By Ethan Harp
CNN

(CNN) A Louisiana official, interviewed on CNN's Campbell Brown Friday, accused BP of adding hundreds of oil spill cleanup workers to the area President Obama visited earlier in the day, to make it appear there were far more people involved in the operation.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told CNN’s Rick Sanchez that until Friday, he had only seen an average of 20 workers at a time in Grand Isle, where the President surveyed damage along the coastline. "We just find it highly coincidental that on the day the President arrives that BP would move to mobilize considerable assets when that has not been the case for several weeks now," Roberts said. "We have been asking for beach cleanup for quite some time and all of the sudden the cavalry arrives this morning." Roberts said he is in Grand Isle each day, touring the area by air, water and on the beach itself. "Never have we seen, since this first started, the number of people that were there today. Never," he said.

Roberts estimated up to 400 workers were in the area during Friday's cleanup. "They were approached by our emergency management staff. They had been schooled not to speak to anyone, not to explain why they were there. They were asked what their purpose was, who had hired them. They said 'I'm sorry, we were told we cannot speak to anyone,'" said Roberts. "However, some of them did talk and I confirmed this afternoon with our Emergency Management Chief that one of the individuals said they were hired yesterday and told to come to a staging area this morning for 7:30 a.m."

Roberts also claims the workers were shipped off once the President left the region.

Asked about the allegations, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CNN it is not unusual to see people wrapping up work in the afternoon. "These individuals are working out in the heat of the sun. These are long days. They start early in the morning and they stop early in the evening." Suttles said the workers would return Saturday morning to continue the cleanup.

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By Ethan Harp
CNN

(CNN) Prominent Democratic Strategist James Carville ripped into BP during an appearance Thursday evening on CNN's Campbell Brown, suggesting criminal charges may be appropriate in the oil spill disaster.

Carville, a CNN Political Contributor, urged President Obama to call on the Justice Department to open a Grand Jury investigation. "When people see that you're going to get their attention, this stuff is going to stop. I really do believe this. I believe there's a strong possibility that crimes were committed in the Gulf of Mexico," Carville said, adding BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward "would not fair well in a Louisiana jail. It wouldn't be a pretty sight."

Carville also suggested President Obama is being ill-advised in his handling of the crisis. "I know I'm not a Harvard law... guy, professor of law at the University of Chicago. People down here know what they're seeing. It seems the President is madder at his critics than he is at BP."

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By Amber Lyon
Programming Note: You can watch America’s prescription drug problem tomorrow at 8P ET.

If you want to see how bad America’s prescription drug problem has become, just take a trip to Baltimore's Lexington Market. For more than 200 years, the Lexington Market has been the place to go downtown to get a deli sandwich, fresh meat, produce...and now, pills.

Today, the market has become a poor man's pharmacy, fueled by the easy availability of all kinds of prescription drugs and a massive supply of drug addicts desperate for a fix. CNN's Amber Lyon and producer Steve Turnham toured Lexington market undercover and quickly found out it's the place to go to get Xanax, Oxycontin, Percocet, and just about anything else that comes from a prescription bottle with a DEA label. Within minutes, in areas immediately outside and inside Lexington Market, dealers were pulling out their personal prescription pill bottles offering Xanax bars for $5 a piece and Oxycontin at a rate of $20 a pill.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is having a difficult time getting a grip on the pill trade that agents say happens in a similar fashion to heroin and crack dealing. Baltimore DEA agents often start at the bottom level, raiding Lexington Market and arresting individual pill sellers, hoping to extract information that will lead them to corrupt doctors and pharmacies.
The DEA says Baltimore has one of the worst heroin problems in the country. An estimated 55,000 of the city's 650,000 residents are addicted to the drug. Some addicts, seeking a better high, prefer to mix their heroin with prescription drugs. The high demand for pills like Xanax turns them into a commodity. "They're going on the street and their selling their pills, making $100, $200 more than they paid at the pharmacy," said one DEA agent. "The bottom line is profit. It's about making money."

We spoke with one man busted by agents at the market for allegedly selling his meds. The man, in his late 50s, who did not want to be identified said, "A lot of them don't have no jobs. A lot of them don't know where they're going to get their next meal from. They don't sell all of their prescriptions. They might sell like 10 or 20 of them just to make ends meet... Let's say your son come up to you this morning and say I need $25, $30. And you ain't got $25, $30, and you got them pills on you... Would you go sell those pills to get that money so he could be in that play or something? Would you do that?"
Prescription drug abuse now kills more Americans than all other illegal drugs combined. Earlier this month, The White House announced an initiative to link state prescription drug monitoring programs and increase monitoring of opioid prescriptions and medications.

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