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SANJAY GUPTA MD

Massachusetts Town Weighs Nation's First Tobacco Ban; Mentally Ill Man Convicted in Shooting Plot

Aired November 15, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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


DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN HOST: All you parents out there, I promise you, you're not going to be able to turn away from our feature story today.

You know, it's just been three weeks since the latest school shooting in this country. That was in Marysville, Washington. In less than a month, we'll be marking the somber anniversary of Sandy Hook.

In just a few minutes, I'm going to tell you the story of the young man whose parents called the police about him. They were worried his mental illness may drive him to hurt somebody. But what happened next will either make you more confident in our system or it will break your heart. Will you consider him a prisoner or a patient?

But first, a tiny Massachusetts town is weighing a ban that would make it the first in the country to completely outlaw tobacco sales of any kind. Now, residents on both sides of this issue -- well, let's just they're pretty fired up. In fact, the public hearing Wednesday night in Westminster was really over before it began.

Here's John Atwater of our affiliate WCVB.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. This hearing is closed.

JOHN ATWATER, WCVB (voice-over): Within minutes of starting --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Read it now!

ATWATER: The board of health lost control of the enraged crowd. Police stepped in to control passionate protesters and escort board members to their cars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You people make me sick.

ATWATER: The abruptly adjourned public hearing drew heated, pointed criticism of a proposal to ban tobacco sales at stores in town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This meeting with all these cameras here is a mockery of this town in front of the United States of America.

ATWATER: Westminster has found itself in the national spotlight. The first town in the country that is one vote away from taking an unprecedented position on tobacco.

BRIAN VINCENT, OWNER, VINCENT'S COUNTRY STORE: About 21 years in the family.

ATWATER: For Brian Vincent who runs the store in the town, the proposed ban could sink sales.

VINCENT: It's not a $10 pack, that's total $30 sale.

ANDREA CRETE, CHAIRWOMAN, WESTMINSTER BOARD OF HEALTH: Our main focus on developing these regulations is the children in our community.

ATWATER: The three-member board of health says is trying to keep kids from new, sweeter tobacco products.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three people should not dictate a town of 7,000.

ATWATER: But nearly everyone in this town feels a ban would limit their freedom.

CROWD (singing): God bless America --

ATWATER: And they used a patriotic song to loudly proclaim their position.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you start taking people's rights away to consume legal products, they're going to get fired up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: You've never seen anything quite like. You might remember, earlier this year, CVS drugstores stopped selling tobacco in their stores as well. It was controversial, maybe not as much as Westminster. But I'll tell you, some people say, you know, this whole thing hasn't gone far enough. I mean, some people say, what about candy? Junk food? Sugary drinks?

It's a fair point. But, you know, unlike food, tobacco has absolutely no redeeming qualities. None. No calories, no nutrition, nothing.

What we do know it's associated with nearly half a million deaths per year in the United States and smokers on average live 10 years less.

It was just 50 years ago, the surgeon general made the firm connection between smoking and cancer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make your own 30-day Camel mildest test in your t- zone.

GUPTA (voice-over): During smoking's hay day back in the 1940s and '50s, ads like this were common place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What cigarette do you smoke, doctor? In this nationwide survey of general practitioners, surgeons, specialists, diagnosticians and so on, the brand named most was Camel.

GUPTA: By 1950, American adults were smoking 4,000 cigarettes for every person every year.

But in 1952, "Reader's Digest", then the country's most popular magazine, published a two-page article, "Cancer by the Carton". It was the first time a mainstream publication like this connected smoking to cancer.

In 1955, the Federal Trade Commission forbade company from making positive health claims about cigarettes, blocking ads like this from Phillip Morris, scientifically proved, less irritating to the smoker's nose and throat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Federal Trade Commission and "Reader's Digest" have done you a favor.

GUPTA: It's the moment that helped to launch fictional ad wiz, Don Draper, on ANC's "Mad Men."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say anything we want. How do you make your cigarettes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We breed insect repellant tobacco seeds, plant them in the North Carolina sunshine, grow it, cut it, cure it, toast it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go. There you go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But everybody else's tobacco is toasted?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, everybody else's tobacco is poisonous, Lucky Strike's -- is toasted.

GUPTA: In fact that was an actual Lucky Strikes slogan in real life.

But evidence of harm became overwhelming. On January 11th, 1964, Dr. Luther Kerry issued the very first surgeon general's report.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The strongest relationship between cigarette smoking and health was in the field of lung cancer --

GUPTA: A strong relationship, just how strong? He reported a 70 percent increase in mortality for smokers, heavy smokers at least 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than nonsmokers. The first warning on the pack in 1966 was a milestone, but also a major understatement. Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.

Today, it gets right to the point. It causes lung cancer, heart disease and more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Lastly, something I always like to tell people who are thinking about quitting, that is, you don't have to wait years to see the benefits. In fact, just 20 minutes after your last cigarette, your heart rate, your blood pressures starts to drop. In 24 hours, your heart disease risk actually goes down. Two weeks later, your lung function improves and you'll feel better. After five years, your cancer risk declines. In fact, at 20 years, according to studies, your overall risk is comparable to a non-smoker.

So, it's a good idea to quit. Need some tools and tips, you can get them at smokefree.gov.

Now, coming up, as promised, putting an end to mass shooting. What does that mean in this country? Our year-long investigation into the mind of a troubled young man incarcerated for a crime police say he was plotting but he says he wasn't really going to commit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: In-depth today, the tragic confluence between mental health and our prison system. At first, the story is going to sound familiar. A young man commits a mass shooting. But in this case, authorities say they averted it.

What happened was Blaec Lammers's parents found his receipt for a gun. They called the police. As a result, Blaec is now serving two concurrent 15-year prison sentences. He didn't shot anyone. And as his parents say it was all a big misunderstanding, that he wasn't a threat but in need of help.

Now, you might say, of course, that is the way parents should feel. But as I dug deeper, I found some troubling questions, and that's what happens when the fear of another tragedy runs smack into the complicated life of a family that's coping with mental illness.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): Like other new inmates, he's locked up 23 hours a day. Blaec Lammers is 22 years old and I met him at the Jefferson City Correctional Center. That's the maximum security prison in Missouri that he now calls home.

(on camera): What did you do to get here?

BLAEC LAMMERS, CONVICTED IN SHOOTING PLOT: I bought two AR's. I didn't tell me mom. She found a receipt in my pocket, and she called the sheriff's department and they came and found me.

GUPTA: In the interrogation, you were asked lots of questions.

BLAKE LAMMERS: Yes.

GUPTA: At some point, you said you had intended to cause people harm.

BLAKE LAMMERS: Yes, and then the detective, he came out of nowhere and said I was going to threaten the movie theater. I just started agreeing with him because I knew either way, he was going to find me -- he's going to charge me for something.

GUPTA (voice-over): Police eventually did charge Lammers with making a terrorist threat, first-degree assault, armed criminal action.

(on camera): Would you have hurt anybody?

BLAKE LAMMERS: No. I would hurt myself before I hurt someone else.

GUPTA (voice-over): While it is impossible to know exactly what was going on inside Blake Lammers' mind when he bought those guns, we do know in this incident, he didn't hurt anyone. No doubt, Blake has had a troubled past. In 2011, he pled guilty to an assault on his coworker at a mail facility. In 2009, he was arrested at Walmart carrying a butcher knife. He told a psychologist he had thought about killing a woman there.

TRICIA LAMMERS, MOTHER: He's like, you know, I just want to get on with my life.

GUPTA: His parents, Tricia and Bill Lammers, say that was all in the past. And they agreed to talk about it, including the day they called the police on their own son.

TRICIA LAMMERS: I've gathered up his clothes from the bathroom floor and came upstairs and was going through his pockets. Then I found a receipt from Walmart that he had bought a weapon for $865. I immediately went out to the garage and I called Bill and I said, what do we do?

GUPTA (on camera): Was that the concern that he was going to hurt somebody?

TRICIA LAMMERS: My concern was he would take the guns and kill himself.

GUPTA: And you decide to call the authorities.

TRICIA LAMMERS: The next day, Thursday morning, I went to the sheriff's department with the receipt.

GUPTA (voice-over): According to police documents, Blaec's mother Tricia was concerned Blake might shoot people at a movie theater. She says, not true, that they had twisted her words. She claims all she said was that Blaec's gun looked like the one used by James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado, shooting. She told me she wasn't worried about a mass homicide but rather a lonely suicide.

(on camera): So what did they say to you?

TRICIA LAMMERS: They said, "OK, Mrs. Lammers, thank you for coming to us." He didn't seem like he was too concerned. Just, "OK, thank you."

GUPTA: Why did they put him in jail?

TRICIA LAMMERS: They said they were doing a well-being check. So, they picked him up at Sonic and said we need to take you to the police station for questioning.

GUPTA (voice-over): And in an instant, the lives of this family changed forever. Within minutes of meeting Blaec, you could feel and see the cause for his parents worry. He was a broken kid, a lot of smiles but lots of pain. BLAEC LAMMERS: Trying too hard to fit in with other people. At one

point, in my sophomore year of high school, for a whole semester, from August to December, I ate my lunch in the bathroom because I didn't know anybody. I didn't have -- I didn't know anybody that ate lunch at that time.

GUPTA: That's kind of sad, Blaec.

BLAEC LAMMERS: That is. Looking back, I was, I should have at least tried to talk to people, but I was shy in high school. I was afraid to talk to someone because of what I would say and how it would come out.

TRICIA LAMMERS: He played flag football, and he did basketball and did karate.

GUPTA: Diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, Blaec struggled in school but he eventually succeeded. By ninth grade, he had lettered academically, made the dean's list, and was a 4.0 student.

Then, seemingly, overnight, it all went downhill and fast.

TRICIA LAMMERS: And it was the start of his junior year, his grades started to suffer. He got mixed up with some boys that were, you know, smoking, you know, pot. And things just weren't going so well. He had already quit his job at Godfather's Pizza. He started to cut his arms.

BILL LAMMERS, FATHER: Within six months it went from wonderful to what is going on?

TRICIA LAMMERS: Yes.

BILL LAMMERS: We've got a serious problem.

GUPTA: Soon, he was in and out of hospitals. Within just a couple years, he was diagnosed with nearly a dozen different psychiatric illnesses -- mood disorder, major depression, schizoid personality. So, when Blaec bought the guns, his parents felt they had to step in. They saw their son as a patient, but authorities saw that same troubled boy and concluded he should be a prisoner.

BLAEC LAMMERS: My mom thinks a Virginia Tech's going to happen with me or Walmart or the guy at the movie theater in Arizona. So --

POLICE OFFICER: Why does she think that?

BLAEC LAMMERS: Because every one of those people have a mental illness. And they didn't tell anybody they bought a gun.

POLICE OFFICER: OK. So, let's fast forward to your situation. What would you consider your situation?

BLAEC LAMMERS: Right now?

POLICE OFFICER: Yes, I mean, you take medication, right? BLAEC LAMMERS: Yes, sir.

POLICE OFFICER: OK, for what?

BLAEC LAMMERS: Depression.

POLICE OFFICER: OK. Was that an illness?

BLAEC LAMMERS: Yes.

POLICE OFFICER: OK. You have an illness similar to these people, now what else do you have in common with these people?

BLAEC LAMMERS: Homicidal thoughts.

POLICE OFFICER: Do you have homicidal thoughts?

BLAEC LAMMERS: I did when I was 16.

GUPTA: His mother said Blaec was a gullible kid, and easily led because of his mental illness.

But prosecutors tell us he had a real plan to kill. He just didn't get a chance to carry it out. They believe they prevented a tragedy.

Psychologist John Phillips treated Blaec at this hospital when he was 17.

(on camera): Were you concerned that he was a threat?

JOHN PHILLIPS, BLAEC'S PSYCHOLOGIST: In the four months that he was at the hospital, he was the model resident.

GUPTA: Did you ever feel that he was potentially a harm to others? That was the concern, it seemed.

PHILLIPS: I never once felt, you know, that he would ever try to hurt anyone on purpose. You know, I think that he wasn't a malicious child. He never actually ever acted out any of those threats. He never, ever, once was violent in any way.

GUPTA: How do you distinguish then the kid who was just talking, being a teenager, versus someone who could go out and do some serious harm?

PHILLIPS: You have to find out what is going on, you know, in their head. And you've got to, you knower you've got to be able to assess whether their behavior is neurologically-based and just based on an environmental reaction or whether they are actually, you know, sociopathic, where they actually don't care about anybody, they just care about what they want.

GUPTA: Is that the distinction you see with Blaec?

PHILLIPS: Oh, absolutely.

GUPTA: He's being treated as having a criminal mind.

PHILLIPS: Exactly.

GUPTA: But he has an autistic mind.

PHILLIPS: Exactly.

I think because Blaec's issue of threatening, you know, they kind of put it all the way to the other extreme and really never gave him a chance to be rehabilitated. And where he is now, there's no chance of him being rehabilitated, you know?

GUPTA: Do you think prison is the right place for him?

PHILLIPS: Absolutely not.

GUPTA (voice-over): Blaec also saw a psychiatrist who had concerns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We kept a very close watch on him.

GUPTA: He told us Blaec's relationships were falling apart and he often talked about violence. Even so, he agrees, Blaec does not belong in jail.

Neither of these men who treated Blaec were asked to testify at his trial. Would it have made a difference? We'll never know, but for the past year and a half, his parents have been shouting from the rooftops that their son is mentally ill and belongs in a hospital. Not a prison.

TRICIA LAMMERS: I went to the authorities for help and for them to just keep an eye on my son. I -- I did not go there for the intention of him to be arrested.

GUPTA (on camera): Do you think that Blaec would ever hurt anybody with these guns?

BILL LAMMERS: No.

GUPTA: Trish, do you think that could have ever happened?

TRICIA LAMMERS: No.

GUPTA: Did Blaec blame you because you went to the authorities?

TRICIA LAMMERS: No.

GUPTA: What were the conversations like with him?

TRICIA LAMMERS: I have a letter he wrote me. "I've got nothing but time. We both can get through this. Just don't lose hope. This is a very important time in our lives. We can do this together. So promise me that you'll stop blaming yourself for all of this."

GUPTA: Lucid, compassionate, thoughtful.

TRICIA LAMMERS: Yes.

GUPTA: The Lammers say they are shunned by their friends and community. Nowadays they barely venture out, just trying to find refuge at the end of this small dirt road.

TRICIA LAMMERS: "The second thing is, don't worry about what people think about me. I don't care what they have to say. I know I'm a good person and so do you."

So, he is a good person.

GUPTA (voice-over): Just one hour with a person isn't enough to really understand what's running through their mind. But as jarring as it is to say out loud, it seems entirely possible that Blaec Lammers' only crime here is having a mental illness.

(on camera): Your life here now in this prison, is there anything about it that makes sense to you?

BLAEC LAMMERS: This place is supposed to help you, I don't think it is. I think prison is just to keep you away from society, because society is scared of you.

GUPTA: Should they be scared of you, Blaec?

BLAEC LAMMERS: For what I said? Yes.

For the actual me-me? No, I didn't do anything to harm anybody out there. I was just the average 20-year-old kid living in a small town.

GUPTA: And again, you're looking me right in the eyes, and I know you've been asked this question, but you wouldn't have hurt anybody?

BLAEC LAMMERS: No, sir.

GUPTA: You can say that with 100 percent confidence?

BLAEC LAMMERS: And I would never hurt anybody. I'd rather hurt myself than hurt other people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: In case you're wondering, Blaec's attorneys did not attempt the insanity defense. Too hard to pull off, they told us.

So, what do you think about this? Should Blaec Lammers with a prisoner or a patient?

Let's keep the conversation going. I want to hear from you on Twitter @DrSanjayGupta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LYRIC DA QUEEN, RAPPER: My name is Lyric and my stage name is Lyric Da Queen. GUPTA (voice-over): The patch on her eye has become rap artist Lyric

the Queen's trademark. But when she first auditioned for the "X Factor" two years, few people knew what was really behind it.

LYRIC DA QUEEN: I'm totally blind. That's why I wear the patch.

GUPTA: What blinded her is a condition called keratoconus. It's a disorder of the cornea that cause it to bulge.

Being blind never derailed Lyric's career.

LYRIC DA QUEEN: I can't see anything right now.

I don't I took the time to think about how you're going to be a blind rapper.

GUPTA: But darkness, both literal --

LYRIC DA QUEEN: I haven't seen my own face in years.

GUPTA: -- and was emotional were crippling.

All that may change. Lyric is going to undergo a procedure she hopes will restore her vision.

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It went absolutely perfect.

LYRIC DA QUEEN: God, it's crazy.

I'm like looking around like crazy and seeing the cars, the people and just looking at and appreciated the new details and stuff.

GUPTA: The surgery was a success. And lyric's patch once a symbol of loss has become something else entirely.

LYRIC DA QUEEN: This thing that I used to be ashamed about and look depressed and devastated about, I made it into my thing I wear it with pride and I don't think I'm ready to let that go yet.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

LYRIC DA QUEEN: See how beautiful this is?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): Seven months. Six CNN viewers. Three different sports. One race to the finish line.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got it, girl.

GUPTA: Top coaches.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yay!

GUPTA: Devoted teammates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank God my team was there. I mean, the staff (ph) were there. And they brought me in.

GUPTA: Transforming bodies and minds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My goal was to do a triathlon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hardest thing I've ever done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That seems like such a silly goal now, because it's so much bigger than that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I took an oath early on if I can get through this that even if I can get through the ordeal, the journey will never be over.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: All right. So, now, it's your turn. We're looking for good people. If you think you're ready to be a part of the 2015 Fit Nation Team, log on to CNN.com/FitNation. Submit a video, tell us why you deserve a chance to hit the reset button with us and cross that finish line.

It's going to wrap things up for SGMD today. Time now, though, to get you back to the "CNN NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow.