome, that then proceed as we do with any other medical product in this country: apply for a new drug application and work through rigorous clinical trials and supervision of the food and drug administration.
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>> reporter: but you know that that takes five to ten years minimally? >> it can, yes. >> reporter: in the meantime, 30,000 people are dying a year from opiate overdoses. >> but i don't know if this will save their lives. >> reporter: right. >> the vital question is what is a safe and effective potential product as a medicine or even as just a food supplement. >> reporter: hall's paper echoes the f.d.a.'s negative warnings on kratom. but the f.d.a. has not yet conducted a full analysis of the drug to back up those claims. the f.d.a. and d.e.a. declined our interview requests. in a written statement to newshour weekend, the d.e.a. did say it "still considers kratom to be harmful and dangerous" and that kratom "has not undergone the scientific rigor to prove that it's both safe and effective." the d.e.a., the f.d.a. and the centers for disease control and prevention, have approved other drugs with addiction potential-- like methadone and a medication called suboxone-- for opioid addiction and withdrawal. both "steve" and gina rivera
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tried each of them for a long period, and say they didn't work for them the way kratom did. >> when i started drinking kratom as a way to not go and use opiates or painkillers. i got to the point i haven't used drugs in a year. >> reporter: now rivera fears losing access to kratom. >> that would pretty much tear my life apart right now. >> reporter: for now, kratom is in limbo. the d.e.a. has vexing choices ranging from classifying it as an illegal drug which could restrict its sale and research, to leaving it essentially unregulated, a potentially dangerous drug that proponents call a life-saver. read more about the policy issues surrounding kratom. visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> stewart: recent federal justice department investigations of the chicago and baltimore police department's found patterns of misuse of force, especially against african-americans.
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the ensuing reforms underway come at a time when police officers across the country feel the spread of videotaped police shootings of civilians has made their jobs harder." behind the badge," a survey of 8,000 officers released by the pew research center last week found: 93% of those polled are more concerned about their safety. 76% are more reluctant to use force. and 72% say they're less likely to stop and question someone who seems, quote "suspicious." yesterday, i spoke with kim parker, pew's director of social trends research and a co-author of the report. the survey revealed about 86% of officers said, they found their job harder, policing harder because of, quote, fatal encounters between police and blacks. how did that jibe with how the public felt about it? >> well, we did ask the public whether they thought policing was more dangerous now than it was say five years ago.
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and a majority of the public did say that policing is more dangerous now. but speaking of the police in public when they asked the police whether they think the public really understands the risks and challenges, the majority of officers feel misunderstood by the public. >> iphone came out ten years ago. a lot of people in the public say hey we're just seeing what's going on in the public, the relationship with the police this tense relationship. was there any sort of acknowledgment of the nooucial issues that may be at play with police officers? >> we asked them how they feel about the citizens they police in a general sense, and most say they feel the citizens believe, but when we ask them about specific minority groups in their communities we did find that police say there are varying degrees of good relations whites blacks and hispanics. police say relations with whites
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are generally good, they have less positive view of relations with blacks and hispanics. >> nine out of ten police officers say they worry about their safety, why do they not feel safe? >> they have a concern about their safety on a pretty regular basis. during the summer during the time that the dallas and baton rouge incidents took place, we were able to talk to officers before and after to see if there was some registration whether they felts less safe and there was a high registration of feeling unsafe, it couldn't go any higher. >> stewart: police have a nuance ed view of their role, what are those nuance he? >> large majorities ever police officers say they have been thanked by a community member for their service in the past month but almost as many say they have been verbally abused by a community member in the past month. which isn't surprising, given
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the range of activities they have been asked to participate in,. >> stewart: one thing interesting in the report, there were many interesting in the report, that black officers and white officers definitely had a different view about policing in 2014, 15, 16, 17. >> one example of that gap is we asked officers when you think about these fatal encounters that have taken place in recent years do you think those are isolated incidents, the majority of white officers said these are isolated incidents but black officers were likely to say these are signs of a broader problem, not just isolated incidents. when we asked about race relations in the country, white officers have said 92% that majority have made adjustments but only a small minority of black officers have made that
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same this is pbs newshour weekend sunday. >> stewart: secretary of state john kerry and delegates from more than 70 other countries are sending a message on middle east peace. meeting today in paris, the diplomats urged israelis and the palestinians-- neither of whom were attending-- to restate their commitment to a "two state solution"-- meaning an independent palestinian state alongside israel. france's president warned president-elect trump that his proposal to move the american embassy in israel from tel aviv to jerusalem could derail peace efforts. >> it is necessary that the international community seriously thinks of the best way to accompany the two-state solution, and i assure here that this solution is the only possible one for peace and security. >> stewart: in israel, prime minister netanyahu called the paris meeting "futile." >> its purpose is to enforce on
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israel conditions that are not in line with our national needs. i must say this conference is one of the last gasps for breath from yesterday's world. tomorrow will look different and tomorrow is very near. >> stewart: in iraq, government troops say they've taken control of a district near the airport in mosul, iraq's second largest city and the last "isis" stronghold in the country. today troops also liberated mosul university, clearing the campus of bombs isis left behind. one iraqi officer said the militants had used university labs to build them. iraqi troops-- backed by u.s. airpower-- are nearing total control of mosul east of the tigris river and now control three of the city's five bridges. the united nations estimates 140,000 mosul residents have fled the city and its surrounding areas since the offensive to retake mosul began three months ago. read about california's emergence from its five-year drought at www.pbs.org/newshour.
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>> stewart: finally, "the greatest show on earth" is coming to an end. after 146 years, the ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus will shut down in may. 500 employees will lose their jobs. ticket sales have declined for ten years and fell more sharply after the circus-- pressured by animal rights activists-- stopped using elephants last year. the elephants went to a wildlife preserve, and the circus says it will find homes for the rest of its animals. tomorrow on "the newshour," a georgia town comes to grips with its past, when black citizens were forced out. that's all for this edition of" pbs newshour weekend." i'm alison stewart. good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made
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possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust-- supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.
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>> if i had a secret as to how you could stop yourself from aging badly and actually turn the clock around and feel younger, wouldn't you like to know it? i'm miranda esmonde-white, and i'm going to share that secret with you today. >> miranda esmonde-white is host of the long-running public television fitness show "classical stretch" and author of the book "aging backwards." miranda has been training professional athletes since creating her own fitness technique 15 years ago. >> as i've aged, and i'm now 78, my body feels like i'm, i don't know, 60. >> people are always commenting on how fit i look, and i say,
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