feeling and could well feel for years to come. sounds good, right? now here's the catch. it puts the u.s. and u.s. taxpayers even further on the hook for a financial system that is entirely secretive and is costing us trillions of dollars and doesn't invest or lend into our nation. meanwhile, it does nothing to reverse that very extraction of money that is depriving western europe and america of jobs and prosperity. these techniques of money printing and can-kicking are an eerie reminder of something that i write about in "greedy bastards," the book that comes out next year. in the 1930s economic policies driven by none other than money printing and extraction during the depression led to massive unemployment, hyperinflation and huge income inequality. these social divisions in western europe first triggered

racism and nationalism, unemployment, particularly high unemployment with a wealthy few. it never goes over well, and it ultimately paved the way for world war ii. back then, the central banks stepped in after the fall. it was only after hitler was defeated that central bankers agreed to restructure debt globally. they were a decade too late. i'm not saying that the banking crisis was the only cause of world war ii, but i am saying that the economic policies that deprived the citizens of the west of work do lead to more social fear and violence and the policies we are seeing today are eerily familiar to those we saw so long ago. you may be thinking, great. this time they are ahead. they are getting ahead of the problems, responding to social anxiety early. well, the reality is the banks are only allowing more bad betting, drawing more capital out of our future with no

long-term meaningful solutions to drive investment or lending in the west. maybe that's why as bankers celebrate there are millions of angry demonstrations in the streets across the world. to help us make sense of all of this, martin bashir is working late and tracy calloway, a financial market report are for "the financial times." great to have you here, martin, as always. >> thank you. >> am i pushing too far to suggest that the social anxieties that we are seeing rising and that the tribalism that we are seeing rising is eerily similar? >> reminiscent. i've read your book, you know that, because you asked me to read it, and when i woke up this morning and i heard about thousands of people on the streets of london, public sector workers, today over 70% of public schools are closed. much of the transportation system in great britain is closed, and that's because

people are reacting on the streets to fiscal measures that have occurred. now today here i've just had a broadcast where we've all been cheering the rise of the dow, and everyone is talking about this as if it's brilliant, but i was reminded of something, a book written by professor tony jarrett, a professor at new york university who died last year, a brilliant man. he said in europe and the middle east and southeast asia, the years between 1931 and '45 saw occupation, destruction, ethnic cleansing, torture, wars of extermination and deliberate genocide, and here's the kicker, much of it prompted by an economic crisis. when i read your book, and you refer, of course, to the pre-second world war period, there is something reminiscent today about what happened then. i don't think it is an exaggeration. >> tracy, when you look at the nature of the debate around the banking system and the capital markets, how much of that debate

goes to restoring capital flows into nation states that will drive lending, drive investment, drive development, and how many of that debate goes to simply preserve the computerized architecture that was built over the past ten years, regardless of whether there's any lending or investment? >> mm-hmm. well, i think that's a fair question. the problem that central banks face at the moment is they really don't have any easy solutions. what you're facing at the moment is not just a liquidity crisis, but it's -- it's really about insolvency. there are no easy solutions to insolvency. you mentioned the 1930s just now. you know, what happened in the 1930s was ultimately a world war. that's how the financial system got hoisted out of that particular episode. now central banks can do all they can to send a message to the markets that they are there to help the banks, but they don't have the answers to the fundamental, extension questions

that banks are facing at the moment, and that's how do they obtain financing? how do they raise new capital, and how do they do it in markets that have really lost trust in the business model? >> and that real issue is the insolvency which is what we saw in the '30s. you saw the insolvency effectively of germany and their ability to pay back the reparations from world war i, exacerbated by the depression and all of that. the clear solution to insolvency was propose in the marshall plan which was a restructuring of the global debt, a forbearance for germany on their debts, a forbearance for japan on their debts. those were our enemies, by the way. >> indeed. >> it's interesting to hear all of this about i don't know what to do when it's very clear what to do which is you must restructure the debt if you are going to move forward. >> but here's the problem, dylan. what tracy was describing are the internal economic conflicts that are occurring, but there are very real social implications to what's happening. in france at the moment, the

leader in the race to be the next president of france is actually an extreme right winger, the daughter of jean marie le pen who is a racist. there's been a rise in germany of attacks on turkish immigrants. in britain, local elections, which 20 years ago never returned a racist member of the british national party. there are now four or five counselors. what i'm saying is that there is a resonance about this attempt to salvage the economy without due reference to the fact that there are very real social implications. we've had riots in rome. we've had the people on the streets in greece. today there are -- there is in effect a national strike in the united kingdom. those are the implications that i'm suggesting to you resonate with what happened before the second world war. >> and i couldn't agree more, exactly my primary anxiety in watching our unwillingness to engage the insolvency issue instead of pretending it doesn't

exist, as pretending insolvency doesn't exist only makes the social problems that martin referred to worse. do you get the sense that any of the central banks of the world or for that matter the finance ministers, or for that matter, prime ministers and presidents, are viewing the economic crisis through the lens that martin is suggesting and in fact may even be catalizing some of their short-term behavior like the swap lines that they opened up to try to relieve some of the social pressure? >> oh, look, i think central banks and politicians especially are very aware of some of the social consequences of the financial crisis, and the massive episode of de-leveraging that we're going through right now. the problem is that they don't really have any easy solutions to it. the difficulty is the answer to having built up all this debt over the past 10 or 20 years is to get rid of it and de-leverage, but the only way to do that really is through some very, very tough austerity, and it's a lot to ask of people. it's a lot to ask of nations as

they go through these austerity measures. >> and i would even disagree with you in that because the debt is so large, i don't know that there's any amount of taxation or austerity that will resolve, it much as it was going into world war ii, which is why i continue to come back to my call, and i'm not the only one, the ceo of dow chemical, i can start listing people, who are calling for a third marshall plan. the difficulty that tracy keeps referring to, however, is the fact that one -- is that each country has a different point of view and each institution has a different point of view as to what their responsibilities and obligations in a debt restructuring would be, so instead of dealing with the powerful interests that you would have to deal with to restructure the debt, they would rather deal with the powerless interests of the unemployed and the -- and the people that don't buy politicians because they don't have any money. either way, somebody has to deal with it, and the one group is -- >> that's why tracy said politicians and economists are conscious of the social implications and i'd have to

challenge that for this simple reason. when you impose the austerity measures, the underclass, many of them, start react iing conversely and one of those groups is the immigrants and people get blamed for nothing they had anything to do with. they arrived in the countries to find a job, to assist in some way, to carry out menial low-wage jobs and what you're seeing is that social declention and tension and that's why this is serious. >> i'll leave it on that note. thanks so much for your time today. martin, this may be the most significant conversation that we will have in this country over the next five years because -- because people have looked at the financial issues as economic ones, but when you look at the history of the world and you look at the demand to restructure debt, instead of pretending we don't have to

restructure debt, it would seem absurd. >> i want to spare your blushes, but i know you're a most man, but it was your book that made me think that actually the implications are so much more serious socially and in terms we haven't considered yet. >> well, listen, i appreciate, that and i -- that's why i wrote the book so -- so at least it worked. >> it did. thank you, martin. coming up here on an action-packed "d.r. show," a sign that even president obama's senate loyalists may be turning on him. plus, why the 1% may not have it all. the author of the new book "lonely at the top"ed a modern day medicine men. the stars of a new controversial television show that has up. >> reporter: dog singing its praises called "weed wars." ♪

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this cannot be about who wins and loses in washington. this is about delivering a win for the american people. >> president obama in battleground pennsylvania today pushing his payroll tax deduction plan. it would only extend the current 2% cut and increase it to 3.5% next year. what american family couldn't use an extra $1,500, not bad, but does the payroll deduction matter if you're not on a payroll and there's not investment to create that thing? the question brings us to the mega panel today. imogen lloyd weber, jonathan capehart and john, you're nodding. >> it's just four corners.

i mean, for the politics of it, it worked pretty well for president obama, but the real question is we need unemployment insurance and we need more stimulus, and it's not going to happen, and so he's using this from a -- to get some political leverage and, good for him. it -- it may have -- >> but it's -- it's politics. it's not policy in the sense of a country that needs 30 million jobs needs a -- a comprehensive look at the way that's done and this is not going to be that done. >> this is not going to hurt, but it's not going to help. >> this is the indictment of the nature of the whole political debate. >> it's another drop in the ocean and it's going back to your book today. it's absolutely terrifying what's going on in you're. "ft" was reporting how subdued obama was with the meeting after the euro leaders earlier on this week. america is facing a massive problem next year because of actually what's going on in europe, so, yes, payroll tax great, drop in the ocean, $1,500. banks may well be failing. >> go ahead, jonathan.

>> hi, imogen. the reason why it's a drop in the ocean is because when the president has tried to do big things things don't get done here. republicans have made it clear for three years they want to stand in the way of this president trying to do anything big. might i remind everyone about the hell we all went through with the health care law, so if the president has been whittled down to trying to get a payroll tax deduction or the next battle will be the extension of unemployment insurance as sam mentioned, you know, more power to the president for trying to do something when millions of people are hurting. >> well, i mean, there's also money left over in t.a.r.p. that could go to paying down some people's mortgages. there's more we can do without -- without the help of the republicans, but, yes, the republicans are going to obstruct. >> but let's go beyond -- again, for me, the only thing in my house in the 1800s is nothing so why i have two political parties is beyond me. once i start using a butter

churn i'll use two political parties. at the end of the day we're not looking at a political construct that's acknowledging the scale of the problem. we need 30 million jobs and you can't create that with a stimulus or tax cut or anything else. have you to create the 30 million jobs through eco-systems, tax policies, there are lists of things that you might like, but 30 million jobs, that's a different debate that neither, none of these people are prepared to have. >> it has to be a global solution now. it can't just be an american solution. that is the fundamental problem. and i'm slightly wondering now, great crisis, does that mean, therefore, a great opportunity. next year we are going to hit rock bottom so at that moment maybe leaders will suddenly appear and we'll looking at the new churchills and thatchers to rebuild our nation. >> and that's the hope that all of us share at this point because we can see the dysfunction and the distress. we talked about the conversation we had with martin at the beginning of the show and a social dysfunction that comes to an eerie familiarity that we saw in the 1930s in terms of tribalism, nationalism,

hyperinflation, money-printing and ultimately policies that do not create work, and if you don't create work, it's fertile ground for all sorts of all of, all of, all of things. i want to move to a different subject that may or may not be more or less inspiring than the last one. the senate voted to keep a controversial provision. in a nutshell it expands/validates the u.s. government's power to detain terrorists as determined by them, so if they decide you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist. if they decide i'm a terrorist because i do say mean things about them, what could they do to me? >> if the senate has their way, the military can bring you down to guantanamo. >> no trial? >> well, the -- the finding is that you're a terrorist at that point so you can be detained as long as possible because then you're an enemy combatant. i mean, this is the problem,

but, you know, the argument was basically between either the military can bring you down to guantanamo, or the president has the ability to deal with you without the military. >> let's just back this up. >> we have a real civil liberties crisis. >> let's just back up a little bit from that. we have two basic frameworks of law in america. >> mm-hmm, right? >> we have civil law, and we have military law, and those two procedures are very well establish. they have been fully vetted, and we've been dealing with this third class of justice this, third class of judicial system, jonathan, going back to 9/11. we were told that this third class of justice where the president or whoever it is gets to decide or the pentagon, decides who is a terrorist and do whatever they want was a temporary thing in the context of 9/11. we're going into 2012 and here we are talking about our government's ability to operate outside the boundaries of both civil or military law. >> right, because what we're dealing with is an enemy who is

attacking or attacking our national sovereignty or trying to attack our liberties and freedom, an enemy not confined within a border or a country. they are spread out over lots of countries. >> hold on, hold on. >> i'm not done yet. >> i want -- you're saying the reason it's okay to put people in jail without trials is because of the enemy? >> no, i didn't say that's okay. i'm just -- did. >> you're saying that's the rationale. >> yes, that's the rationale, but down in guantanamo bay, while they might not have all of the u.s. constitution al rights available to them. there is a whole military commission and military tribunals system there where the executive is not all powerful in this instance, right? there is some check. >> i -- fundamentally america is a great country because it believes in freedom, equality and liberty for all. the arab spring -- >> you use that as a marketing scheme. >> the arab spring was all about that. the arab spring has done very

well in helping defuse the narrative of radical islam. by doing this, this sort of thing, you're making a mockery of american justice. you're therefore giving and handing to america's enemies the radical pr card. why hand them that pr card? you are above that. you are america, the greatest country in the world. you do not need to same at the play at same level of depths of these countries that bring out these red calls. >> imogen is right. >> and it's also a slippery slope in terms of civil liberties in this country. we now have an executive who claims the authority to essentially unilaterally decide who can be assassinated, even if they are an american citizen, and so, i mean, this is problematic, you know. yesterday it was because this person was saying stuff on youtube and it's supposedly operational, but we have no way of determining whether or not -- >> there's no vetting process, no trial. >> no oversight. >> no investigation, no way for me to vig out whether -- >> there may be, but we're not allowed to know about it.

>> i was going to say. there is a trial, if you will -- >> there is no trial. >> i said, a trial, if you will, but the evidence -- no one will be able to see it. it's not -- it's not public because a lot of it is declared classified. >> there's no trial, no? >> sounds like a kangaroo court. >> there's a determination made by one individual so there is no trial. by definition there is no trial. that person has no representation. that person has no ability to offer any evidence. >> i got it. >> in his defense. >> let's back up a little bit because it's clear that this is remarkably offensive to the sensibilities of everyone involved, okay? the question is what are the politics and what possibly -- what could be the possible explanation for american politicians wanting to prosecute a policy like this knowing that the response to that policy, i believe, and if you look at the data and the polling and all the rest of it skews more towards the point of view that you hear on this desk but for the fearmongering of what about the boogie man and if you don't give us these powers we can't get the

boogie man, is that fair? >> you just answered your question. >> the boogie man wins by doing all of this, by bypassing justice. and it's -- it's just incredibly sad. i don't understand it. >> sam? >> well, i mean, i don't know if the american -- >> what are the politics? >> i don't know what the american public is really paying that much attention so i think for cowardly politicians it's much easier to say there's the boogie man, and, you know -- >> and we're going to get him. >> at any cost. >> there's no reason why we shouldn't be trying terrorists in new york city. this idea they have x-ray eyes and they are going to, you know, burn a hole in some -- it's ridiculous, but the politicians were very cowardly, both in the house and in the senate. >> yeah. >> all right. listen, the panel stays after this. the high price of riches and fame. why it is lonely for america's most successful men after this. [ groans ] [ marge ] psst. constipated? phillips' caplets use magnesium,

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mr. scrooge. >> i have no christmas, sir. >> why are you leaving so earl sme. >> because it keeps man from doing business. >> the grasshoppers sin and play. >> it is what it is and grass hopper is what it is and christmas is humbug. good day. >> like ebenezer scrooge many people find themselves spending time with family and friends for pursuit of success and power but unlike mr. scrooge no one has the ghost of christmas past, present or future to turn our lives around. the latest numbers from the national institute of mental health show more than 6 million men have depression each year, most of it at the height of their professional careers, and according to our next guest male loneliness leads to alcohol problems, divorce, deep depression and even suicide. however, our specialist, thomas joyner, a brief sore of psychology at florida state university, joins us today with

some tips on how to cure these very problems. he's the author of "lonely at the top, the high cost of men's success." so the problem seems fairly well defined. how do you even begin to address it? >> well, it's very well defined, and as you reference it's very prevalent. the surveys indicate one out of three, maybe even more men, and also women, are experiencing profound loneliness. that's a bad news, and to further the bad news it can prove quite lethal, as you also alluded to. the good news though is that it turns around. it's responsive to very, very simple things. the book's mantra is to fix this you need to have a attitude thatncludes the i, rea joining in the social activities. these can be really minor. they don't have to be major things, but if you do them day after day after day, you get a bit of a positive snowball

effect and the trend to accelerating loneliness can turn around to instead being accelerating social connection, the social connections with just crucial in late life. they are more valuable than money. they are more valuable as status. as important as those two things, are social connections in late life are even more valuable. >> yeah. i mean, i -- i'm a little bit skeptical only in the sense that you seem to me to be champagne problems. i mean, i imagine if you're not on top and you're struggling to -- to deal with -- making money for your family, it's going to be that much harder, but don't we have a societal problem in terms of just how much we are focused on money as a value? >> absolutely. throughout society. it's not just a champagne problem. it's not just 1%. it's pervasive across socioeconomic classes, across ethnicities. male loneliness is a killer, and it really doesn't care how much money you have, how much status

you have but the tie to wealth and status is northern because there's a lot of men who sacrifice relationships because they are striving for wealth and status. my point of the book is that, yeah, wealth and status are important. make no doubt. there's no doubt about that, but social connection is even more important form of wealth than it wealth itself. >> imogen? >> winston churchill was born today in 1874, and he always talked very much about his black dog, and some people have actually said maybe that's one of the reasons why he was such a great man. is he maybe your prime example of a man who drank a little bit too much but yet succeeded throughout that loneliness in. >> absolutely. i mean, there are people who are pre-disposed to be temperamentally a little bit down, a little bit sad, a little bit lonely, but you can take simple steps that offset the risks that those pre-dispositions present, and these kinds of things i'm talking about are really just calling somebody chat every day, a family member,

a friend from back in the day, just simple things like that. if you take the attitude that you have to have that as part of your daily life, just like you take a blood pressure medicine or a cholesterol medicine every day, so should you take this medicine and social connection every day, that there's evidence that loneliness kills people more swiftly and more surely, even more than smoking. that's an incredible statement. people should stop smoking, no doubt about that, but they should get less lonely. >> i was just going to start smoking again, but if i -- i was going to start smoking again and get rid of my friends. a way far in there that doesn't make that much sense. jonathan, go ahead. >> you say connect with old buddies. call -- call an old friend a day and connect with nature, so it seems to me that what you're saying is get away from the

isolation that we've seemed to have gotten ourselves into, twitter and social media and get out there and talk to people face to face. would that help? >> absolutely. i don't think social media is bad thing, not by any stretch. >> okay. >> but if you rely on it solely, you know, instead of using it merely as a supplement to face-to-face daily contact, if you use it that way as a supplement, i think it's a terrific idea, much as are vitamins a great supplement for daily nutrition and daily meals, but if you try to live on vitamins alone, you're going to have a problem. similarly, my argument is if you try to live on facebook alone you'll have a problem because we didn't evolve to -- to interact with each other over a medium like facebook. we evolved social eye contact, social gaze, touch, those kinds of things. we need those inputs to thrive, both physically and mentally. >> how much of this dysfunction that you write about do you think is tied to the breakdown -- breakdown is the wrong word, is tied to the values that we promote in our

culture as to what it means to be happy? >> i think that's a huge part of it. i mean, we've overemphasized wealth and overemphasized status, and the trick, is those things are actually quite important. i strive for wealth. i strive for status. i -- i encourage everybody to do it. the -- the catch though is if you -- if you strive for those things, wealth and status and at the same time sacrifice social capital, you're making a grave error. the idea is to strive for all three because all three are vital forms of wealth, power, status, that we just need. the book is geared towards men, no doubt, but the same process applies to women, too. it applies across ethnicities. i wrote it for men because there's evidence that these processes affect them a little bit more than they do women, but they are very pervasive, and when they take root in somebody, the consequences can be very dire. >> i'm curious as to what extent actually getting involved in

community is also relevant, because it seems you're talking about personal relationships. >> i think any sort of connection to others, whether it be friends, whether it be family, whether it be community for those who are religious, religious institutions, any sort of connection to others has the potential not to -- not to totally cure problems like male depression or depression generally or loneliness, but what it has the potential to do is to spark our natural tendencies towards relating to one another. if we get those inputs and if we do other things, like quit smoking and be, you know, active enough and take care of diet, et cetera, then our natural tendency for most people will be towards help, both physical and mental, so community connection can -- can be vital just as connections to family, friends, reunions with friends from back in the day, et cetera. those are all really promising ways forward, and not that hard

to do. >> thomas, a pleasure. thanks for the type. tom, joyner, author of "lonely at the top," greetings and salutations to our mega panel. imogen, lovely in green today and jonathan, an absolute delight even though you were on remote. nice to have you with us. why the writing in our show may be a little less snappy tomorrow? an explanation of a rather dull staff tomorrow morning. [ male announcer ] pjs, non-slip slippers,

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well, it's beginning it look a lot like christmas here in new york, especially here at 30 rock which is all set for tonight's tree lighting, the 79th annual. it's a 47-foot norway spruce which came all the way from pennsylvania. it's adorned with 30,000 l.e.d. lights which will illuminate rockefeller plaza at the end of

tonight's big ceremony on nbc which features performances from justin bieber, cee lo green and the radio city music rockettes and we're luck they year to have a bird's eye view of the big show. this is what it looks like from "the d.r." office window. now our official tree lighting was yesterday. there's our tree, so as not to compete with tonight's big show, but we didn't stop there. even the printer got a holiday makeover, and we also brought in some delicious treats and beverages to enjoy while we wait for them to flip the switch on the big tree tonight. if only it was so easy to flip the switch on the american economy. don't you like how i can always find a way to get in there? next, speaking of interesting things on tv, reality television meets pot retail, a man who says his relationship with weed was love at first sight. ♪ just like me they long to be

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i have a very close personal relationship with the cannabis plant. for me, cannabis, it was love at first sight. i knew intuitively it wasn't an evil plant. it felt good. it felt right. >> illicit love, it's a beautiful thing.

you can call steve d'angelo a modern day medicine man working in the perilous gray area between federal law and state law. he and many others are part of the growing medical marijuana industry which is estimated to be worth nearly $2 billion just this year. along with his brother steve, he runs harborside health center in oakland. 94,000 registered patients this this business. they are the largest legal retailer of cannabis on the planet, and they are the subject of a controversial new reality show. joining us now, steve dang low, the executive director of the harborside health center and his brother andrew, harborside's general manager. they are two of the stars of discovery's newest shows, "weed wars," debuting tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. what message do you hope to carry? why would you do this show? obviously it creates a little -- a little more risk potentially for you. more people looking at you. why do this? >> we think the american people deserve to see for themselves

the world of medical cannabis, and i've always believed that if they had an opportunity to see my staff, our patients and how we handle the medicine that we would support what we're doing. >> there's a perception that this is a recreational drug that is being -- that people are trying to pass off as a medical thing and that that raises a certain amount of skepticism among a lot of folks. they say, listen, marijuana is a recreational drug. it is not a medical thing. how do you respond to that? >> well, i think when the audience tunes in to "we'd wars" on discovery channel, they are going to see a completely different impression. they are going to see people that are really sick. you can go on the discovery website right now and meet a couple dozen of our patients that are very, very sick and need this medicine. i've got glaucoma. i'm going to go blind, so there

are legitimate medical needs and people are just -- one of the reasons we did this show is to break that stigma. >> go ahead. >> yeah, exactly. you know, the reason that we did that show was to let americans see for themselves who are the people that are using medical cannabis and what are they using it for, and we invited discovery to come in and embed with us for a full year. they had an opportunity to film all of our patients, and you'll see a really great cross-section of exactly who is using cannabis, the reasons they are using it and what it does for them. >> am i being presumptuous in suggesting that you guys would be in favor of legalization? >> yes, you would. you know, i don't believe that any psychoactive substance should be used for recreation. if you want recreation, read a book, take a walk, play a game of basketball. i do believe that adult americans should be able to use cannabis for health and wellness purposes though. >> so you would -- you think that the recreational -- the legalization of marijuana as a recreational drug is a very different debate than the use of

marijuana as a medicine for specific treatment, is that correct? >> absolutely. >> and your goal is to draw the distinction between those who are suffering in the prohibition of recreational use that is preventing them from gaining legitimate access to the medicinal use. >> exactly. >> do i have it? >> we couldn't have said it better ourselves. >> i want to show everybody a little bit more of the show. take a look at this. >> california law says that there's a medical reason that people use marijuana. federal law says that marijuana is illegal at all times for all purposes. that's the conflict. federal law, as any first year law student knows, is supreme over state law. anybody that owns a commercial marijuana store in california would be the subject of a federal search warrant at any moment. >> what -- what ultimately -- in other words, are you trying to humanize this? what is it that you're trying to show? >> we're trying to show people

that cannabis can be distributed to patients who legitimately need it in a way that brings benefits to communities and not harms. in addition to helping our 94,000 patients, we've also created 80 well-paying jobs in the city of observe land and another 40 in the city of san jose, and last year we generated over $3 million in tax revenue, and we're one of oakland's top ten taxpayers so the benefits flow through the whole community. >> at the same time, how hats current administration been under president obama relative to helping to make that distinction or either encouraging the distinction between medical marijuana and -- and non-medical marijuana? >> well, you know, unfortunately, even though the president campaigned on a promise to respect state medical cannabis laws and even after shortly after taking office he issued a memo saying that they would respect that promise,

shortly after several states actually implemented laws to regulate cannabis, the justice department changed their mind, and now is saying that they are going to try and close down licensed regulated distribution of medical cannabis. >> they have an all-out war on us right now. we have treasury department, the irs, the justice department, even atf is sending letters to gun dealers saying don't sell guns to medical marijuana patients who are the last people in the world who probably will buy a gun, you know. >> go ahead. >> but, you know, the question is why does the federal government think this is a good policy? 77% of americans support the right of patients to get access to medical cannabis. should they get it in a place that's licensed and regulated, that has laboratory tested medicine, like harborside, or should they go out on the street and get it from street dealers? which is better? >> here we are, new york city, one of the great cities of the world, and someone with glaucoma like me has nowhere to go for medical cannabis. they have to get it from the

street or drug cartels. >> there's obviously different consortiums around this. one consists of a variety of former south american leaders along with richard branson and a few other folks who have been very aggressive in arguing that drug relationships in general between the state and people is a public health issue more than it is a criminal issue, that we have determined that drug utilization is a crime issue. we have a lot of people in prison around marijuana and we have a lot of people working inside law enforcement outside of our country to try to pursue it, and yet it is showing little or no basic result in terms of reducing consumption, if that is what the objective was. i'm not sure that that was the objective honestly, but if it was that it didn't work. on the flip side, efforts to control drug usage period has been much more effective when it's viewed as a public health issue with engagement in the communities and helping people find, again, alternate recreation in their lives, if you will, which is a public

health issue just as sure as drug dependency is which might clear the space for this other conversation. do you get this sense outside the federal government that the people of this country are more prepared for that type of a conversation? >> well, that's why we're willing to take the risk that we're taking by doing this show, because we're confident that our fellow citizens, once they understand what it is that we're doing, are going to support us and stand up for us. >> like my brother said, 77% of americans in a recent cbs news poll supports safe access to medical cannabis. the federal government, once again, like in your previous two segments, is way behind, way behind the people, way behind. >> i mean, there's a conversation for another day just on the federal government's ability in general to actually understand the intent and desire of the people. which goes to money and politics and a whole other -- i'll get you really worked up. >> there's no mystery about that, because in california 67%

of the people voted in favor of prop 215. >> which was what? >> that was california's medical can that business initiative. >> okay. >> and in 16 other states either legislatures or the people through direct initiative have approved medical cannabis so there's no doubt about had you at least the citizens -- >> the intention of that community? >> exactly. >> that's right. just today on the cover of the "usa today," we learned that 16% of all veterans returning from war from ptsd. the v.a. is overwhelmed by them. they don't know what to do. harborside health center gives 15% discounts to v.a. veterans and medical cannabis has been report by the veterans to help them a lot with ptsd. >> in fact, one of the few agencies of the federal government that respects medical cannabis is the v.a. which in some cases allows veterans to use it in their hospitals. >> a pleasure to meet two of you. all the best with the show. i -- i certainly am with the

67%, if you can't tell, and i -- i suspect that the way it will push you further down the road, although what happens between here and there is anybody's guess. gentlemen, all the best to you. coming up on "hardball," mitt romney taking a shot at the new front-runner, newt gingrich. is romney getting testing or a first sign of desperation but first ari melber risks the tourists and tree lighters downstairs. he's here for the daily rant. [ sniffs ] i have a cold. [ sniffs ] i took dayquil

but my nose is still runny. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesn't treat that. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your runny nose. [ deep breath] awesome. [ male announcer ] yes, it is. that's the cold truth!

we are back. ari melber, as you know, is here and he's ready to rant >> thanks, dylan. today i want to talk about the

absurdity of this campaign for the republican presidential nomination. tomorrow is december 1st which marks the final one-month home stretch of this primary process. and yet the campaign, as you may have noticed, is pretty much in the same place it was a year ago. so if you believe the hype, and i don't, that means the same narrative. it's all about that unpopular front-runner, mitt romney, and the battle over who can become the official conservative alternative, and politics, of course, framing matters, and this frames animated months of what i think is patronizingly superficial treatment of romney and it's taken us on this whip lark tour of alternative challengers, from non-candidates like palin and christie to novelty candidates like herman cain, to even some actual candidates like rick perry. but why has this frame stuck if i see three big reasons that i want to run through with you today. number one, the debates. you watch the news so you may have noticed all the debates this year. there have been nine in the last four months, and next month there are three more. as former reagan speech writer peggy noonan said debates have,

quote, never played such a role in the nominating process. a few debates help introduce all the candidates but a dozen debates tend to warp the field and give every minor candidate a chance to take a star turn. number two, the candidate's presidential primaries that we usually see are about grass roots organizing, hundreds of crowning people descend to iowa knock on doors and there's a real ground game. but this year, as you noticed, most of these candidates aren't bothering. check out the time spent in iowa so far. perry has only spent about three weeks in the state, while romney has spent one. those numbers are from the "des moines register." now that shifts the focus to more paid advertising in television. number three and finally, of course, the media. the "washington post" david brodeur once admitted how this whole thing really works. in 1987 he explains that, quote, the existing communications system will not accommodate more than two or three candidates in each party. that task is beyond us. so we in the media to reduce the number of candidates.

these news judgments will be arbitrary, but not subject to appeal. now david brodeur said that and was talking about the communications systems that existed in 1987. today we have the internet. we have more time on tv, and we have people making more content than ever before. but we have the same problem. look at the blogosphere and twitter, and you'll see a similar focus on the anointed candidates, cain one week, dwrich the next. it's not the medium on this one. it's the people. now, of course, do i think real reforms could change some of these problems. could you fix the voting calendar and, of course, could you reduce the role of money as we've talked about on this very show, but for all those reasons over the next few months i think it's probably going to get a lot more annoying before it gets any better. dylan. >> it would seem that as the -- the dysfunction, corruption and pure out of idiocy of this process exposes itself, that it will actually catalyze that much more reform movement