60 Minutes (1968) s46e13 Episode Script
Season 46, Episode 13
From her first day on the job as President Obama's national security advisor, Susan Rice has had to contend with one crisis on top of the other: the Edward Snowden leaks, the chemical weapons attack in Syria, Egypt, Iran, China, Russiayou name it.
During her four years as the U.
S.
ambassador to the UN, she had a reputation, as one magazine put it, for being "whip-smart, energetic, abrasive, charming, funny, combative, and frequently undiplomatic.
" And yet the president wanted to name her to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
But then she walked into the Benghazi buzzsaw.
She got swept up in the dispute over who attacked the U.
S.
diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
There was no chance she would be confirmed by the Senate.
So last July, she became one of the president's closest advisors -- both personally, and in terms of proximity.
Lesley Stahl: The Oval Office is right there? Susan Rice: Down, actually, in the corner.
Lesley Stahl: Down there? As the president's national security advisor, Susan Rice works in what some consider the second best office in the White House.
Lesley Stahl: This is the office, huh? Susan Rice: This is Henry's office, as we call it.
Lesley Stahl: Henry's office, Henry Kissinger's office.
As Kissinger was, Rice is the quarterback of American foreign policy.
She's the one who wakes up the president when there's a Susan Rice: My job is to bring the good news and the bad news and often in this business it can be more bad than good.
And there's so much of it that's bad.
Her plate has been full from the day she got the job.
Lesley Stahl: I wanna give you a quote that a foreign policy expert gave us.
"Syria has been a fiasco.
Egypt is a fiasco.
Relations with our closest allies in the Middle East are deteriorating.
And at this moment in time, the Chinese choose to provoke Japan And we are leaning back.
" Susan Rice: I couldn't disagree with that more.
But you wouldn't be surprised to hear me say that- Lesley Stahl: No.
Susan Rice: We are very actively engaged in trying to broker a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after months, if not years, of stalemate.
In Syria chemical weapons are leaving the country for the first time.
The situation in the Middle East is complicated.
But to paint this with a broad brush and say it's a disaster, I think, is missing a lot of important data points.
Lesley Stahl: But it's in as much turmoil, I think, you tell me, as it's ever been.
Susan Rice: How about Suez? I mean, let's study a little history.
Lesley Stahl: But that was one place, you know? Susan Rice: Yeah, but that was almost a global conflict in the Middle East.
I think hyperbole is something to be utilized carefully.
Lesley Stahl: On both sides? Susan Rice: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: Edward Snowden.
You know, Snowden is believed to have a million and a half more documents that have never been released.
Given that, would you, would the president, consider granting him amnesty in exchange for him never releasing any more documents? Susan Rice: Well, Lesley, we don't think that Snowden deserves amnesty.
We believe he should come back, he should be sent back, and he should have his day in court.
Lesley Stahl: But if what he's released so far has been so damaging and he has a million and a half more documents, how important is it that he not release those? And what would we offer him, nothing? Susan Rice: Lesley, you know I'm not going to get into a negotiation with you on camera about something that sensitive-- Lesley Stahl: You just seemed to suggest no- Susan Rice: -- but the position of the United States is that he ought to come back and face justice.
Lesley Stahl: Has he either directly, indirectly, in any way proposed such an arrangement? Susan Rice: Not that I'm aware of.
This past week, a federal judge ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of American phone records, revealed in Snowden's leaks, "almost certainly" violates the Constitution, while a panel of intelligence and legal experts urged the president to impose new restrictions on the NSA.
Lesley Stahl: According to an article in the New Yorker, every time there's been a question about putting restraints on the NSA up to now, the president has sided with the intelligence community.
Susan Rice: What the NSA and our intelligence community does as a whole is designed to protect Americans and our allies.
And they do a heck of a good job at it.
Lesley Stahl: Officials in the intelligence community have actually been untruthful both to the American public in hearings in Congress and to the FISA Court.
Susan Rice: There have been cases where they have inadvertently made false representations.
And they themselves have discovered it and corrected it.
Lesley Stahl: But when you have so many phone records being held, emails, heads of state's phone conversations being listened in to, has it been worth our allies being upset? Has it been worth all the tech companies being upset? Has it been worth Americans feeling that their privacy has been invaded? Susan Rice: Lesley, it's been worth what we've done to protect the United States.
And the fact that we have not had a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11 should not be diminished.
But that does not mean that everything we're doing as of the present ought to be done the same way in the future.
Susan Rice works 14 to 16-hour days.
She's not the first woman to be national security advisor, or the first African American.
But she is the first mother.
She has two kids: Jake, 16 and Maris, 11.
Lesley Stahl: See anyone you recognize? A rare afternoon off is Sundaywhen she goes to Maris' soccer game.
Susan Rice: Maris is.
.
she's got blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Lesley Stahl: Oh yeah.
Her husband, Ian Cameron, used to be an executive producer at ABC News.
Ian Cameron: Hey, how are you? Nice to see you.
Thanks for coming out.
As the match proceeded, we got a sense of how fiercely competitive Susan Rice is when Maris scored a goal.
Susan Rice: Scream! You guys have to come every week 'cause you're good luck.
In the middle of everything, her BlackBerry went off and so did she, to confer with Secretary of State Kerry calling from Abu Dhabi.
Lesley Stahl: How often when you do carve out time for your family, does work impinge? Intrude? Susan Rice: You're never not working.
I mean, you always have your BlackBerry and you have to be accessible.
Even if the phone doesn't ring, you better be checking your email from time to time.
Lesley Stahl: Ian, you actually have stopped working.
Ian Cameron: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: To take care of the kids? Ian Cameron: Yeah.
Well we were in a situation, you know, financially that one of us could step out of the working world.
Lesley Stahl: What about the racial difference, was that ever an issue, a problem? Ian Cameron: It's interesting how much the country has changed, even in Washington, D.
C.
, I think there were times, you know, 30 years ago where we were self-conscious about holding hands in Washington, D.
C.
, where we worked.
Susan Rice: Now, absolutely never occurs to us.
We never hear or even sense anything.
Rice, 49, grew up in the national's capital, on Embassy Row.
Lesley Stahl: D.
C.
girl through and through? Susan Rice: Born and raised.
Her father was a governor of the Federal Reserve Board; her mother, a leading figure in education policy.
And Rice herself had a distinguished academic career.
Stanford and Rhodes Scholar.
Susan Rice: There were those who wanted to suggest as I was growing up, that any success I might have had was because of affirmative action.
And that didn't sit well with me.
And so from-- Lesley Stahl: That must've hurt.
Susan Rice: Well, I resented it.
I don't know if it hurt because I didn't think it was true.
She describes herself not as an idealist, which is her reputation, but as a pragmatist like Henry Kissinger.
Most days she's at her desk dealing with one crisis and hotspot after the next, like overseeing the six-month deal with Iran that freezes their nuclear program in exchange for some modest sanctions relief.
Lesley Stahl: Say you get the comprehensive agreement and they get the sanctions lifted.
If they cheat, then it's going to be pretty impossible to get the sanctions back, given Russia, China.
And a lot of people think that's their strategy: Make a deal, get rid of the sanctions, build a bomb.
Susan Rice: But Lesley, we will not construct a deal or accept a deal in which we cannot verify exactly what they are doing.
And if they're caught we will insure that the pressure is re-imposed on them because- take it from me, I worked on-- I worked on this at the United Nations.
I know a little bit somethin' about Security Council resolutions and how to impose sanctions and how to lift sanctions.
And there are ways to do that that impose automatic triggers, if possible, on-- for failure to comply.
Now, we haven't designed that resolution yet.
But this is something that's quite doable.
Lesley Stahl: You say we're not willing to allow them to have a nuclear bomb.
But what about what they call-- leaving them to be a nuclear threshold power, which means that they can be a power that has the capacity to develop a bomb in several months.
Susan Rice: We do not want Iran to be not only to have a bomb, but be in a position to race towards a bomb undetected.
Lesley Stahl: Watching their behavior over many, many years, you know, it defies imagination almost that they are going to give this up.
Susan Rice: I mean, let's be clear.
There's no trust.
There's no naivety.
The question is if a policy designed to put maximum economic pressure on them actually has come to the point where they are choking.
Their currency is down 50 percent.
Their oil revenues are down 50 percent.
Their inflation is up.
They're hurting.
And the question is are they hurting enough so that they are going to be willing to make some very difficult decisions that they've resisted making thus far and give up in a verifiable way this nuclear program? The answer is we don't know.
But the other half of the answer is we have every interest in testing that proposition.
Over the summer, Rice led a review of U.
S.
policy in the Middle East resulting in a new direction away from the use of force and a scaling back in the region that has upset our allies there like Saudi Arabia.
But it seems there's no escaping the Middle East.
Take the civil war in Syria where President Assad's forces have gained ground, and among the opposition - Islamic extremists are gaining over the moderates that are backed by the U.
S.
Lesley Stahl: So was it a mistake not to train and arm those moderates early on? Susan Rice: Well, Lesley, I think we'll have to review that in the context of history.
And I can't judge that at this point.
But what about the humanitarian crisis in Syria? More than 100,000 killed; eight million driven from their homes.
After the genocide in Rwanda, when Rice worked on President Clinton's national security council, she vowed if there ever was another atrocity, she would support dramatic action.
So why no dramatic action in Syria? Susan Rice: It's not that simple.
The international community isn't unified, there's no agreement to intervene, there's no basis in international law to intervene.
And yet nobody who works on that problem is at all satisfied with how it's unfolded.
Susan Rice became national security advisor as a consolation prize.
She lost her chance to be Secretary of State when she - then the UN ambassador - was asked to pinch hit for Hillary Clinton and answer questions about the attack on the U.
S.
diplomatic post in Benghazi where our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and 3 others were killed.
[Susan Rice on "Face the Nation": What our assessment is as of the present, is in fact what, it began spontaneously in Benghazi.]
That particular assessment from talking points prepared by the CIA was wrong, and Rice was accused of being deliberately misleading.
But a former senior intelligence official told us that the talking point that called the Benghazi attack spontaneous was precisely what classified intelligence reports said at the time.
Susan Rice: I don't have time to think about a false controversy.
In the midst of all of the swirl about things like talking points, the administration's been working very, very hard across the globe to review our security of our embassies and our facilities.
That's what we ought to be focused on.
Lesley Stahl: But the questions keep coming.
When someone heard that I was going to be talking to you they said, "You have to ask her why Hillary Clinton didn't do the interview that morning.
" Did she, did she smell trouble? Susan Rice: She had just gone through an incredibly painful and stressful week.
Secretary Clinton, as our chief diplomat, had to reach out to the families, had to greet the bodies upon their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base.
If I were her, the last thing I would have wanted to do is five Sunday morning talk shows.
So I think it's perfectly understandable-- Lesley Stahl: So when they asked you - Susan Rice: So when the White House asked me, I agreed to do it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you ever think, "Gee, I wish I hadn't done that.
" You know, if you hadn't done that, I'd be calling you Madam Secretary of State maybe.
Susan Rice: Well, you can call me Susan.
Twenty states have now legalized the medical use of marijuana for treatment of things like glaucoma, the effects of chemotherapy, and chronic pain; defying federal laws that still consider marijuana more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine.
Last year, voters in two states, Washington and Colorado, went so far as to approve marijuana for recreational use too.
On New Year's Day, legalized, regulated and heavily taxed recreational marijuana goes on sale in Colorado, which as we reported last year, has the most developed medical marijuana industry in the country.
In Denver, if you want to find a medical marijuana dispensary, just look for the green cross.
You won't have to go far.
There are 204 of them in the Mile High City -- that's roughly three times the number of Starbucks and McDonald's combined.
They come in all sizes and shapes.
There is the health food store motif and 70s style head shops.
There are storefronts pitching low cost weed, and boutiques offering gourmet ganja.
No stems and seeds here, just walnut-sized buds freshly harvested in the cultivation room out back.
Matt Cook: When patients arrive, this is where they'll have to show their patient registry card and their driver's license to gain access to the actual marijuana center, itself.
Steve Kroft: You could smell it.
(laugh) This is all private enterprise, licensed and regulated and taxed by the state.
It was enshrined in the Colorado constitution after voters approved an amendment allowing the sale of marijuana to people who can demonstrate that they may benefit from its avowed medicinal properties.
Matt Cook, a former narcotics officer, wrote the law and served as the state's first director of enforcement.
Matt Cook: If you'll note, video security cameras in the system--in the ceiling.
Steve Kroft: Any reason for that? Matt Cook: There is.
We created a very transparent, regulatory scheme and wanted to ensure that what they said they were doing, they were actually doing.
No state has gone to the lengths to manage medical marijuana that Colorado has.
Every licensed dispensary must grow at least 70 percent of its own product indoors so harvesting and sales can be closely monitored.
This crop is worth about a quarter of million dollars.
Matt Cook: We track everything from seed to sale.
And they have to account for 100 percent of it.
We've got a gentleman here that has a live, if you will, software program that does all of the tracking for this commodity.
Each plant has a bar code and is registered to a specific patient.
Most dispensaries will cultivate a couple of dozen different strains, some of them proprietary, like ales at a microbrewery -- engineered to have particular characteristics as our budtender, Carrie, explained.
Carrie: This is called Jack Frost, but it's a triple A: alert, awake, and aware.
If you needed to medicate in the a.
m.
before going to work, no one would ever be able to detect that you took any medicine, just as you would any other medicines that you take.
So no physical lethargy, is my point.
We should point out that those properties are anecdotal and not based on studies by the FDA or the DEA, a subject we will get to shortly.
There is also no correlation between the more popular brand names and the ailments they alleviate.
Dopium is a medication available at Denver Relief, owned by Ean Seeb.
It's gotten high marks from critics -- yes, there are medical marijuana critics in Colorado, even competitions.
Steve Kroft: You won the Colorado Medical Marijuana Harvest Cup? Couple of years ago? Ean Seeb: We did.
In 2009.
And our Biodiesel won five out of the six categories and first place.
So we won the overall award.
It was a sweeping victory, if you will.
And then we put-- Steve Kroft: Biodiesel? Ean Seeb: Yeah.
I-- Steve Kroft: That's the name of it? Ean Seeb: Yes, it is.
And it's become-- Steve Kroft: Doesn't sound like medicine.
(laugh) Ean Seeb: There's a lot of strains out there that don't sound like medicine because this didn't used to be legal.
And those strain names have not changed.
But it's not all brand loyalty and nostalgia.
There are lots of new things on the dispensary shelf, especially for non-smokers.
They're called edibles, the marriage of botanical science and the culinary arts: marijuana infused cookies, candy, chocolate truffles, even olive oil.
And for patients watching their waistline, there are marijuana pills that come in different strengths, just like Tylenol and Advil.
Carrie: You simply take it with a glass of water and it puts you where you need to be.
The people who have invested money in all of this are known locally as ganjapreneurs.
Colorado has had a history of gold rushes and silver rushes, and some people have dubbed this the green rush, not just for the color of medical marijuana, but for the money that might eventually be made here if you are among the first to stake a claim.
Kristi Kelly was doing marketing in Washington, when she decided to invest in a medical marijuana dispensary.
Kristi Kelly: There's not a lot of opportunities in any one lifetime where you can be a part of something from such an early stage.
And so, ultimately, my partners begged me to come out.
And my husband and I packed up our bags and shut down our life in DC and moved out here.
[Tripp Keber: The company's evolution has been fairly dynamic.]
Tripp Keber is CEO of Dixie Elixirs, the leading manufacturer of cannabis-laced edibles.
It supplies most of the state's 537 dispensaries from this factory, which he calls state of the art for the industry, which means small scale.
Tripp Keber: So here we have Lexi, who is one of our production specialists.
She's preparing our medicated chocolate rolls, which are certainly one of our most popular edibles products.
Steve Kroft: Smells really good.
It looks good.
Female voice: Thank you.
(laugh) Dixie Elixir's product line includes ice creams and medicated beverages that come in 10 different flavors.
Tripp Keber: We have a 75-milligram, 12-ounce sparkling red currant, would be the equivalent of four or five doses of medicine for a patient.
Steve Kroft: What would happen to me if I drank one of these? Tripp Keber: You would have a very long, but mellow afternoon.
(laughter) Keber and his partners have poured a million dollars into this business, and have also pioneered edible products and capsules they say contain all of the medicinal benefits of marijuana, but without the high.
Steve Kroft: What's your business plan? Tripp Keber: So our plan-- you know, and I'm-- Steve Kroft: Long-term and short-term.
Tripp Keber: Sure, the long-term plan for this business for Dixie Elixirs and Edibles as I've never been really shy to share is ultimately to sell it.
I truly believe that whether it's Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, a company like one of those is going to look very, very closely at medical cannabis.
It's about a two billion dollar market in in 2016.
So you're seeing hockey stick growth.
And I think companies like Dixie are well-positioned to be acquired as the industry develops.
It's a risky proposition.
The industry requires a big capital investment and the medical marijuana marketplace is already saturated.
But Matt Cook, who wrote the rule book for all this and is now a consultant to the medical marijuana industry, says it's helped pull Denver out of the recession -- occupying once vacant retail and industrial space, providing thousands of jobs and new revenue for the state of Colorado.
Steve Kroft: What's the economic impact been? Matt Cook: It's huge.
There's over a million square feet of leased space in the Denver area.
Look at all the electrical contractors, the HVAC contractors, a number of ancillary businesses.
It's huge.
Tax revenues exceeded-- I believe the last number I heard was in excess of $20 million.
But in spite of all the euphoria, there is a cloud hanging over the cannabis industry in Colorado, and it's not marijuana smoke.
It's the federal Controlled Substances Act, which still lists marijuana as a Schedule One drug, every bit as dangerous as heroin, with no medical benefit.
And the Justice Department is not happy with the wide-scale commercialization of Colorado cannabis.
Sam Kamin is a law professor at the University of Denver, and one of the reigning experts on the subject.
Steve Kroft: In Colorado, you can grow it if you're licensed and you can sell it if you're licensed to people who have a card to buy it.
Sam Kamin: Yes, but-- Steve Kroft: And all of those people are violating federal law.
Sam Kamin: Exactly.
And that's the really strange thing is that we have this, you know, sort of hundreds of dispensaries servicing as many as 100,000 people and every transaction that occurs is a federal crime and every -- all the manufacturing of the product, from the growing of it to the making of the products and everything else, all of those are serious federal crimes.
Steve Kroft: Even though the state of Colorado has passed a constitutional amendment-- amendment allowing it-- Sam Kamin: Exactly.
Steve Kroft: --sanctioning it.
Sam Kamin: Exactly.
Right? The federal government sees it as a serious crime.
They say, "We know that California and 16 other states, the District of Columbia -- we know you guys think it's medicine.
It's not.
We hear that you want to legalize it.
You can't.
We can't make you undo your statutes, but we can sure come in and prosecute your citizens that are violating federal law.
" Steve Kroft: But they haven't.
Sam Kamin: But they haven't.
And there's a reason for that.
Some might call it the triumph of the marketplace.
The federal government doesn't have enough manpower to shut down the medical marijuana business in Colorado or prosecute all the purveyors and patients.
And the voters don't want it.
Boulder County District attorney Stan Garnett says it's virtually impossible to impanel a jury on a marijuana case here, let alone get a conviction.
Stan Garnett: What we deal with is what prosecutors call jury nullification, where juries say, "I know what the law is, but I'm not going to follow it.
" This community has made it very clear that criminal enforcement of marijuana is not something they want me to spend any time on.
Steve Kroft: It is really an issue here? Stan Garnett: It's really not an issue.
And that is more or less the position of Justice Department in Washington.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole has told U.
S.
attorneys not to waste resources prosecuting patients or caregivers that are in clear compliance with state medical marijuana laws.
James Cole: Our focus is really on keeping it away from children.
Our focus is keeping it out of the hands of organized crime.
Our focus is making sure that people aren't, through marijuana dispensaries, using it as a pretext to do large-scale interstate drug dealing.
These are the areas where we're really trying to focus.
Steve Kroft: So the message is, if you're licensed in the state of Colorado and you follow the law, then you should be okay.
James Cole: Each case is going to rise and fall on its own unique facts.
Any of that is still in violation of the Controlled Substances Act of the federal law.
We're not interested in bothering people who are sick and are using it in the recommendation of a doctor.
We are concerned with people who are using it as a pretext to become large-scale drug dealers.
Steve Kroft: So it sounds like the federal government is tolerating it.
Sam Kamin: It is tolerating it.
And at the same time is below the surface, trying to make it very difficult for these folks.
It's doing it through banking regulations.
If you talk to dispensary owners, one of the things that they will lament is, no one will do business with us.
The Justice Department has let it be known if financial institutions do business with medical marijuana centers, they could be at risk for civil or criminal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act or federal money laundering statutes.
It's made it difficult, if not impossible for dispensaries to get loans, open company bank accounts or process patients' credit cards.
Sam Kamin: It can't stay like this.
Either we have to have settled expectations that this is a federal crime, the federal government's not going to tolerate it.
Or the federal government is going to let states like Colorado regulate it, tax it, experiment with it.
To have it exist in both worlds simultaneously is unsustainable.
We can't have a multimillion dollar industry built on criminal conduct.
But so far, the federal government is content to let Colorado live in its own world.
The Department of Justice has conducted a few raids -- limited to facilities it says violate its guidelines.
The feds, it appears, will not stand in the way as recreational marijuana goes on sale in Colorado on January 1st.
And the Denver Post, by the way, has added a marijuana critic to its staff.
Quarterbacks: the superheroes of America's favorite pastime: watching football.
Chances are, you were just watching a game, and throughout, your eyes were fixed on the quarterbacks, those cool commanders of the gridiron.
You fathers out there might have been dreaming about what might have been, but your sons, even the toddlers, would have been dreaming about future glory.
Tonight, we meet the man who sometimes makes their dreams come true - Steve Clarkson, quarterback guru, the man parents of 8 and 9 year olds turn to -- and despite the obvious dangers of the game -- spend tens-of-thousands of dollars seeking the magic touch that's sent more than 25 Clarkson quarterbacks to the NFL.
He's so successful, that college recruiters are offering football scholarships to some of his students, some as young as 13.
Coach: One, two, three, Steelers! It all starts here-in the pee-wee leagues.
These mini-monsters games are the NFL in miniature-from cheerleaders to bone crunching tackles.
Nine-year-old quarterback Travis Endicott, one of Steve Clarkson's newest students.
If he's good enough by the ripe old age of 12, he may be offered a Division 1 college football scholarship.
Morley Safer: Are they looking at 7, 8 year olds, 9 year olds? Steve Clarkson: You know, without question, it has happened.
And, that's the new line, so to speak.
Morley Safer: The new normal? Steve Clarkson: The new normal.
[Clarkson at San Diego training camp: A little faster now.
Be a little more comfortable.
Spin it!.]
These wannabee Peyton Mannings are inspired by their professors - Clarkson's alumni -- a roster of NFL quarterbacks who spend part of their off-season dishing out expertise to an awestruck platoon of undergraduates.
Steve Clarkson: My biggest success stories are the guys that come back whether it's Ben Roethlisberger or Matt Leinart, Jimmy Clausen, Josh Freeman, or Jake Locker.
They all come back and they participate and they help take these kids and share their experiences, as to what it was like when they were, you know, Twelve-year-old Aaron McLaughlin is one of Clarkson's promising new prospects.
[Clarkson doing drills on Franklin Field with McLaughlin - Clarkson: Good.
You were able to step completely square , closed off, so that back hip catches what? That front leg, and then you finish square to your target.
McLaughlin: Stay four, five.
Clarkson: Well done!.]
Aaron's father Craig McLaughlin takes his son from Atlanta to Los Angeles once a month for private lessons - [Clarkson: It should be continuous.
When I get to here, you see how tight I kept this.
And I stayed right up on top, and I'm here.
.]
At $400 an hour -- apart from the inherent dangers of football -- it's a risky investment.
There's only a six percent chance of making a college football team.
And then, only eight in 10,000 will make it to the pros.
Morley Safer: Whose idea was it to bring-- Clarkson into your lives? Craig McLaughlin: That was actually my idea.
My son is now going into the 6th grade and he had always shown talent in his position as a quarterback, but I really wanted to understand how talented he was and get someone that had national exposure and the experience that Steve has with quarterbacks and see how Aaron evaluated.
Morley Safer: And how much of a change have you noticed in your talents since you started with him? Aaron McLaughlin: I've noticed a big change.
I've been throwing the ball better.
I've been-- my footwork has been better.
I used to kinda trip myself when I'd do drops.
I haven't done that at all.
Morley Safer: It's a major financial commitment for you and your family, correct? Craig McLaughlin: Correct.
I don't know what the future has to hold-- but the one thing is-- is that he's gonna know that his parents, when he set his mind to something, we believe in him.
And he's gonna have that sense of confidence.
That sense of confidence that inspires parents and kids has a lot to do with the college scholarship offers that Clarkson's orchestrated for 7th and 8th graders.
Last year, Clarkson secured a scholarship offer from the University of Washington for Tate Martell: My goal was always to try to get a scholarship.
And when it came, I was just shocked.
Morley Safer: How long is it that you wanted to be a big-time quarterback? Tate Martell: I'd talk about the NFL when I was, like, 4 years old.
I guess I'd run around my house-- I see pictures a me running around my house in a 49ers helmet butt naked.
That naked passion eventually led Tate's parents, to seek out Clarkson.
Morley Safer: How did it affect your game? Tate Martell: Oh, I've improved in, like, massive ways-- especially my ability to like play consistently throughout the game, especially, like, in the fourth quarter, being able to throw the same way in the first like I do in the fourth.
Morley Safer: When you got this offer you weren't even in high school yet, correct? Tate Martell: I was going into 8th grade.
Morley Safer: A lot of people are gonna be dismayed to hear that 13 year olds, even 12 year olds are being considered.
Steve Clarkson: Well, because of the way training is nowadays, you're talkin' about kids now that perform their-- or practice their craft the quarterback position, you pretty much have to dedicate yourself, you know, 10, 11, is doing that.
It may be a man's game, but the mommas are just as passionate as the poppas.
Pamela Poe's son M.
C.
Poe is a junior, and starting quarterback for Cathedral High School in Los Angeles - an NFL size squad with 16, repeat 16, coaches.
Morley Safer: Do you worry about him when he's on the field? Pamela Poe: I'm his mom, of course I do.
That's why I tell him he's gotta have speed and get outta the way.
Two years ago, Ms.
Poe sent her son from Nashvile to Los Angeles to live with the Clarkson family.
Morley Safer: A lot of mothers are gonna look at you and say, you know, "What gives with her?" I mean, the dangers of the game-- after all, it's only a game.
And, isn't it a bit excessive? Pamela Poe: This is a passion that M.
C.
has had.
And when I have a child that had the opportunity to come out to California and train to develop himself into being a better quarterback, I do not feel that it was excessive because it was what-- it was the right thing for M.
C.
Morley Safer: But what people might find excessive is you took him out of school and sent him to California to live with Steve.
Pamela Poe: M.
C.
's a different child.
Here he is, 14 years old, left his family, his brothers, his friends, but he knew he wanted to do this.
He was that driven.
That's the kinda child MC is.
M.
C.
still trains with Clarkson every week.
And his mother still flies in from Nashville for most of his games.
Clarkson is confident M.
C.
will get a Divison 1 scholarship offer.
One of Clarkson's premiere students who's already received a scholarship offer is 17-year-old Brady White.
White is ranked among the top Under those Friday night lights, Clarkson shuttles between his students games.
Steve Clarkson: Brady is a once in a lifetime kid.
His skill set is really one of the best I've seen.
Morley Safer: Music to your ears, right? Andrea White: Right it's, you know, it's a dream to hear that.
And you hope that it's-- that it comes true.
Steve's a lotta the reason why Brady has mechanics and the talent and the passion that he does.
Andrea and Deron White, Brady's parents, are Clarkson-faithful.
Morley Safer: But this is a dangerous game and the QB always has a target on his chest, right? Deron White: Driving down the street's a dangerous event in California as well.
So, how many people get to play and start at quarterback in high school and then go onto college and play in front of millions of fans, in front of TV and the environment and- Andrea White: Doing what they love.
Deron White: --yeah, that's a dream come true.
[Clarkson: Here we go now we're getting somewhere.
Nice shot.
.]
Clarkson's job is to feed the football machine with a new crop of dreamers.
It's a well-oiled machine of camps and clinics, where you can learn fancy footwork and an exotic language.
Clarkson: We didn't see it.
Now he takes another three, and hit it in the second window.
He teaches 40 or 50 kids at a time - employing a routine of skills and drills from proper poses, to pirouettes - all in the name of perfecting the pass.
[Clarkson teaches kids on field -- Clarkson: Woooo That's it, spin it!.]
And he briefs parents on the risky road to stardom.
Steve Clarkson: They're gonna read about their son.
They're gonna go to a game and they're gonna hear awful things about their son.
Like, I remember my dad telling me one time I was so bad at a game at Fresno State, and I threw five interceptions, he had to boo, too, just so that he wouldn't get beat up.
So, yeah, I know it's tough.
[Clarkson teaching class in locker room - Clarkson: We call this a single high beater.
.]
That first-hand knowledge of failure, led Clarkson to success as a teacher.
Steve Clarkson: When I started this business, there was nobody that did this.
There were tennis coaches.
There were batting coaches.
There are pitching coaches.
But there was never a quarterback coach.
It was not just teaching the art of quarterbacking but it was also kind of a creative marketing, like how do you take this guy and make him a star? [Clarkson at UCLA Univ.
of Washington game on sidelines - Clarkson: What's goin' on man?.]
Starmaking through college connections.
College coaches like Steve Sarkisian, a Clarkson graduate, and new head coach at USC, want to know about his newest batch of talent.
In Clarkson's have made it as Division 1 college or NFL quarterbacks.
Clarkson was one of the nation's top quarterbacks at San Jose State, but just couldn't make it to the NFL.
So he went into the guru business.
And word soon spread about his success, parents across the country sought him out.
Among them, Joe Montana, who sent his two sons to the Clarkson camp.
That's some endorsement.
But some NFL fathers aren't so keen about football for kids period.
Bart Scott, a CBS sports network analyst played for 11 years as an NFL linebacker, and was a quarterback's worst nightmare.
[NFL footage of Bart Scott sacking QB Ben Roethlisberger - Announcer: Roethlisberger goes down! And what a violent hit Ben took.
.]
Morley Safer: One of your prime jobs, was to get-- to sack the quarterback.
Bart Scott: Inflict pain.
That was my job description.
Morley Safer: Well you sure inflicted pain on Ben Roethlisberger.
That kind of determination to "inflict pain," as you say, does that apply to kids' football as well? Bart Scott: Of course, especially.
You know, I remember when I was a kid, I started playing football when I was eight years old.
You know, we used to come back and show the opposing teams colors that, you know, that had rubbed off on our helmets, meaning that we had really hit 'em really good.
It was a badge of honor.
Scott had no interest in that badge of honor for his son.
He went on the record saying he didn't want his kid playing football.
Morley Safer: So how can you let your kid play football? Bart Scott: You know what? You know, I didn't want my son to play football.
But when my son wanted to play and his mother signed him up what I decided to do was become the football coach so I can make sure that he's been taught the proper techniques to defend his self, to protect his self.
What worries parents most is the risk of brain injuries.
Nevertheless, as these "high school's hardest hits" videos show.
The kids themselves don't hold back.
Beyond the dangers of the game, Scott worries about the impact of big college football's latest recruiting tactic: get 'em while they're young.
Bart Scott: Universities and people who are in that business will stop at anything to make a profit.
You know, everybody wants to be ahead of the curve.
I remember the kid Tyson Jackson I believe outta LSU received a scholarship when he was born because he was a 10-pound-baby.
I'm like really, how, do you know this kid doesn't have two-left feet? Actually it was a 15-pound baby named Herman Johnson.
The scholarship offer may be a myth, but Johnson did grow up to become a 400-pound-guard - with a scholarship from LSU.
But your football scholarship is just about as rare as your And Clarkson may love the game, but [San Diego training camp - Miller Moss: Set, hike!.]
Morley Safer: This is a very tough racket? Steve Clarkson: There's no question it's tough.
But it's no different than from the-- the person that wants to be an actor.
You know, they go to school for that and chances are they're gonna be serving coffee at Starbucks or someplace.
Morley Safer: Do you prepare them for disappointment? Steve Clarkson: You don't ever really prepare for disappointment.
I think what you try to do is you're preparing them for multiple choices, so that you know-- hey, look, you're always taught as a quarterback, "We go to the line of scrimmage and we'r-- we see one thing but we have to be prepared to change the play.
"
During her four years as the U.
S.
ambassador to the UN, she had a reputation, as one magazine put it, for being "whip-smart, energetic, abrasive, charming, funny, combative, and frequently undiplomatic.
" And yet the president wanted to name her to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
But then she walked into the Benghazi buzzsaw.
She got swept up in the dispute over who attacked the U.
S.
diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
There was no chance she would be confirmed by the Senate.
So last July, she became one of the president's closest advisors -- both personally, and in terms of proximity.
Lesley Stahl: The Oval Office is right there? Susan Rice: Down, actually, in the corner.
Lesley Stahl: Down there? As the president's national security advisor, Susan Rice works in what some consider the second best office in the White House.
Lesley Stahl: This is the office, huh? Susan Rice: This is Henry's office, as we call it.
Lesley Stahl: Henry's office, Henry Kissinger's office.
As Kissinger was, Rice is the quarterback of American foreign policy.
She's the one who wakes up the president when there's a Susan Rice: My job is to bring the good news and the bad news and often in this business it can be more bad than good.
And there's so much of it that's bad.
Her plate has been full from the day she got the job.
Lesley Stahl: I wanna give you a quote that a foreign policy expert gave us.
"Syria has been a fiasco.
Egypt is a fiasco.
Relations with our closest allies in the Middle East are deteriorating.
And at this moment in time, the Chinese choose to provoke Japan And we are leaning back.
" Susan Rice: I couldn't disagree with that more.
But you wouldn't be surprised to hear me say that- Lesley Stahl: No.
Susan Rice: We are very actively engaged in trying to broker a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after months, if not years, of stalemate.
In Syria chemical weapons are leaving the country for the first time.
The situation in the Middle East is complicated.
But to paint this with a broad brush and say it's a disaster, I think, is missing a lot of important data points.
Lesley Stahl: But it's in as much turmoil, I think, you tell me, as it's ever been.
Susan Rice: How about Suez? I mean, let's study a little history.
Lesley Stahl: But that was one place, you know? Susan Rice: Yeah, but that was almost a global conflict in the Middle East.
I think hyperbole is something to be utilized carefully.
Lesley Stahl: On both sides? Susan Rice: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: Edward Snowden.
You know, Snowden is believed to have a million and a half more documents that have never been released.
Given that, would you, would the president, consider granting him amnesty in exchange for him never releasing any more documents? Susan Rice: Well, Lesley, we don't think that Snowden deserves amnesty.
We believe he should come back, he should be sent back, and he should have his day in court.
Lesley Stahl: But if what he's released so far has been so damaging and he has a million and a half more documents, how important is it that he not release those? And what would we offer him, nothing? Susan Rice: Lesley, you know I'm not going to get into a negotiation with you on camera about something that sensitive-- Lesley Stahl: You just seemed to suggest no- Susan Rice: -- but the position of the United States is that he ought to come back and face justice.
Lesley Stahl: Has he either directly, indirectly, in any way proposed such an arrangement? Susan Rice: Not that I'm aware of.
This past week, a federal judge ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of American phone records, revealed in Snowden's leaks, "almost certainly" violates the Constitution, while a panel of intelligence and legal experts urged the president to impose new restrictions on the NSA.
Lesley Stahl: According to an article in the New Yorker, every time there's been a question about putting restraints on the NSA up to now, the president has sided with the intelligence community.
Susan Rice: What the NSA and our intelligence community does as a whole is designed to protect Americans and our allies.
And they do a heck of a good job at it.
Lesley Stahl: Officials in the intelligence community have actually been untruthful both to the American public in hearings in Congress and to the FISA Court.
Susan Rice: There have been cases where they have inadvertently made false representations.
And they themselves have discovered it and corrected it.
Lesley Stahl: But when you have so many phone records being held, emails, heads of state's phone conversations being listened in to, has it been worth our allies being upset? Has it been worth all the tech companies being upset? Has it been worth Americans feeling that their privacy has been invaded? Susan Rice: Lesley, it's been worth what we've done to protect the United States.
And the fact that we have not had a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11 should not be diminished.
But that does not mean that everything we're doing as of the present ought to be done the same way in the future.
Susan Rice works 14 to 16-hour days.
She's not the first woman to be national security advisor, or the first African American.
But she is the first mother.
She has two kids: Jake, 16 and Maris, 11.
Lesley Stahl: See anyone you recognize? A rare afternoon off is Sundaywhen she goes to Maris' soccer game.
Susan Rice: Maris is.
.
she's got blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Lesley Stahl: Oh yeah.
Her husband, Ian Cameron, used to be an executive producer at ABC News.
Ian Cameron: Hey, how are you? Nice to see you.
Thanks for coming out.
As the match proceeded, we got a sense of how fiercely competitive Susan Rice is when Maris scored a goal.
Susan Rice: Scream! You guys have to come every week 'cause you're good luck.
In the middle of everything, her BlackBerry went off and so did she, to confer with Secretary of State Kerry calling from Abu Dhabi.
Lesley Stahl: How often when you do carve out time for your family, does work impinge? Intrude? Susan Rice: You're never not working.
I mean, you always have your BlackBerry and you have to be accessible.
Even if the phone doesn't ring, you better be checking your email from time to time.
Lesley Stahl: Ian, you actually have stopped working.
Ian Cameron: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: To take care of the kids? Ian Cameron: Yeah.
Well we were in a situation, you know, financially that one of us could step out of the working world.
Lesley Stahl: What about the racial difference, was that ever an issue, a problem? Ian Cameron: It's interesting how much the country has changed, even in Washington, D.
C.
, I think there were times, you know, 30 years ago where we were self-conscious about holding hands in Washington, D.
C.
, where we worked.
Susan Rice: Now, absolutely never occurs to us.
We never hear or even sense anything.
Rice, 49, grew up in the national's capital, on Embassy Row.
Lesley Stahl: D.
C.
girl through and through? Susan Rice: Born and raised.
Her father was a governor of the Federal Reserve Board; her mother, a leading figure in education policy.
And Rice herself had a distinguished academic career.
Stanford and Rhodes Scholar.
Susan Rice: There were those who wanted to suggest as I was growing up, that any success I might have had was because of affirmative action.
And that didn't sit well with me.
And so from-- Lesley Stahl: That must've hurt.
Susan Rice: Well, I resented it.
I don't know if it hurt because I didn't think it was true.
She describes herself not as an idealist, which is her reputation, but as a pragmatist like Henry Kissinger.
Most days she's at her desk dealing with one crisis and hotspot after the next, like overseeing the six-month deal with Iran that freezes their nuclear program in exchange for some modest sanctions relief.
Lesley Stahl: Say you get the comprehensive agreement and they get the sanctions lifted.
If they cheat, then it's going to be pretty impossible to get the sanctions back, given Russia, China.
And a lot of people think that's their strategy: Make a deal, get rid of the sanctions, build a bomb.
Susan Rice: But Lesley, we will not construct a deal or accept a deal in which we cannot verify exactly what they are doing.
And if they're caught we will insure that the pressure is re-imposed on them because- take it from me, I worked on-- I worked on this at the United Nations.
I know a little bit somethin' about Security Council resolutions and how to impose sanctions and how to lift sanctions.
And there are ways to do that that impose automatic triggers, if possible, on-- for failure to comply.
Now, we haven't designed that resolution yet.
But this is something that's quite doable.
Lesley Stahl: You say we're not willing to allow them to have a nuclear bomb.
But what about what they call-- leaving them to be a nuclear threshold power, which means that they can be a power that has the capacity to develop a bomb in several months.
Susan Rice: We do not want Iran to be not only to have a bomb, but be in a position to race towards a bomb undetected.
Lesley Stahl: Watching their behavior over many, many years, you know, it defies imagination almost that they are going to give this up.
Susan Rice: I mean, let's be clear.
There's no trust.
There's no naivety.
The question is if a policy designed to put maximum economic pressure on them actually has come to the point where they are choking.
Their currency is down 50 percent.
Their oil revenues are down 50 percent.
Their inflation is up.
They're hurting.
And the question is are they hurting enough so that they are going to be willing to make some very difficult decisions that they've resisted making thus far and give up in a verifiable way this nuclear program? The answer is we don't know.
But the other half of the answer is we have every interest in testing that proposition.
Over the summer, Rice led a review of U.
S.
policy in the Middle East resulting in a new direction away from the use of force and a scaling back in the region that has upset our allies there like Saudi Arabia.
But it seems there's no escaping the Middle East.
Take the civil war in Syria where President Assad's forces have gained ground, and among the opposition - Islamic extremists are gaining over the moderates that are backed by the U.
S.
Lesley Stahl: So was it a mistake not to train and arm those moderates early on? Susan Rice: Well, Lesley, I think we'll have to review that in the context of history.
And I can't judge that at this point.
But what about the humanitarian crisis in Syria? More than 100,000 killed; eight million driven from their homes.
After the genocide in Rwanda, when Rice worked on President Clinton's national security council, she vowed if there ever was another atrocity, she would support dramatic action.
So why no dramatic action in Syria? Susan Rice: It's not that simple.
The international community isn't unified, there's no agreement to intervene, there's no basis in international law to intervene.
And yet nobody who works on that problem is at all satisfied with how it's unfolded.
Susan Rice became national security advisor as a consolation prize.
She lost her chance to be Secretary of State when she - then the UN ambassador - was asked to pinch hit for Hillary Clinton and answer questions about the attack on the U.
S.
diplomatic post in Benghazi where our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and 3 others were killed.
[Susan Rice on "Face the Nation": What our assessment is as of the present, is in fact what, it began spontaneously in Benghazi.]
That particular assessment from talking points prepared by the CIA was wrong, and Rice was accused of being deliberately misleading.
But a former senior intelligence official told us that the talking point that called the Benghazi attack spontaneous was precisely what classified intelligence reports said at the time.
Susan Rice: I don't have time to think about a false controversy.
In the midst of all of the swirl about things like talking points, the administration's been working very, very hard across the globe to review our security of our embassies and our facilities.
That's what we ought to be focused on.
Lesley Stahl: But the questions keep coming.
When someone heard that I was going to be talking to you they said, "You have to ask her why Hillary Clinton didn't do the interview that morning.
" Did she, did she smell trouble? Susan Rice: She had just gone through an incredibly painful and stressful week.
Secretary Clinton, as our chief diplomat, had to reach out to the families, had to greet the bodies upon their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base.
If I were her, the last thing I would have wanted to do is five Sunday morning talk shows.
So I think it's perfectly understandable-- Lesley Stahl: So when they asked you - Susan Rice: So when the White House asked me, I agreed to do it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you ever think, "Gee, I wish I hadn't done that.
" You know, if you hadn't done that, I'd be calling you Madam Secretary of State maybe.
Susan Rice: Well, you can call me Susan.
Twenty states have now legalized the medical use of marijuana for treatment of things like glaucoma, the effects of chemotherapy, and chronic pain; defying federal laws that still consider marijuana more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine.
Last year, voters in two states, Washington and Colorado, went so far as to approve marijuana for recreational use too.
On New Year's Day, legalized, regulated and heavily taxed recreational marijuana goes on sale in Colorado, which as we reported last year, has the most developed medical marijuana industry in the country.
In Denver, if you want to find a medical marijuana dispensary, just look for the green cross.
You won't have to go far.
There are 204 of them in the Mile High City -- that's roughly three times the number of Starbucks and McDonald's combined.
They come in all sizes and shapes.
There is the health food store motif and 70s style head shops.
There are storefronts pitching low cost weed, and boutiques offering gourmet ganja.
No stems and seeds here, just walnut-sized buds freshly harvested in the cultivation room out back.
Matt Cook: When patients arrive, this is where they'll have to show their patient registry card and their driver's license to gain access to the actual marijuana center, itself.
Steve Kroft: You could smell it.
(laugh) This is all private enterprise, licensed and regulated and taxed by the state.
It was enshrined in the Colorado constitution after voters approved an amendment allowing the sale of marijuana to people who can demonstrate that they may benefit from its avowed medicinal properties.
Matt Cook, a former narcotics officer, wrote the law and served as the state's first director of enforcement.
Matt Cook: If you'll note, video security cameras in the system--in the ceiling.
Steve Kroft: Any reason for that? Matt Cook: There is.
We created a very transparent, regulatory scheme and wanted to ensure that what they said they were doing, they were actually doing.
No state has gone to the lengths to manage medical marijuana that Colorado has.
Every licensed dispensary must grow at least 70 percent of its own product indoors so harvesting and sales can be closely monitored.
This crop is worth about a quarter of million dollars.
Matt Cook: We track everything from seed to sale.
And they have to account for 100 percent of it.
We've got a gentleman here that has a live, if you will, software program that does all of the tracking for this commodity.
Each plant has a bar code and is registered to a specific patient.
Most dispensaries will cultivate a couple of dozen different strains, some of them proprietary, like ales at a microbrewery -- engineered to have particular characteristics as our budtender, Carrie, explained.
Carrie: This is called Jack Frost, but it's a triple A: alert, awake, and aware.
If you needed to medicate in the a.
m.
before going to work, no one would ever be able to detect that you took any medicine, just as you would any other medicines that you take.
So no physical lethargy, is my point.
We should point out that those properties are anecdotal and not based on studies by the FDA or the DEA, a subject we will get to shortly.
There is also no correlation between the more popular brand names and the ailments they alleviate.
Dopium is a medication available at Denver Relief, owned by Ean Seeb.
It's gotten high marks from critics -- yes, there are medical marijuana critics in Colorado, even competitions.
Steve Kroft: You won the Colorado Medical Marijuana Harvest Cup? Couple of years ago? Ean Seeb: We did.
In 2009.
And our Biodiesel won five out of the six categories and first place.
So we won the overall award.
It was a sweeping victory, if you will.
And then we put-- Steve Kroft: Biodiesel? Ean Seeb: Yeah.
I-- Steve Kroft: That's the name of it? Ean Seeb: Yes, it is.
And it's become-- Steve Kroft: Doesn't sound like medicine.
(laugh) Ean Seeb: There's a lot of strains out there that don't sound like medicine because this didn't used to be legal.
And those strain names have not changed.
But it's not all brand loyalty and nostalgia.
There are lots of new things on the dispensary shelf, especially for non-smokers.
They're called edibles, the marriage of botanical science and the culinary arts: marijuana infused cookies, candy, chocolate truffles, even olive oil.
And for patients watching their waistline, there are marijuana pills that come in different strengths, just like Tylenol and Advil.
Carrie: You simply take it with a glass of water and it puts you where you need to be.
The people who have invested money in all of this are known locally as ganjapreneurs.
Colorado has had a history of gold rushes and silver rushes, and some people have dubbed this the green rush, not just for the color of medical marijuana, but for the money that might eventually be made here if you are among the first to stake a claim.
Kristi Kelly was doing marketing in Washington, when she decided to invest in a medical marijuana dispensary.
Kristi Kelly: There's not a lot of opportunities in any one lifetime where you can be a part of something from such an early stage.
And so, ultimately, my partners begged me to come out.
And my husband and I packed up our bags and shut down our life in DC and moved out here.
[Tripp Keber: The company's evolution has been fairly dynamic.]
Tripp Keber is CEO of Dixie Elixirs, the leading manufacturer of cannabis-laced edibles.
It supplies most of the state's 537 dispensaries from this factory, which he calls state of the art for the industry, which means small scale.
Tripp Keber: So here we have Lexi, who is one of our production specialists.
She's preparing our medicated chocolate rolls, which are certainly one of our most popular edibles products.
Steve Kroft: Smells really good.
It looks good.
Female voice: Thank you.
(laugh) Dixie Elixir's product line includes ice creams and medicated beverages that come in 10 different flavors.
Tripp Keber: We have a 75-milligram, 12-ounce sparkling red currant, would be the equivalent of four or five doses of medicine for a patient.
Steve Kroft: What would happen to me if I drank one of these? Tripp Keber: You would have a very long, but mellow afternoon.
(laughter) Keber and his partners have poured a million dollars into this business, and have also pioneered edible products and capsules they say contain all of the medicinal benefits of marijuana, but without the high.
Steve Kroft: What's your business plan? Tripp Keber: So our plan-- you know, and I'm-- Steve Kroft: Long-term and short-term.
Tripp Keber: Sure, the long-term plan for this business for Dixie Elixirs and Edibles as I've never been really shy to share is ultimately to sell it.
I truly believe that whether it's Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, a company like one of those is going to look very, very closely at medical cannabis.
It's about a two billion dollar market in in 2016.
So you're seeing hockey stick growth.
And I think companies like Dixie are well-positioned to be acquired as the industry develops.
It's a risky proposition.
The industry requires a big capital investment and the medical marijuana marketplace is already saturated.
But Matt Cook, who wrote the rule book for all this and is now a consultant to the medical marijuana industry, says it's helped pull Denver out of the recession -- occupying once vacant retail and industrial space, providing thousands of jobs and new revenue for the state of Colorado.
Steve Kroft: What's the economic impact been? Matt Cook: It's huge.
There's over a million square feet of leased space in the Denver area.
Look at all the electrical contractors, the HVAC contractors, a number of ancillary businesses.
It's huge.
Tax revenues exceeded-- I believe the last number I heard was in excess of $20 million.
But in spite of all the euphoria, there is a cloud hanging over the cannabis industry in Colorado, and it's not marijuana smoke.
It's the federal Controlled Substances Act, which still lists marijuana as a Schedule One drug, every bit as dangerous as heroin, with no medical benefit.
And the Justice Department is not happy with the wide-scale commercialization of Colorado cannabis.
Sam Kamin is a law professor at the University of Denver, and one of the reigning experts on the subject.
Steve Kroft: In Colorado, you can grow it if you're licensed and you can sell it if you're licensed to people who have a card to buy it.
Sam Kamin: Yes, but-- Steve Kroft: And all of those people are violating federal law.
Sam Kamin: Exactly.
And that's the really strange thing is that we have this, you know, sort of hundreds of dispensaries servicing as many as 100,000 people and every transaction that occurs is a federal crime and every -- all the manufacturing of the product, from the growing of it to the making of the products and everything else, all of those are serious federal crimes.
Steve Kroft: Even though the state of Colorado has passed a constitutional amendment-- amendment allowing it-- Sam Kamin: Exactly.
Steve Kroft: --sanctioning it.
Sam Kamin: Exactly.
Right? The federal government sees it as a serious crime.
They say, "We know that California and 16 other states, the District of Columbia -- we know you guys think it's medicine.
It's not.
We hear that you want to legalize it.
You can't.
We can't make you undo your statutes, but we can sure come in and prosecute your citizens that are violating federal law.
" Steve Kroft: But they haven't.
Sam Kamin: But they haven't.
And there's a reason for that.
Some might call it the triumph of the marketplace.
The federal government doesn't have enough manpower to shut down the medical marijuana business in Colorado or prosecute all the purveyors and patients.
And the voters don't want it.
Boulder County District attorney Stan Garnett says it's virtually impossible to impanel a jury on a marijuana case here, let alone get a conviction.
Stan Garnett: What we deal with is what prosecutors call jury nullification, where juries say, "I know what the law is, but I'm not going to follow it.
" This community has made it very clear that criminal enforcement of marijuana is not something they want me to spend any time on.
Steve Kroft: It is really an issue here? Stan Garnett: It's really not an issue.
And that is more or less the position of Justice Department in Washington.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole has told U.
S.
attorneys not to waste resources prosecuting patients or caregivers that are in clear compliance with state medical marijuana laws.
James Cole: Our focus is really on keeping it away from children.
Our focus is keeping it out of the hands of organized crime.
Our focus is making sure that people aren't, through marijuana dispensaries, using it as a pretext to do large-scale interstate drug dealing.
These are the areas where we're really trying to focus.
Steve Kroft: So the message is, if you're licensed in the state of Colorado and you follow the law, then you should be okay.
James Cole: Each case is going to rise and fall on its own unique facts.
Any of that is still in violation of the Controlled Substances Act of the federal law.
We're not interested in bothering people who are sick and are using it in the recommendation of a doctor.
We are concerned with people who are using it as a pretext to become large-scale drug dealers.
Steve Kroft: So it sounds like the federal government is tolerating it.
Sam Kamin: It is tolerating it.
And at the same time is below the surface, trying to make it very difficult for these folks.
It's doing it through banking regulations.
If you talk to dispensary owners, one of the things that they will lament is, no one will do business with us.
The Justice Department has let it be known if financial institutions do business with medical marijuana centers, they could be at risk for civil or criminal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act or federal money laundering statutes.
It's made it difficult, if not impossible for dispensaries to get loans, open company bank accounts or process patients' credit cards.
Sam Kamin: It can't stay like this.
Either we have to have settled expectations that this is a federal crime, the federal government's not going to tolerate it.
Or the federal government is going to let states like Colorado regulate it, tax it, experiment with it.
To have it exist in both worlds simultaneously is unsustainable.
We can't have a multimillion dollar industry built on criminal conduct.
But so far, the federal government is content to let Colorado live in its own world.
The Department of Justice has conducted a few raids -- limited to facilities it says violate its guidelines.
The feds, it appears, will not stand in the way as recreational marijuana goes on sale in Colorado on January 1st.
And the Denver Post, by the way, has added a marijuana critic to its staff.
Quarterbacks: the superheroes of America's favorite pastime: watching football.
Chances are, you were just watching a game, and throughout, your eyes were fixed on the quarterbacks, those cool commanders of the gridiron.
You fathers out there might have been dreaming about what might have been, but your sons, even the toddlers, would have been dreaming about future glory.
Tonight, we meet the man who sometimes makes their dreams come true - Steve Clarkson, quarterback guru, the man parents of 8 and 9 year olds turn to -- and despite the obvious dangers of the game -- spend tens-of-thousands of dollars seeking the magic touch that's sent more than 25 Clarkson quarterbacks to the NFL.
He's so successful, that college recruiters are offering football scholarships to some of his students, some as young as 13.
Coach: One, two, three, Steelers! It all starts here-in the pee-wee leagues.
These mini-monsters games are the NFL in miniature-from cheerleaders to bone crunching tackles.
Nine-year-old quarterback Travis Endicott, one of Steve Clarkson's newest students.
If he's good enough by the ripe old age of 12, he may be offered a Division 1 college football scholarship.
Morley Safer: Are they looking at 7, 8 year olds, 9 year olds? Steve Clarkson: You know, without question, it has happened.
And, that's the new line, so to speak.
Morley Safer: The new normal? Steve Clarkson: The new normal.
[Clarkson at San Diego training camp: A little faster now.
Be a little more comfortable.
Spin it!.]
These wannabee Peyton Mannings are inspired by their professors - Clarkson's alumni -- a roster of NFL quarterbacks who spend part of their off-season dishing out expertise to an awestruck platoon of undergraduates.
Steve Clarkson: My biggest success stories are the guys that come back whether it's Ben Roethlisberger or Matt Leinart, Jimmy Clausen, Josh Freeman, or Jake Locker.
They all come back and they participate and they help take these kids and share their experiences, as to what it was like when they were, you know, Twelve-year-old Aaron McLaughlin is one of Clarkson's promising new prospects.
[Clarkson doing drills on Franklin Field with McLaughlin - Clarkson: Good.
You were able to step completely square , closed off, so that back hip catches what? That front leg, and then you finish square to your target.
McLaughlin: Stay four, five.
Clarkson: Well done!.]
Aaron's father Craig McLaughlin takes his son from Atlanta to Los Angeles once a month for private lessons - [Clarkson: It should be continuous.
When I get to here, you see how tight I kept this.
And I stayed right up on top, and I'm here.
.]
At $400 an hour -- apart from the inherent dangers of football -- it's a risky investment.
There's only a six percent chance of making a college football team.
And then, only eight in 10,000 will make it to the pros.
Morley Safer: Whose idea was it to bring-- Clarkson into your lives? Craig McLaughlin: That was actually my idea.
My son is now going into the 6th grade and he had always shown talent in his position as a quarterback, but I really wanted to understand how talented he was and get someone that had national exposure and the experience that Steve has with quarterbacks and see how Aaron evaluated.
Morley Safer: And how much of a change have you noticed in your talents since you started with him? Aaron McLaughlin: I've noticed a big change.
I've been throwing the ball better.
I've been-- my footwork has been better.
I used to kinda trip myself when I'd do drops.
I haven't done that at all.
Morley Safer: It's a major financial commitment for you and your family, correct? Craig McLaughlin: Correct.
I don't know what the future has to hold-- but the one thing is-- is that he's gonna know that his parents, when he set his mind to something, we believe in him.
And he's gonna have that sense of confidence.
That sense of confidence that inspires parents and kids has a lot to do with the college scholarship offers that Clarkson's orchestrated for 7th and 8th graders.
Last year, Clarkson secured a scholarship offer from the University of Washington for Tate Martell: My goal was always to try to get a scholarship.
And when it came, I was just shocked.
Morley Safer: How long is it that you wanted to be a big-time quarterback? Tate Martell: I'd talk about the NFL when I was, like, 4 years old.
I guess I'd run around my house-- I see pictures a me running around my house in a 49ers helmet butt naked.
That naked passion eventually led Tate's parents, to seek out Clarkson.
Morley Safer: How did it affect your game? Tate Martell: Oh, I've improved in, like, massive ways-- especially my ability to like play consistently throughout the game, especially, like, in the fourth quarter, being able to throw the same way in the first like I do in the fourth.
Morley Safer: When you got this offer you weren't even in high school yet, correct? Tate Martell: I was going into 8th grade.
Morley Safer: A lot of people are gonna be dismayed to hear that 13 year olds, even 12 year olds are being considered.
Steve Clarkson: Well, because of the way training is nowadays, you're talkin' about kids now that perform their-- or practice their craft the quarterback position, you pretty much have to dedicate yourself, you know, 10, 11, is doing that.
It may be a man's game, but the mommas are just as passionate as the poppas.
Pamela Poe's son M.
C.
Poe is a junior, and starting quarterback for Cathedral High School in Los Angeles - an NFL size squad with 16, repeat 16, coaches.
Morley Safer: Do you worry about him when he's on the field? Pamela Poe: I'm his mom, of course I do.
That's why I tell him he's gotta have speed and get outta the way.
Two years ago, Ms.
Poe sent her son from Nashvile to Los Angeles to live with the Clarkson family.
Morley Safer: A lot of mothers are gonna look at you and say, you know, "What gives with her?" I mean, the dangers of the game-- after all, it's only a game.
And, isn't it a bit excessive? Pamela Poe: This is a passion that M.
C.
has had.
And when I have a child that had the opportunity to come out to California and train to develop himself into being a better quarterback, I do not feel that it was excessive because it was what-- it was the right thing for M.
C.
Morley Safer: But what people might find excessive is you took him out of school and sent him to California to live with Steve.
Pamela Poe: M.
C.
's a different child.
Here he is, 14 years old, left his family, his brothers, his friends, but he knew he wanted to do this.
He was that driven.
That's the kinda child MC is.
M.
C.
still trains with Clarkson every week.
And his mother still flies in from Nashville for most of his games.
Clarkson is confident M.
C.
will get a Divison 1 scholarship offer.
One of Clarkson's premiere students who's already received a scholarship offer is 17-year-old Brady White.
White is ranked among the top Under those Friday night lights, Clarkson shuttles between his students games.
Steve Clarkson: Brady is a once in a lifetime kid.
His skill set is really one of the best I've seen.
Morley Safer: Music to your ears, right? Andrea White: Right it's, you know, it's a dream to hear that.
And you hope that it's-- that it comes true.
Steve's a lotta the reason why Brady has mechanics and the talent and the passion that he does.
Andrea and Deron White, Brady's parents, are Clarkson-faithful.
Morley Safer: But this is a dangerous game and the QB always has a target on his chest, right? Deron White: Driving down the street's a dangerous event in California as well.
So, how many people get to play and start at quarterback in high school and then go onto college and play in front of millions of fans, in front of TV and the environment and- Andrea White: Doing what they love.
Deron White: --yeah, that's a dream come true.
[Clarkson: Here we go now we're getting somewhere.
Nice shot.
.]
Clarkson's job is to feed the football machine with a new crop of dreamers.
It's a well-oiled machine of camps and clinics, where you can learn fancy footwork and an exotic language.
Clarkson: We didn't see it.
Now he takes another three, and hit it in the second window.
He teaches 40 or 50 kids at a time - employing a routine of skills and drills from proper poses, to pirouettes - all in the name of perfecting the pass.
[Clarkson teaches kids on field -- Clarkson: Woooo That's it, spin it!.]
And he briefs parents on the risky road to stardom.
Steve Clarkson: They're gonna read about their son.
They're gonna go to a game and they're gonna hear awful things about their son.
Like, I remember my dad telling me one time I was so bad at a game at Fresno State, and I threw five interceptions, he had to boo, too, just so that he wouldn't get beat up.
So, yeah, I know it's tough.
[Clarkson teaching class in locker room - Clarkson: We call this a single high beater.
.]
That first-hand knowledge of failure, led Clarkson to success as a teacher.
Steve Clarkson: When I started this business, there was nobody that did this.
There were tennis coaches.
There were batting coaches.
There are pitching coaches.
But there was never a quarterback coach.
It was not just teaching the art of quarterbacking but it was also kind of a creative marketing, like how do you take this guy and make him a star? [Clarkson at UCLA Univ.
of Washington game on sidelines - Clarkson: What's goin' on man?.]
Starmaking through college connections.
College coaches like Steve Sarkisian, a Clarkson graduate, and new head coach at USC, want to know about his newest batch of talent.
In Clarkson's have made it as Division 1 college or NFL quarterbacks.
Clarkson was one of the nation's top quarterbacks at San Jose State, but just couldn't make it to the NFL.
So he went into the guru business.
And word soon spread about his success, parents across the country sought him out.
Among them, Joe Montana, who sent his two sons to the Clarkson camp.
That's some endorsement.
But some NFL fathers aren't so keen about football for kids period.
Bart Scott, a CBS sports network analyst played for 11 years as an NFL linebacker, and was a quarterback's worst nightmare.
[NFL footage of Bart Scott sacking QB Ben Roethlisberger - Announcer: Roethlisberger goes down! And what a violent hit Ben took.
.]
Morley Safer: One of your prime jobs, was to get-- to sack the quarterback.
Bart Scott: Inflict pain.
That was my job description.
Morley Safer: Well you sure inflicted pain on Ben Roethlisberger.
That kind of determination to "inflict pain," as you say, does that apply to kids' football as well? Bart Scott: Of course, especially.
You know, I remember when I was a kid, I started playing football when I was eight years old.
You know, we used to come back and show the opposing teams colors that, you know, that had rubbed off on our helmets, meaning that we had really hit 'em really good.
It was a badge of honor.
Scott had no interest in that badge of honor for his son.
He went on the record saying he didn't want his kid playing football.
Morley Safer: So how can you let your kid play football? Bart Scott: You know what? You know, I didn't want my son to play football.
But when my son wanted to play and his mother signed him up what I decided to do was become the football coach so I can make sure that he's been taught the proper techniques to defend his self, to protect his self.
What worries parents most is the risk of brain injuries.
Nevertheless, as these "high school's hardest hits" videos show.
The kids themselves don't hold back.
Beyond the dangers of the game, Scott worries about the impact of big college football's latest recruiting tactic: get 'em while they're young.
Bart Scott: Universities and people who are in that business will stop at anything to make a profit.
You know, everybody wants to be ahead of the curve.
I remember the kid Tyson Jackson I believe outta LSU received a scholarship when he was born because he was a 10-pound-baby.
I'm like really, how, do you know this kid doesn't have two-left feet? Actually it was a 15-pound baby named Herman Johnson.
The scholarship offer may be a myth, but Johnson did grow up to become a 400-pound-guard - with a scholarship from LSU.
But your football scholarship is just about as rare as your And Clarkson may love the game, but [San Diego training camp - Miller Moss: Set, hike!.]
Morley Safer: This is a very tough racket? Steve Clarkson: There's no question it's tough.
But it's no different than from the-- the person that wants to be an actor.
You know, they go to school for that and chances are they're gonna be serving coffee at Starbucks or someplace.
Morley Safer: Do you prepare them for disappointment? Steve Clarkson: You don't ever really prepare for disappointment.
I think what you try to do is you're preparing them for multiple choices, so that you know-- hey, look, you're always taught as a quarterback, "We go to the line of scrimmage and we'r-- we see one thing but we have to be prepared to change the play.
"