VICE (2013) s04e04 Episode Script

1 This week on "Vice": The amazing new progress in restoring sight to the blind.
I think I saw something flash.
It's really, really weird.
That's okay, don't worry.
Would you advise someone to have that surgery? Honestly, I wouldn't recommend it.
It can make you feel crazy.
And then, big business is taking over the marijuana industry.
It's so enormous.
I can't even see the edges of the room.
It's the biggest tsunami ever to hit the world, in my lifetime, of money! (theme music playing) (gunshot) Modern medicine has made incredible advances in restoring eyesight, thanks to cutting-edge technology and a revolution in cost-efficient materials.
And that could mean a total transformation for millions of visually impaired people desperate to see again.
(indistinct conversations) Doctor: The white, cloudy, substance you're seeing is the cataract, which is a cloudy lens, so I'm just very gently teasing the lens until it's free, and now we're going to remove it from the eye.
Yeung: Ooh, that's it? That is the cataract, and it is gone.
That's incredible that you can just get rid of it in a matter of seconds.
Stage one is getting the cataract out.
Stage two is getting the new lens in.
And I put it in the exact same place where the cataract was.
So no stitches needed, and I'm done.
Yeung: Wow.
That was incredibly quick.
Very quick.
That was insane.
Onto the next one.
Around 19 million people in the world are blind because of cataracts, and that number is disproportionately high in developing countries, which is why we're in Ethiopia.
Traditionally, if you become blind in a country like this, then that's pretty much it, you're blind for life.
But we're here to see an intervention, which is hoping to change all that.
Dr.
Matt Oliva is part of the Himalayan Cataract Project, an NGO working tirelessly to eradicate blindness in developing countries.
Blindness in Ethiopia is a death sentence, it really is.
And it's a social problem, it's a human suffering problem, and it's an economic problem.
(speaking English) (speaking foreign language) Oliva: All the supplies for one case that we need cost under $20.
While I've been working here, the staff has been getting the next patient ready, and it's back and forth, back and forth all day long.
Yeung: For each eye, the surgery can be as fast as five minutes.
How many surgeries are you actually able to do every day? Probably do about 70 today.
Yeung: And Dr.
Oliva is just one of four doctors operating on 700 patients over the course of a week.
The speed at which these guys are working is insane.
It's almost like a factory line.
The recovery time is quick as well, less than 24 hours.
This is the best moment of every morning, is getting ready to take the patches off and see all our hard work from yesterday.
Whoa, these are-- This is everyone who had surgery yesterday? Oliva: These are all 200 people.
Yeung: What do you think those 200 or so patients are going through when you first take off those bandages? Oliva: I think it's overwhelming for most patients.
Some of these people have been blind 10 years, sometimes even 15 years, so there's sort of an adaptation problem, and you can see it in their faces, where there is sort of a slow reestablishment of the neural pathways in the brain.
(in foreign language) (ululating) (laughing) (ululating) (cheering) (in foreign language) This is literally one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
In, like, a matter of seconds those bandages come off and their entire lives are completely transformed.
(in foreign language) Yeung: This cataract surgery is now widely available in the developing world because of a revolution in low cost materials.
And it's just one of a wave of promising new advances in restoring sight.
And that could mean radical change for people like Anthony Andreottola.
Anthony is an addiction counselor in Boston.
A progressive condition called retinitis pigmentosa has left him completely blind.
It was in my late 30s when I lost the ability to recognize faces.
I considered that when I crossed the line of being blind, yeah.
And how did it impact, like, everyday life? Being independent, traveling is a real big deal.
I go back and forth to work by myself, and, uh, that sometimes can be a challenge.
You see some blind people with a cane, they're like ballerinas going down the street.
I'm not.
I go kind of slow.
Oh, I'm so sorry, I did not see you.
It's okay.
That's all right.
I'm so sorry.
No problem.
These hybrid cars now, they're much quieter.
They can really sneak up on a blind person crossing the street.
(car honks) But it's-- it's just part of life.
Yeung: A part of life that he's hoping will soon change because in a few days, Anthony will be one of the first few hundred patients to receive the Argus II, the first retinal implant approved by the FDA.
We met with Dr.
Robert Greenberg, chairman of Second Sight, which manufactures the device.
The Argus II is available for a disease called retinitis pigmentosa.
It's a small pill-sized device that goes in and around the eye, coupled with a pair of glasses that have a video camera.
So here we've got the camera that's picking up the signal in front of the patient.
That signal is going to the processor that you have in your hands.
That processed signal is going up to the antenna and the signal is getting sent wirelessly to the implant in and around the eye.
The retina is like a multi-layered cake, and in the retinitis pigmentosa patients, the bottom layer of the cake, those photoreceptors are dead.
But the upper layer of the cake and the cable going back to the brain are intact.
And we're essentially replacing those photoreceptors.
To the brain, this signal is coming from the retina as far as it knows.
It's like the screen has broken, but the computer inside is still working.
Exactly.
The best description of what they see is something like a crude black and white television.
Blurry levels of gray, but it's enough for people to get around.
It's enough for people to see a loved one, and it's life-changing for a lot of folks.
Yeung: We went with Anthony to Johns Hopkins Hospital where he had the device implanted.
So they've just put him to sleep, so the surgery can begin.
Man: Okay.
We're ready for the device.
This is what goes inside the eye.
Yeung: Dr.
Handa's just attaching the actual device now, and then wrapping it around with a sort of belt to keep it in place.
Those little dots there are the 60 electrodes? Handa: Correct.
It's incredible that what looks like this tiny little piece of plastic could possibly give the gift of sight back to someone's eye.
Handa: So now I'm putting it into the eye.
Yeung: Wow, so you can actually see the device going in.
All right.
Everything good? Yeah.
So, when will you turn the device on? Probably in about a month or so.
Then he has to learn how to see.
Mm-hmm.
(chuckles) Yeung: But learning to see will be a challenge.
The Argus II is only a second-generation technology, and at this early stage the images it transmits are rudimentary.
Whoa.
Okay.
So, this is what people with Argus II see? Dr.
Greenberg: Yes, this is our best approximation.
I can see black and white shapes.
That was my shoulder.
This is your face.
Yup.
It really is a case of learning how to see in a different way then, isn't it? It is.
It's learning how to see again.
And it's really crude vision.
Expectations are really important, and one of the worst things that could happen would be if a patient went into the surgery expecting to see perfectly when they came out, and then they're likely to be disappointed.
Yeung: A month later, Anthony returned to Johns Hopkins.
How are you feeling about getting this device turned on? I guess I'm hoping not to be disappointed.
But I guess any improvement's gonna be it's gonna be meaningful.
Yeung: The first step for Anthony is testing and calibrating the strength of the 60 individual electrodes in his implant.
Ready? Yeah.
Here we go.
(computer beeps) I think I saw something, like, flash.
Okay.
Here's another one.
(computer beeps) Yeah, I saw something else then, too.
(laughing) That's okay, don't worry.
(Yeung speaking) Does it feel weird? It's like this eye, but I feel like I see it over here.
It's really, really weird.
Yeung: After a night's rest, Anthony returned with his daughter to finally have the device fully powered on.
I think we're ready.
What do you see? I see stuff, like There, you're picking up Dr.
Handa.
This is a white coat.
Something going like this.
So, that's easier.
Yeah.
(laughing) What's up, kid? Nothing.
I just got an image of you right over here.
Look up and tell me if you can see the ceiling lights.
Right there.
Okay, now keep looking, and see if you can pick up more of the ceiling lights.
Right there.
Yeah, there's another one, right.
Do you feel like it could be useful? Is it like, the greatest thing in the world, to have, you know, this limited vision? I can't say yet, but I think it's better than not having it at all.
Yeung: Although the Argus II shows promise for patients like Anthony who once had vision and lost it, some experts are warning that for all the advances we've made in fighting blindness, we haven't actually stopped to consider what it means to restore sight to someone who's never had it at all.
Dr.
Ione Fine is a psychologist at the University of Washington, who studies how blindness affects the brain.
In the case of someone who is born blind and has been blind all their life, their visual system is very different from that of someone with normal vision, and restoring vision is going to result in a very different perceptual experience.
Yeung: She's talking about people like Marti, who's been blind since birth.
At the age of 42, she began a series of surgeries that reconstructed her iris, and implanted a new lens into one of her eyes.
She now has vision just below the threshold of legally blind, enough for her to begin painting.
I don't know which one this is.
This is a lot of specks, and you can see the sky.
(gasps) Oh, wait a minute.
Is this one Does it look like an ocean? There's a lighthouse.
You see a lighthouse? Uh A little bit? Is it in the distance? Mm-hmm.
Oh, wait a minute.
Holding it the wrong way? I think we're holding it-- Yeah.
Makes more sense.
You can turn it different ways to make it what you want.
Yeung: But while Marti is now trying to make her way in the sighted world, her transition out of total blindness wasn't easy.
What was your immediate reaction after the surgery? Ugh, I wanted to die.
So what does that say? The brain wouldn't shut off.
It was just overload.
Did other people have expectations? Oh, yeah.
They felt like That it was so wonderful, and I could just get up and walk around and be fine.
And people say, "Well, shut your eyes and do things blind," but it's-- you can't do that.
It's a big difference.
When I was blind, I didn't see black.
And now, when I shut my eyes, I see black.
It's not the same as being blind.
Would you advise someone who was in the same situation as you to have that surgery? Honestly, I wouldn't recommend it.
Why? Because when you live a certain way for so many years, and you're adjusted to life and everything around you, and then all of a sudden there's a change like this, it can make you feel crazy.
If people are blind early enough in life, they do in fact lose the ability, or never gain the ability to make sense of the visual world.
And we think that perhaps one of the reasons that happens is that the back of the head starts responding to other senses, like audition and touch.
It becomes specialized to help blind people make their way through the world using these other senses.
That can be a huge problem if sight is ever restored.
And maybe putting our efforts into making the world easier for blind people to navigate and be independent in is at least as valid as trying to fix them and be like us.
Yeung: Even so, for those desperate to see again, the technology we've developed can be life-changing.
Hi.
Hi.
Can you see me? Yeah.
I can see your shape.
Hi.
How are you doing? Good.
We met up with Anthony three months after his implant was turned on, to see how he's adapting.
Can you see these people walking past? Yup.
That's good.
Anthony: I still have to use my cane to navigate, but it does work.
I can see you.
And I feel more involved in what's going on around me.
That was a truck, a big truck, a bus or something.
Yeah.
Rather than being totally blind, I have, like, visual cues that I didn't have, that I lost years ago.
I see it as a start.
There's a lot more advances, but until that day comes, you know, this is as good as it gets so I'm, I'm grateful.
Marijuana legalization is gaining huge momentum across the country.
But it isn't just pot smokers who are celebrating.
Big business is also investing heavily in this hot new market.
And if the current trend in legislation continues, it seems that they're going to realize a huge return on their investment.
Okay, guys, if this is your first marijuana tour, which I'm assuming it is, thank you for coming to Colorado Cannabis Tours.
We're gonna go ahead and get you started with some joints.
Morris: This is what the end of marijuana prohibition looks like.
Now that marijuana is legal in Colorado, companies like Colorado Cannabis Tours are cashing in on the excitement.
$99 for the ticket, $20 for an artisanal pipe, two dollars for the cupcake, Thank you.
However much money for the weed they bought at the last location, how much money they're gonna spend at the next location.
This is the team building portion of the exercise.
If you can help your neighbor light that at the other end.
(coughing) Oh! Who's next? We're about to go into a into a dispensary.
Is this it? Is this the Oh, okay.
Okay.
I'm off to the dispensary.
We are much further along than I ever imagined us to be.
Morris: Andrew Freedman is the Director of Marijuana coordination in the Colorado governor's office.
Freedman: There are more dispensaries than there are Starbucks.
We estimated the size of the industry in its first year to be about 700 million, and now we think it tops one billion dollars as an annual revenue source.
What makes this massage different? This massage is different because our massage cream is infused with THC and CBD.
All right, I think I'll try the extra strength.
Great choice.
Is that pressure okay? Yeah.
Morris: Maybe it was the extra strength THC oil, but I started to wonder, where is all this weed coming from? I'm standing in what may be Colorado's largest cannabis grow operation.
It's so enormous, I can't even see the edges of the room from where I'm standing.
Look at what we've created here.
I mean, is this something? This is John Seckman, the COO of LivWell.
This is the most exciting thing I've ever done.
It's a business, and it's a new exciting business.
The other thing I'll tell you is I voted against the legalization of marijuana.
You voted against the legalization of cannabis? Yes.
I figure we have enough vices.
One more wasn't gonna make the world any better.
Have you tried it? No.
Really? Never.
And I don't intend to.
I couldn't tell you what it tastes like or something special about a certain plant.
I just-- You know, it's just not something I understand.
It's a product.
This is a manufacturing facility.
We're not making Ford cars, we're making marijuana.
Morris: Companies like LivWell are giving marijuana a corporate makeover, and that has some long-time weed growers on edge.
Mike and Wendy have grown pot for decades, and they push for the right to do it legally.
But as more big players get into the business, the small-time farmers who started the movement are having trouble competing.
Snip out the very tip top of it.
What strain is this? This is Purple Train Wreck.
This is one that will help your appetite.
If we renew our vows at sometime in the future, I'm going to use these as a bouquet walking down the aisle.
(laughing) Mike: 1974.
That's when I planted my first pot plant.
I baby these girls, each and every one of them every year.
I mean, look at that thing.
Morris: This is enormous.
It's over 10-foot tall.
It's a massive plant, for sure.
You get these big outfits coming in, it's just gonna ruin it for everybody.
Like Starbucks.
Or Walmart.
They move into a city and you can just watch and see how many stores go down.
They're going to pull the rug right out from under us, and we're gonna be left flat on the floor.
Morris: While farmers like Mike and Wendy are beginning to feel the heat, the big guys are just getting started.
We went to Washington to meet the competition.
I'm standing outside Privateer Holdings, a cannabis oriented private equity firm that recently received the largest infusion of cash in the history of cannabis.
Five years ago, in the cannabis industry there were no leaders, there were no standards.
What was lacking were professional, mainstream companies that could change the typical stigma associated with the industry.
Morris: I flew with Brendan to his facility in Canada to see what the industry looks like in a country where medical marijuana is legal nationwide.
Welcome to Tilray.
Morris: Tilray is a 26 million dollar high-tech cultivation facility that's positioning itself to corner the market on weed production.
So, they're still, you know, six weeks away from being harvested.
How many rooms of this do you have? There's essentially 36 like this.
How much does it cost to run all these lights? Annual electrical costs are in excess of two million dollars.
This is a vault door similar to a bank vault.
It's a solid steel door.
All of these materials are essentially ready for sale and distribution.
You're starting to see the emergence of mainstream, professional companies that are trying to compete with those illegal producers.
That's one of the reasons for ending prohibition.
Morris: Legalization's only just beginning, but we're already seeing the effect it's having on small farmers.
Jeff and Gwen have been growing marijuana here in Mendocino County for decades.
The price of cannabis has plummeted.
Morris: But if this is your primary means of income, you must have felt the impact of this price change? Oh, yeah.
I used to be able to afford some help in the garden.
I cannot afford that now.
I would hate to think that all of us who've risked everything paving the way to make the herb available wouldn't have a slot in the future.
To me, that would be very sad.
Um But it remains to be seen.
Morris: But in some states, the future is already being written.
In New York State, medical marijuana was legalized in 2014, but only five companies are allowed to grow and sell it.
One of the five permits went to 24-year-old Hillary Peckham of Etain, LLC.
We're gonna have about 13,000 square feet of greenhouses in this initial building.
Morris: Hillary's dad, John Peckham, is the CEO of a massive construction conglomerate called Peckham Industries.
Hillary: My family business is 91 years old.
Mostly government contracts, and so we had a lot of experience with how New York government programs work.
Could you tell me about the application in detail? Yeah, the application was a $10,000 fee just to submit.
And then, as well, $200,000 that you had to submit, but it was refundable if you were not given the license.
We expect to probably invest somewhere between six to eight million in the startup period.
Morris: You know, a lot of the biggest players right now are people with really serious business backgrounds, and it's made some of the people feel like they're being pushed out of the game, that there's no room for the mom-and-pop grower.
It's definitely where the industry is moving, is towards mass consolidation.
They're gonna start buying up licenses in other states and just consolidate into one major brand, and so you'll start seeing that as more states come online.
Would you sell your company if that became an opportunity? I wanna be one of those companies.
Morris: Although it takes a ton of cash to get a license in New York, at least there's an application process.
In Ohio, where legalization was on the ballot in November, the corporations tried to choose the winners in advance.
Welcome aboard the Green Rush Bus Tour, part of a campaign to convince Ohioans to vote yes on legalization.
We're gonna try and legalize marijuana.
Morris: This is Buddie, the face of a multi-million dollar endeavor designed behind closed doors to benefit 10 hand-picked investor groups.
And as Ohio representative Mike Curtin told us, a plan like this one would set a dangerous precedent.
It would create a monopoly in the state constitution by expressly giving 10 owners of 10 sites, 10 farms, essentially, the exclusive, constitutionally sanctioned ability to grow, process, and sell marijuana for commercial purposes.
Why do you think they did this? To make a ton of money.
This has no place in the Ohio constitution.
It has no place in any state constitution.
The constitution's supposed to protect all the people.
They're trying to protect 10 guys.
Morris: And those 10 are the same 10 that put in millions of dollars to fund the campaign.
This is a tidal wave moving so fast, it's gonna shock the world to see what the United States just did.
Morris: Alan Mooney was one of them.
Not one human being on the planet Earth has ever seen a tsunami of this magnitude moving at this speed.
That's why Wall Street's still going, "It ain't real.
Oh my God, it ain't real.
" It's the biggest tsunami ever to hit the world, in my lifetime, of money.
What about the fact that only 10 growers can participate? People are calling it a monopoly Oh my gosh, this is-- or an oligopoly.
To the voting public of Ohio, that makes zero difference to the voter.
You know why? They want this 100% controlled and taxed.
Then why are they written into the amendment itself? Why isn't it something they apply for like in New York? Would you rather let the politicians make that decision? Sir? Sir? Or would you rather let private capitalists do that? I'm a capitalist.
Blue blood.
I love America.
I love Ohio.
I am a capitalist, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Morris: The amendment became a flash point in Ohio, and this time, legalization went down hard on election day.
Voters here in Ohio overwhelmingly decided against a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana.
The decision came after months of controversy and debate about the group backing the legislation.
Morris: But the campaign showed that capitalists like Mooney are trying to call the shots as legalization sweeps the country.
Twenty-three states have legalized medical marijuana, and four states plus DC have ended prohibition entirely.
At least 21 other states are gearing up to do the same.
All this has made marijuana the fastest growing industry in America.
And researchers predict that if marijuana's legalized in all 50 states, revenue could reach $35 billion per year.
But just like when alcohol prohibition ended, big business is dominating, and small farmers are still being treated like illegal bootleggers.
(knocking) Sheriff's office, search warrant! (glass shattering) Demanding entry! Morris: The Humboldt County Sheriff's Department suspected this local farmer had violated state regulation, so they confiscated his entire crop.
Profiting from the cultivation of marijuana is illegal.
And it's a lot easier to cut down, you know, 130 plants than it is 13,000 plants.
This is what was found in this room.
Each of these is at least two pounds.
Ireland: Who these people are and what kind of lives they live has no factor in what I'm gonna do.
'Cause it's my job.
Morris: The property owner, who believed he was following the letter of the law, returned to find his entire garden destroyed.
To date, Barry hasn't been charged with any crime.
But small farmers like him are easy targets, and they're only one raid away from financial ruin.
Barry: I don't understand that.
Why me? You know, I'm so small compared to what these other people are doing.
You know, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Morris: Caught between the machetes of law enforcement and the bank accounts of businessmen, the small-time growers are going to have to fight to survive.
I had such a dream of being able to grow legally my whole life.
We're kind of hanging on by our fingertips, but we're gonna fight.
We're gonna fight for our place all the way to the end.
Morris: Will you do it again? I doubt it.
I doubt it.
It's just, you know, why bother?