from washington, the mclaughlin group. the american original. for over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. >> issue one, phillip seymour hoffman,r.i.p. >> hollywood and the world lost an actor genius this past sunday. phillip seymour hoffman, age 46. he died of an apparent drug overdose. police found mr. hoffman on the floor of his apartment in new york city with a needle in his arm. some of those bags have tested positive for heroin. hoffman was an admitted drug

addict. he told cbs 60 minutes eight years ago that he had been hooked on drugs by the age of 22. >> anything i could get my hands on, yeah, i liked it all. yeah. >> and why did you decide to stop? >> you get panicked. you get panicked. i was 22 and i got panicked for my life. >> hoffman did stop for more than two decades. last year he checked himself into rehab to no avail, unfortunately. at the time of his death, hoffman had appeared in more than 50 films. was a four-time academy award nominee and won the best actor oscar. >> you have decided on a title for my book. i think you'll like it. it's masculine. in cold blood. >> mr. hoffman was also nominated for three tony awards. live theater acting. and on wednesday night, the

lights of broadway were dimmed in his honor. >> question, just six years ago, the australian actor, heath ledger, died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. is this a particular risk of the creative class? can you speak to that, pat buchanan? >> first, mr. phillip seymour, hoffman did a great job. what he did when he took this heroin is fund mentally, he was committing suicide. he was taking an incredible risk with his life, which he knew all about, yet he went ahead and did it. to your point, it's a particular temptation of musicians and creative folks and drugs have always been, and folks who have a lot of discretional capital and greater access to drugs and that's been very true in this community, you know, and i think it's due to the fact that

they have unfulfilled lives for some reason or other to pour these drugs into their system and risk their lives for a high. >> do you remember heath ledger? >> yeah, the joker in batman, i believe. with the same way. listen, i've had friends, one of them in journalism who died after doing drugs. >> what is it about the creative personality, eleanor? >> i think we hear about these overdoses from people who are famous, but there are countless people every day who are dying from heroin overdoses in this country. in reading up on this issue, just google heroin epidemic and stories will come up and duluth, minnesota, in rhode island, and certainly the governor of vermont devoted his whole state of the state address to heroin usage in vermont. who would have thought this idyllic state would be coming to this. the gateway is not marijuana.

the gateway is prescription drugs. the growth of prescription drugs, painkillers, oxycontin, apparently pave the way for the desire to have a greater high and heroin is excite accessible. in some ways, it's more accessible to marijuana, where on the right path with marijuana, decriminalizing it, making it legal, regulating it. we have to treat heroin addiction as an illness. a relapsing illness. not a moral failing. >> there were a couple notes on it. in the 18th century. samuel taylor frequently used lodinum. said to have come up with many lines of poetry in his induced state. >> drugs are not new. there was also cocaine in coca- cola. tobacco is a drug that people were worried about hundreds of years ago. hashish -- >> it lasted for years and years and years. >> but what eleanor is saying

about the prescription drug connection is interesting. there's so many people getting prescription drugs and people are getting hooked on them, especially the painkillers, and then they are looking for an easier way to continue with the high, especially if they can't continue getting these prescriptions from the doctors. and then you have heroin as the outlet and it's available more than it was, you know, ten years ago. i read one study that said the usage of heroin doubled in something like eight years. that's an incredible number. >> amy winehouse died in 2011 from alcohol poisoning. they tried to make me go to rehab, remember? i said no, no, no. >> she was also an iv drug user. >> phillip seymour hoffman was an alcoholic before he became a drug addict. he clearly had an addictive sensibility. >> and he had trouble with prescription drugs. >> let's talk about this. the heroin scourge. >> heroin is an illegal and

highly addictive opiate that is derived from morphine, a substance derived from certain coffee plants. heroin is usually sold as a powder that users can snort or convert into an injectable fluid. hoffman threw in a mix, making a potent drug more potent. asian countries, particularly afghanistan and latin american countries, particularly mexico and columbia are major suppliers to the u.s. heroin is not as eubiqutis as others, like marijuana, but heroin use is on the rise. two years ago, the number of americans who admitted to using heroin was 669,000. nearly double the admitted users from five years earlier. death from heroin overdose are also up from 1,879 deaths in

2004 to 3,038 deaths in 2010. demographically, there's no typical heroin user. the drug kills rich and poor alike. whites and blacks. in the suburbs as well as in the city. case in point, the state of vermont, the green mountain state, where officials say there has been a rise in opiate based drug abuse over the past 14 years. 800%. vermont's governor devoted his entire state of the state address to this bane. >> it doesn't affect just one class of people. it affects rich and poor. it knows no party lines. it knows no economic lines. >> what accounts for the surge in heroin use in the u.s., eleanor? >> i think as we mentioned, the widespread use of prescription drugs kind of introduces people to this high, if you will, and then they wanted easier access to it.

i read through the governor's speech. he is asking for more money for treatment centers. they have waiting lists and then evidently, there's something called narcan, which is available over the counter in the drugstores, but only some states allow it. walgreen's sells it. it counters the addictive urges. and in rhode island, something called a good samaritan law. if you call for help when you or someone else is having a drug problem, they don't prosecute you for a felony. treating it like an illness is how we have to start treating it. >> there's a social and cultural and moral acceptance to the use of drugs that did not exist when you and i were growing up. when there's enormous recoil, robert was caught using marijuana and almost driven out of hollywood. now it is much more acceptable. more people use it. as you yourself said, this isn't a moral issue at all. to an awful lot of people it is

and one of the problems is, it has been demoralized. >> especially, we will start legalizing marijuana use in two states and i think that's a good point pat is making, but if it is an illness, the sad thing is, it's an incurable illness. once you're addicted, you may find a way to stop using for a while, but you are always considered an addict. and phillip seymour hoffman was on and off for sure. >> you have to deal with it. there is a potential to relapse. but to pass judgment on people isn't going to cure the addiction. you have to treat it. >> he left three little kids who don't have a father now and left his partner's wife and just to indulge himself. there is a moral component here. >> i wouldn't say he indulged. i wouldn't think he would be patting himself on the back. >> what he did was wrong. >> what he did was wrong, yes. we have to deal with it. he has to deal with it as an

illness. he went for treatment, you know, you can't just condemn people and then punish -- the punishment doesn't work. >> you seem to be the authority on this subject. is there anything else you want to tell us? >> it's called googling, john. >> there has to be an incentive to not start in the first place. >> troops coming home from afghanistan and drug consumption. what is it? >> well, drugs were so readily and widely available in afghanistan. well, they grew it. every kind of drug. and they were, shall we say, importers, exporters, producers, ewe name it. when we were there, a lot of people in that kind of environment began to have recourse to it. but i don't think that's -- i think what eleanor is saying is right on the mark. somehow or other, this has become much more widely resorted to and used in

american, particularly among high school students. that's where it's really dangerous. >> you think the white house is behind the 8 ball on this subject? >> no, i don't think -- look, there's very little that our public authorities can do about it. we have to find some way to change -- >> the war against drugs, which depended a lot on morality and will power has failed. now we have to approach it from a different angle. >> have to stop it at a younger age. discourage young people. >> save some people from taking heroin. it ain't going to save them all, i agree. >> you will not know this, but the u.n. has been sounding the alarm about increased opiate production in afghanistan, but the white house did not connect the dots. >> forget the u.n. everybody knows, frankly, you know who finished off the drug business in afghanistan? the taliban outlawed it and burned up all those fields and

everything. now they are back. >> the population, and they decided now they embraced the poppy fields. >> don't forget the mclaughlin has its own website. on the web at any time from anywhere in the world at mclaughlin.com. issue two, delegitimizing israel. >> secretary of state, john kerry, is concerned israel may be boycotted if israel fails to settle its differences with the palestinians. here's what the secretary said one week ago that created a fire storm of sorts. quote, everywhere i go in the world, wherever i go, i promise you, no exaggeration, the far east, africa, latin america, one of the first questions out of the mouths of a foreign minister or prime minister or a president is, can't you guys do something to help bring an end to this conflict between palestinians and isrealis? and you see for israel, there's an increasing delegitimizing campaign that has been building up. people are sensitive to it. there are talks of boycotts and other kinds of things. are we all going to be better

with all of that going on? unquote. >> secretary kerry was clear that any potential boycott of israel would not be by the u.s. but by other countries worldwide. his mention of possible boycotts did not sit well with isreali officials and then some, quote. offensive, unfair, and insufficientable, end quote. that's how israel responded, adding quote, you can't expect the state of israel to conduct negotiations with a gun pointed to his head, unquote. the minister of economics, responded this way to kerry and the boycott possibility, quote, we expect our friends around the world to stand beside us, against antisemitic -- and not for thembe their amplifier, unquote. isreali communications minister

said that kerry as the unbiased intermediary should remind the palestinians about the cost of -- and denying the existence of a jewish state. it would be expected from someone who is supposed to be a fair and objective intermediary to also tell the palestinian side about the price they will have to pay over their stubborn refusal to their own nation state, unquote. as for israel prime minister, he refrained from addressing mr. kerry directly. he did call any attempts to boycott israel immoral and unjust. as for kerry's response, here's his state department's diplomatic response. quote, secretary kerry has a proud record of over three decades of steadfast support for israel security and well being, including staunch opposition to boycott. he does expect the parties and

whether they are for or against his efforts or any efforts at all will not distort his facts or his record, unquote. >> question, was this line of reasoning original to secretary kerry or did he pick up the idea about possible isreali boycott from somebody else? mort. >> this effort to boycott israel have been around for a long time, and it came up in a way that the isrealis responded to it, they thought he was giving it more authority and more currency in that part of the world at this time. and they are very sensitive to this, because they don't feel it's fair. both, when hillary clinton was secretary of state and when john kerry was secretary of state, the isrealis privately made a real effort to accommodate to the nested of the palestinians and they have been unsuccessful in getting the palestinians to deal with the isrealis, which the united states would support. so this came about, frankly,

out of left field as far as the isrealis were concerned and they reacted. >> hold on. hold on. did this come out of left field because two weeks ago at the annual gathering of the world business and policy in switzerland and isreali executive, gera, floated the same warning. >> don't get me wrong. i don't think that this kind of a dialogue going back and forth between the isrealis and the americans or frankly between the american secretary of state and the palestinians is constructive. i just don't think it is. the isrealis are perfectly aware of what the dangers are of the boycott. what this does, it gives the people engaging in the boycott a certain kind of energy because they think boy, if we have the secretary of state calling a warning on this, it must be working on some level. >> i don't think kerry was malicious in any way, but there is a bds missouri, the boycott, this investment, sanctions movement against israel. it is picking up speed in the united states.

in elements of the academic community, you have this scarlett johansson who resigned to maintain her position on soda stream, which is a facility on the west bank, which is isrealis and palestinians all work at, but this movement is building and they overreacted, the isrealis did, and they hammered kerry when he was not being malicious. look, we have to get this solved or this whole movement is going to pick up speed. he is telling the truth. >> there is some momentum here and you have the european union not doing business with businesses that originate in the west bank from settler communities. now, i think kerry was just trying to introduce a measure of reality here. the u.s. does not support this boycott, but it is out there and europe apparently -- >> this is what i have. she's the vice chairman of rosschild israel, along with

other businessmen. gera went for the express purpose to draw attention to the proposition that israel should cut a deal now or risk facing international boycotts. >> i happen to agree that israel, no, i don't know her. israel should cut a deal now and i can tell you they have been trying to cut a deal. there's no question about that, and i'm quite familiar with some of the negotiations. it is a very difficult, very difficult environment in which the isrealis can cut this deal with the palestinians. the palestinians have weak leadership under these circumstances. there's no major leader who can speak for them and make a tough decisions. the isrealis made difficult, take an unbelievably difficult steps to reach a deal. u.s. secretary of state for european and affairs, victoria newlin and the u.s. ambassador to the nation of ukraine, a phone call surfaced between the two. what is the gist of this

unfolding pinstripe suit embarrassment? susan. >> it is eves dropping, i believe, by president putin and it is a recording of a conversation between two u.s. officials that putin is hoping will up end a potential settlement deal in the very unstable situation in the ukraine that putin doesn't like. so, he recorded the two talking and what they said that could up end the deal in his mind was that something very disparaging about the european union because they don't like the stance the european union has taken with the ukraine. they think it's too soft of a stance. they want the u.n. to come in and help put a deal together that would weaken the current president who works closely with putin. so he is hoping to just throw cold water on this deal by revealing what the u.s. officials were saying about the european union. now, newlin has apologized and now putin is holding back on the money he promised ukraine until he finds out whether this deal will go through or not.

>> putin's objection is the united states, a, interfering in the internal affairs, they were reportedly talking about the new government that is going to come in so i can't blame the russians for being upset about it or for leaking it and third, john, they cut off, apparently or suspended 3 billion. this is a very serious, sensitive matter, which the united states should stay out of as it is between the eu and russian union. >> the cards are on the table now. we know what they want and it is a serious situation in the ukraine. it's also part leading up to sochi with putin under a lot of pressure and showing the u.s. that he has some, you know, aces in his hand as well. >> he has an nsa, too. >> that's right. and all of the warnings to people going to sochi don't bring any valuable information. buy a cell phone and throw it away. i mean, evidently they have some pretty good spying

techniques and newland was great the way she handled it. >> she was very -- speaking about the eu. >> wait a second. she commended the word and said, the eu. issue three, healthcare's new day. >> over the next ten years, some 2.5 million americans will either drop out of the work force or reduce the hours they work thanks to obama care. so says the nation's nonpartisan congressional budget office. the cbo's director testified before the house budget committee this week. >> what the affordable care act does is provide subsidies focused on lower, middle income people to buy health insurance. in order to encourage people to buy an expensive product, the subsidies are fairly large. those subsidies are withdrawn over time, for people as their

income rises. and by providing heavily subsidized health insurance for people with low income and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, the act creates a disincentive for people to work. >> many of these soon to be idled workers are currently working to keep their health coverage paid for by their employers. for others, the obama care subsidies mean workers don't need full-time jobs to get insurance. and for many, too much work will boost their income and ironically, make them ineligible for these newly expanded medicaid benefits and obama care subsidies. the price of enrolling on an exchange. republicans seized on the projections as fresh evidence that the well intention of affordable care act will become a drag on the economy. the white house press secretary, the now beardless jay carney put a dreamy spin on the finding. quote, at the beginning of this

year, we noted that as part of this new day in healthcare, americans were no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. the cbo report lays that out and the republican plan would strip those americans of the opportunity. >> question, is president obama transforming the concept of america? namely, the land of opportunity, a place where hard work pays off to one where opportunity means you can have the benefits with no work. susan. >> the cbo spelled it out in plain english. he said the law disincentivizes work. they will work from full-time status to part-time status and connected that with a slower growing economy. it is layed out there in plain english. the democrats are arguing that this is a good thing because it

is people should have a choice. i mean, the majority whip and the senate told me that this is a great thing because you really can't put a price on freedom. so their argument is, that justifies the subsidies and justifies the up ending of the economy. but of course, we all have to pay for that and it certainly disinsent incentivizes. that means you'll need more from the government in order to just survive. even if they are giving you your healthcare, how are you going to pay your rent and buy your groceries on part-time work? >> 2.5 million people from the workplace mean for gdp? does that mean our economy will be affected? >> they are a part of a huge number of people who are working part-time. according to the bureau of labor statistics is 28 million people today, which is a record number. this is a very dangerous trend in the american work force and in the american economy.

these people cannot afford to maintain a standard of living. national incomes are going down. national expenditures are going down. part-time jobs are not the way americans can support their families. so this is a very dangerous trend in the american economy, which is emerged in the last four or five years to a degree we have never had it before. >> the report says they did not find any uptick in part-time jobs. but the headlines that came out of the report were this loss of 2 1/2 million jobs and these headlines are a gift to the republican party who will use them in attack ads. but on reflection, a number of newspapers, retracted those headlines. this is people choosing to work fewer hours, not staying locked into jobs simply because they have to get healthcare insurance and as the white house, economic adviser put it, if you want more people in the work force, do away with medicare. you'll have people at 95 years

old working. this is an ending job block and other people will fill those jobs. >> republican party, over enrich the welfare state, it will become a disincentive for work and people will drop out and live on the welfare and that is precise argument that the cbo has reenforced. >> predictions, pat. >> syrian peace talks are dead and the isreali peace talks are impaired. >> alaska is on track to being the third state to legalize recreational marijuana. >> susan. >> immigration reform will lie in a dormant state for several months. >> mort. >> the trend towards part-time employment instead of full-time employment is accelerating and one of the most dangerous things facing the united states economy. >> i predict a new poll first ladies soon to be released ranking the top ten first ladies in our nation's 238 year history, that's right, isn't it, pat?

>> that's roughly correct. >> that top ten will include michelle obama. bye bye.

next on kqed "newsroom," more than 200 flu deaths in california, and counting. >> nice and relax for me. >> why is this year's outbreak worse than others? san jose state university grapples with race-related harassment. the search for solutions now under way. and one san francisco doctor's experience treating kids coping with the stress of urban life. >> folks who are exposed to adversity in childhood have increased risk of chronic disease in adulthood.