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Life & Times Transcript
12/07/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- When it comes to getting clean and sober, does paying top dollar increase the odds? Chris Prentiss>> We heal it and then they magically stop. The addiction just disappears and, when they leave here, they don't go to meetings and they just continue on having a wonderful, happy life. Val Zavala>> And then, one photograph by Julius Shulman can turn a house into an icon. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> There's that old saying that you get what you pay for, but is that true when it comes to drug rehabilitation programs? Now Los Angeles is home to some of the most luxurious and expensive rehab centers in the world, but does paying sixty-five thousand dollars to detox actually increase your chances of staying clean and sober? As Sam Louie found out, even the most luxurious centers have some dissatisfied customers. Sam Louie>> Just off the coast of Malibu sits some of the most lavish and expensive drug and alcohol recovery centers in the world. Equipped with posh surroundings, quality cooks and a serene view overlooking the Pacific Ocean, these high-end rehabilitation centers offer amenities that cater to some of Hollywood's rich and famous. Chris Prentiss>> The people who can afford to do that don't want to be in a place that isn't a nice surrounding. This peaceful surrounding adds greatly to the healing environment. Sam Louie>> But does it? Will paying tens of thousands of dollars a month mean you're more likely to kick the habit? And how expensive are these places? With twenty-four hour care, Passages and other places like it charge up to sixty-five thousand dollars a month. Chris Prentiss>> At Passages, we offer more one-on-one treatments than any facility in the world. Sam Louie>> Chris Prentiss is the co-founder of Passages. He opened it in 2001 as a response to his own son's addiction to heroine, cocaine and alcohol. Chris Prentiss>> I didn't know what to do for him. So for ten years, we searched. We went to different programs and sober living houses and every kind of doctor imaginable. In the end, I said, "Pax, we have to create our own program because nothing out here is working." Sam Louie>> His son, Pax, hit rock bottom several years back. He now shares his story in the company's promotional video. Pax Prentiss>> "Back then, I was a hundred twenty pounds, tracks up and down my arms, homeless, begging for money, trying to sell my shoes, willing to go to any lengths to get the drug." Sam Louie>> After ten years of addiction, Pax hit rock bottom. It was a day he'll never forget. He was almost murdered. Pax Prentiss>> That was a very hard day. I got caught by some dealers that I had stolen drugs from and they took me out to the desert to kill me. I started digging my own grave. I talked my way out of it, but it was a very difficult thing. I was inches away from being dead for having stolen drugs from dealers. Sam Louie>> Eventually, Pax discovered why he was using drugs and alcohol. All his life, he felt that he had not measured up to his father's achievements. Finally, they talked. Chris Prentiss>> I said, "Pax, come on, you're twenty-six years old. When I was twenty-six years old, I hadn't done any of those things. I was just like you." You know, we talked about it for a couple of weeks and he got it. He just got it. That night was the last day he ever did drugs. Sam Louie>> So they started Passages and justified the high price, saying their approach is more effective than traditional rehab centers. Chris Prentiss>> What we do at the Passages Addiction Cure Center here in Malibu is to treat the underlying condition and we heal it. Then they magically stop. The addiction just disappears and, when they leave here, they don't go to meetings. They just continue on having a wonderful, happy life. Sam Louie>> Even more impressive is their success rate. They claim that it's eighty-four percent. But skeptics say that a success rate that high is virtually impossible, that the average recovery rate is closer to thirty percent. Tucky Masterson>> If they have an eighty-four percent success rate, then they're phenomenal and they should be in the Guinness Book of World Records because that's, you know, unheard of in the business. Sam Louie>> Tucky Masterson is a recovering drug and alcohol addict herself. When did you realize that you needed to get help? Tucky Masterson>> When I got tired of shooting heroine and cocaine in my neck (laughter). Sam Louie>> So several years ago, Tucky turned to Promises. Promises is another exclusive rehab center in Malibu. When she was admitted, they had her sign a contract. The cost? Thirty-five thousand dollars for one month's stay. Tucky Masterson>> The condition that I was in when I signed, my God, you know, you could tell in the court papers that it's not even legible. You know, I had to sign it or they wouldn't let me go to bed. Sam Louie>> But after a few days, Tucky realized that she was not able to use her own doctor at the facility, so she asked to leave. They allowed her to go, but she was shocked when they would not refund her any of the thirty-five thousand dollars. Tucky Masterson>> I don't care if it's for profit or not. I think you should just be billed for the time that you spend there and refunded the difference. Sam Louie>> Promises refused to comment for this story. Tucky took them to court and was able to get fifteen thousand dollars back. Now clean and sober, she founded and runs The Ellis House, an affordable sober living home in Huntington Beach for women recovering from drugs or alcohol. It's not as comprehensive as a rehab center or nearly as expensive. Tucky Masterson>> It really doesn't matter whether you go to a ten thousand dollar a week place or a hundred dollar a week place. Recovery is about relationships and it's going to be all about the relationships that you forge. Sam Louie>> Tucky wants to make it clear that she believes there may still be value in the high-end treatment centers. What she objects to is their nonrefundable billing policies. Tucky Masterson>> It's a good way to make money, I'd say, making fistfuls of dollars like that. Sam Louie>> But Chris Prentiss of Passages defends the no-refund policy of his facility and those others in the area. Chris Prentiss>> You know, when someone comes in, we schedule them, we keep a bed for them, we turn other people away. We have their schedule made out for the whole week that they're coming here. The first week is already made out. Those therapists are hired and they're here. Then if they decide they want to leave, well, all those things have to be disrupted. Sam Louie>> But some people say that the high price tag is worth it. Tracy Magnus recently paid the full sixty-five thousand dollars for treatment at Passages. She has been battling alcoholism for more than twenty years. Tracy Magnus>> Either I was going to lose my life, either take my life, or I had to get help. Sam Louie>> Her family in Texas decided on Passages and were willing to pay the sixty-five thousand a month. Tracy finished the thirty-day program and is planning on moving to a sober living home in Ojai. She believes that this was the best thing she's ever done for herself. Tracy Magnus>> I think what I like about this treatment facility is that they do treat the body, mind and soul. Sam Louie>> Despite criticisms about refund policies and high prices, Tracy feels that the cost was worth it. Tracy Magnus>> When it comes to health and when it comes to well-being, I think that's priceless. Maybe they don't charge enough. Chris Prentiss>> A person at Passages is in treatment five or six hours a day. That's a lot of treatment. You know, these are the finest therapists on the planet and, when you start to hire that kind of people, they cost a lot of money. Sam Louie>> Whether you pay sixty-five thousand dollars for one month of detox or a program much cheaper, experts say that the key to recovery is in consistent follow-up. But the true test of success is whether a person is clean and sober years after their stay at a place like this is over. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> So what do you think of those rehab centers? You can post your opinion. Just go to kcet.org/lifeandtimes/blog. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> More and more companies and manufacturers are jumping on the ecological bandwagon claiming that their products and services are ecologically sound. Well, that's the good news. The bad news? How on earth can you tell if they're telling the truth? Well, now there's a way. Just look for this. It's a Green Seal and it means that the product has been evaluated by an objective, independent, credible organization called Green Seal. I met the president of Green Seal, Arthur Weissman, a PhD in environmental science who's worked for the Nature Conservancy and the EPA. Why do we need something like this? What's going on in the marketplace? Arthur Weissman>> Well, the marketplace is changing. It's trying to reflect the interest we all have now in protecting our world and making everything more sustainable, as the word is. Val Zavala>> That's good. Arthur Weissman>> It is, sure, but how you do that is the question. We all feel the need to do that. We all want to have a part in helping things and make our world better and more sustainable, but we don't know how to do it. That's where Green Seal comes in. It's an independent, nonprofit organization. We've been around for eighteen years in this sole business of trying to identify environmentally preferable products and services. We do it by setting rigorous leadership environmental standards and carefully evaluating the products and services that meet those standards in order to certify them and having a very strict code that we have no conflict of interest with any product or any company that we deal with. Val Zavala>> That's very important. Arthur Weissman>> Here's a product that we have certified and perhaps we can show you why or how. That's our registered certification mark. Val Zavala>> This is paint? Just normal house paint? Arthur Weissman>> This is a flat house paint, but it bears the Green Seal of Approval. It indicates here that there's a reason for it. Because the label space is tight, you have to look around on the side of the label to find out exactly what the reason is for. It says, "This product meets Green Seal environmental standards for volatile organic compound, VOCs, and other ingredients." Well, that's a long-winded way of saying that the ingredients that we have evaluated in this product meet our criteria. We're not allowing harmful ingredients like carcinogens, things that cause cancer, reproductive toxins, and the volatiles are the things that you breath that could harm your respiratory system, cause asthma and also cause smog which is a big issue for southern California, of course, Val Zavala>> Now is it unusual for paint to meet your standards or do most paints these days meet your standards? Or a fairly small percentage? Arthur Weissman>> Well, we rig it, Val. We set our standards so that only a small percentage can meet them. Val Zavala>> Oh, so when they see the seal, it's really the cream of the crop. Arthur Weissman>> We say our standards are leadership standards, environmental leadership standards. The reason we do it is this. We're trying to pull the market. If we set a standard that everyone can meet, no one would change. Val Zavala>> You're right. Arthur Weissman>> We say typically about fifteen to twenty percent of the products in the market should be able to meet our standard if we're setting it at the right level. That helps pull the market. We've seen this happen in a number of categories where we set standards. Val Zavala>> Because it's reachable by the others if they want to. Arthur Weissman>> It's reachable, and we don't want to put it out of reach of anyone who's doing the right thing. Val Zavala>> Paper. Despite computers and emails, we still use a huge amount of paper in this society. This one got your seal? Arthur Weissman>> It did indeed. Val Zavala>> Where is it? Let's see. Arthur Weissman>> I think it's on the other side here. Val Zavala>> Oh, here it is, okay. Got it. Arthur Weissman>> Green Seal Certified. This product meets the criteria of our standard for copy paper which includes that it have a high recycled content. Val Zavala>> Oh, okay. Arthur Weissman>> That means that these fibers come from other paper that's been used, post-consumer, as it's called. The reason that's important is that, once you use this paper for something and you decide you don't need it anymore, instead of throwing it into a landfill and it gets buried for five hundred years or more, you can reuse the paper. It goes through a process of de-inking and re-pulping and then it winds up in another product. Val Zavala>> And we have here a lot of cleaners. This one happens to be floor cleaner. Arthur Weissman>> Well, yes. We have certified actually quite a few cleaners. This particular product is a hard floor cleaner that we've certified. The standard that this is certified to is a fairly complex one. There's about fifteen or sixteen different criteria. Just to give you some examples of what this product would have had to meet to get certified, we look to make sure it has no carcinogens, reproductive toxins, that it's not in any other way acutely toxic to human beings, nor can it be a toxic to the aquatic environment. After all, what happens to this after using it? It goes down the drain and eventually gets into the streams and it can affect our natural systems. We look at the volatiles that are emitted when you use this product that you breath to make sure that they're limited. We look at -- Val Zavala>> -- packaging, right? Arthur Weissman>> Packaging, absolutely. It has to be either in reusable or recyclable packaging, HDPE (#2), which is widely recycled in communities. So these are just some of the criteria that a product like this has to meet. Val Zavala>> Now how do products get certified? Do you go out aggressively and look at them or do companies come to you? How does it come about? Arthur Weissman>> Typically, since ours is a voluntary program, the companies apply with their products or services and then we evaluate them. We do go out to try to tell them that the standard exists. We involve them in the development of the standard along with nonprofit organizations, government agencies, other public interest groups, academic experts. I mean, we involve everyone in the development of our standards, but we always make sure that they are leadership levels at the end. We're not going to let anyone bring it down. That helps give us the credibility that is our really most important asset, if not our only asset. Val Zavala>> Are there a lot of bogus claims out there about being ecological? I mean, anybody can come up with an official looking seal and stick it on their product. How do we know that it's legitimate? Arthur Weissman>> Well, you really don't unless, in our view, you have the outside third credible party like Green Seal verifying it. The answer is, you do see bogus claims particularly on the web. Anyone could put up a website. Anyone could create a seal program and there's a lot of that going on. In the more reputable companies, it's not bogus so much as partial. They're going to tell you that this product has this benefit environmentally, but they're not going to tell you about some other things that maybe are not so good about the product. We're trying to look at what we call the life cycle of products. Val Zavala>> Got it. Arthur Weissman>> We're looking at all different aspects, not just one. We're trying to get the whole picture about a product and you don't get that necessarily from what a company is touting. You know, it's a basic rule of marketing to go with your strength and we don't allow that. We look at the whole picture when we're looking at a product. Val Zavala>> Well, hopefully, everybody will catch on and now we know what to look for, the Green Seal Certified. Arthur Weissman, thank you so much for all your hard work. Arthur Weissman>> Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. Val Zavala>> By the way, Green Seal also works with purchasers like the government to help them buy the most ecologically responsible products. For more information, you can go to their website at greenseal.org. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> Every now and then, an artist comes along who defines a particular art form. Well, when it comes to architectural photography, that artist is Julius Shulman. His images of modern architecture made Los Angeles famous around the world and now, at age ninety-seven, he's still taking pictures. Vicki Curry sat down with Julius Shulman for a conversation at his home in the Hollywood Hills. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> He can turn a building into an icon and boost the career of an architect. His images have chronicled the growth of the twentieth century. It's hard to believe that Julius Shulman became a photographer by accident. Julius Shulman>> I never had any interest in photography or architecture, but I had this little Kodak camera, so I wandered around taking pictures. Apparently, I was blessed with the ability to make good compositions. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Julius Shulman helped create the field of architectural photography. His revolutionary technique involved capturing not just the building, but also the natural environment that surrounds it. Julius Shulman>> It tells you the story of where the house is. I wasn't satisfied with just showing the architecture alone, which surprised many of the architects at the beginning. When I showed them the view of the house with the environment, yet still showed real important architectural pictures, they began to realize they needed both. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Shulman can trace his interest in nature back to his childhood. His family moved from Brooklyn to a farm in Connecticut a few years after his birth. Julius Shulman>> My mother used to delight in telling the family that she had to go look for Julius because I was out somewhere running around. She found me, she said, by the side of this little pond and there was a little water snake nearby there and I was talking to the snake, she said (laughter). Apparently, I was imbued with a love for nature somewhere even at three years old. We stayed there until 1920. At that time, I was ten years old and we moved to California. My father had a friend who had moved to California. He persuaded my father. He said the streets were paved with gold. Vicki Curry>> Shulman attended Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and it was there in an eleventh grade class that he learned about photography. Julius Shulman>> The teacher gave the class an assignment. Go out and photograph the annual high school track meet. The customary thing for a sports photographer is to get a close-up view of the hurdlers coming to the finish line, neck and neck kind of thing. I walked in there and I quickly found a place to photograph because I sensed that would make a good picture. So, in other words, in that one photograph, I tell the story of the whole event and the teacher gave me an "A" in the class. Then after that, I didn't do anything with photography. Vicki Curry>> Why not? Julius Shulman>> I wasn't interested in photography. Vicki Curry>> Shulman attended UCLA for several years and audited a variety of classes, but he couldn't find a subject to focus on. He then tried Berkeley, but continued to drift until he got a camera as a gift. Julius Shulman>> My sister gave it to me for my twenty-third birthday. It's a little Kodak camera. I still have it in my drawer. I started taking snapshots. Vicki Curry>> Shulman headed back to Los Angeles still not sure what to do. Then he met someone who worked for the architect, Richard Neutra, and tagged along to visit one of Neutra's houses. Julius Shulman>> I'd never been an architect. I had never seen a modern house before. I took six photographs, different points of view, all different angles. I made some eight by ten prints that week and gave them to the fellow who showed them to Neutra. On March 5, 1936 after Neutra requested me to do some more work for him, I became a photographer. Vicki Curry>> Neutra introduced Shulman to other modern architects including Rudolph Schindler, Pierre Koenig and Rafael Soriano who designed the house Shulman has lived in since 1949. Julius Shulman>> And before I knew it, I was a very well occupied photographer of architecture and the magazines began to publish my work. There weren't many architectural photographers in those early years, four or five I could name throughout the country who were specializing in architecture, and I was the only one here in this part of the country. Everything was made to order for me. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Julius Shulman's career took off. The images that became his signature showed not just the building's environment, but also people in it. Julius Shulman>> It came naturally to make the building appear that it was being used. You make them doing something which applied to how the building was used. This is the bedroom. Without them in it, what do you get? This, this, this and this. But all of a sudden, it comes alive. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Shulman is probably best known for his mid-century pictures of southern California. His photograph of Case Study House #22 is reportedly the most published architectural photograph in the world. But over the years, he's worked in forty-five states and on every continent. Julius Shulman>> As much as I admire modern architecture as a place for it in our lives, on the other hand, the Bradbury Building downtown was in 1893. Just because the building is that old doesn't mean it's not a good building. The early architects sometimes were just as capable of doing good architecture as architecture today. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> Shulman's eighty-plus years of photographing Los Angeles provide a visual record of the city's growth. Julius Shulman>> So I started photographing downtown Los Angeles whenever streetcars were still running. I was there. I am there. It didn't change so much as it evolved. There's a big difference. It grew and I grew with it because I was photographing so many of the new buildings. Vicki Curry>> And he still is. In recent years, he's taken pictures of Los Angeles's newest buildings or of renovations on older buildings that he photographed when they first opened, like the Getty Villa and the Griffith Observatory. Regardless of the building, its age or style, Julius Shulman is always looking to share his interest in architecture. Julius Shulman>> There's a means of communicating with the public the value of good architecture, good design, in all walks of life. Then you show the photograph of the building so the public is introduced to the backdoor kind of thing, to what architecture is all about, to show where and how it becomes important in our everyday life. Vicki Curry>> And that just may be the legacy of Julius Shulman. Photographs that show more than architecture and design, they embody a style of living. Val Zavala>> You can see Julius Shulman's work at two local venues. His more recent work is at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, and some rarely seen archival photographs are on display at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. For details, go to their website at lapl.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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