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Reform School
Posted by CN Staff on December 11, 2002 at 23:25:33 PT
By Richard Byrne
Source: Boston Phoenix
If you thought that November 5 marked a setback for the Democratic Party alone, think again. America’s movement against the controversial and open-ended "war on drugs" also suffered one of its biggest defeats in recent memory on Election Day 2002.This year's casualty list for drug-law-reform ballots — which seek to modify or reverse the often-draconian penalties for drug offenses — isn’t pretty. Nationwide, three statewide ballot initiatives to reform marijuana laws went up in smoke.
Another two measures — one to soften penalties for nonviolent drug infractions and another to fight off the re-implementation of such penalties — were also rejected by voters. Set against a winning streak that had racked up 16 ballot victories for drug-law reform over the last six years, the 2002 reversal has left a bitter taste in the mouths of reformers.In fact, drug-law reform’s only victories in November’s balloting came at the local level — in cities such as San Francisco and Washington, DC, and in 19 legislative districts in Massachusetts, where voters instructed their legislators to support marijuana-decriminalization measures at the State House. (Two other Massachusetts state-congressional districts also voted thumbs-up on legalizing medical-marijuana use and hemp farming.)Just as the Democrats have engaged in finger-pointing to assign blame for their midterm-election meltdown, "recrim about decrim" has swept the drug-law-reform community. Not surprisingly, the postmortem examination of the movement’s failure at the polls has focused on many of the same factors that plagued the Democrats in the 2002 elections — being outspent, out-shouted, and even outsmarted by their opponents. The question that faces drug reformers now is, what should they do about it?The past successes of drug-law reformers were built on discipline. Ballot initiatives were not pursued unless the states in question had a combination of strong polling numbers and public support from credible legislators and law-enforcement figures. This is how reformers in California and Arizona enacted medical-marijuana initiatives in 1996. But some of the states targeted in 2002 — such as Nevada, where polling numbers were consistently less than 50 percent — fell short of those criteria. And for the first time, reform efforts met with organized resistance that, proponents felt, kept them from getting a fair shake. In Florida and Michigan, for example, planned initiatives that had garnered significant popular support were put on ice by legal delaying tactics that kept them off the ballot.Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), which helped fight for the Nevada initiative, says both factors added up to defeat. "There was a willingness to take a bit more of a risk and run initiatives that were not slam-dunks," he observes. "And for the first time, the other side decided to get serious. They proved that if you scare people enough, you can get them to vote ‘no.’"The results were ugly. An Ohio measure to swap treatment for incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders was whupped by a margin of 67 percent to 33 percent — while an Arizona measure to do just the opposite won by a vote of 69 percent to 31 percent. Meanwhile, another Arizona initiative to substitute civil fines for criminal prosecution for possessing small amounts of marijuana and to establish a state medical-marijuana-distribution system failed to pass by eight percentage points. In Nevada, a measure to decriminalize possession and establish a legal sales mechanism for pot lost by 61 percent to 39 percent. An attempt in South Dakota to allow farmers to grow hemp with state approval also fell far short of passage.Shortcomings in strategy can be fixed, however. Another, perhaps more important, factor that sealed the defeat of both Democrats and drug-law reformers this autumn is something that appears to be well beyond "fixing," at least in the short term: the seemingly irresistible force that the highly popular war on terrorism exerts on other issues. Events that otherwise might have played out well for the Democrats in 2002 — a swooning economy, huge budget deficits, and assaults on civil liberties and the environment — have been swallowed up in the Zeitgeist of present and future war and President George W. Bush’s high approval ratings. "The war on drugs has been subsumed into the more popular war on terror," says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Foundation.The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) — headed up by "drug czar" John Walters — hasn’t been shy about tying its own multi-billion-dollar efforts to the war on Al Qaeda. In the same manner in which the Department of Justice quickly used the terrorist attacks to grab long-sought-after powers of surveillance and detention, the ONDCP found a way to turn the war on terror to its advantage. By January 2002, Walters’s office had cobbled together a new anti-drug ad campaign explicitly linking drugs and terrorism. The first ad even debuted on the most exaggerated and exalted commercial platform available in the United States — during the Super Bowl. Thus, hundreds of millions got to see young "drug users" casually mention that they "helped kidnap people’s dads" and "help blow up buildings."The terror-related anti-drug spot was only one part of a stream of reality-warping advertisements with which drug-law-reform advocates have had to contend. One recent ONDCP advertisement depicted marijuana as a date-rape drug. Another new ad seems to have discovered the traditional "stoner" humor of Cheech and Chong and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as it depicts a car full of severely blunted teens abusing a drive-through-restaurant worker.The drug czar crowed about the new line of ads as they were introduced in October. "These extensively tested ads offer teens tangible, real-world examples of what can go wrong when they use marijuana," Walters said. All this despite the results of a recent study commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which concluded that the ongoing ad campaign, begun in 1999, hadn’t made a dent in teen pot smoking — and, in fact, observed an increase in use by those over 14 years of age.Yet, at the same time that the White House wants to brag about its anti-drug ad buys, it also wants to hide its hand in its own ad campaign. A few days after the November election, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a ruling in an appeal brought by the nonprofit Ad Council — which coordinates such public-service advertisements — that sought to remove references to the drug czar’s office from the ads. The FCC rejected the argument that identifying the ONDCP’s role in the ads would kill off media cooperation and reduce the effectiveness of the campaign.Above or below the radar, the pervasiveness of the drug czar’s ad onslaught amounts to a permanent campaign against drug-law reform — with an all-star cast of businesses signing on for the ride. Check out the ONDCP’s Web site, and you’ll find a panoply of businesses on the White House’s drug-war team. They range from DKNY Jeans and an array of airlines — United Airlines, US Airways, and Northwest Airlines — to media companies including the New York Times, USA Today, and cable conglomerate Cox Communications. As has been reported a number of times in the past few years, by injecting "anti-drug" content into their entertainment programming, such media partners earn "credit" with the ONDCP that can be applied toward federal "public-service" ad requirements.Furthermore, say drug-law reformers, the timing of the ONDCP’s new ads was both ominous and odd for the reform efforts this fall. "I know that the ads were seen heavily in Nevada," says Mirken. "When we would talk to people, they’d say that they’d already seen ‘the opposition’s ads.’"Walters also made a point of interjecting himself into the Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio initiative contests personally, traveling to all three states for public appearances. His campaigning raised questions about the propriety of a federal official stumping against statewide ballot initiatives, which Walters dismissed with a combination of arguments: he was begged by anti-initiative forces to make an appearance, and he wasn’t spending ONDCP cash to do so.That didn’t stop Walters’s office from doing a victory dance when the votes were in, however. "These failed initiatives represent the high-water mark of the drug-legislation movement," crowed an ONDCP press release in Walters’s name. "Common sense has prevailed, and from now on, the tide turns our way — the way of dedicated Americans working to protect their children and their communities from the dangers of drugs."For its part, the MPP has filed a complaint with the US Office of Special Counsel over Walters’s stumping against the ballot measures — specifically charging the drug czar with breaking federal laws prohibiting such political activity by federal appointees and with violations of the reporting provisions in Nevada campaign-finance law."These laws are fairly specific about not using one’s office to influence an election," says Mirken. "We think we have a solid enough case to file the complaint."Across the pond, the drug-law-reform movement is currently riding a high of sorts. Drug-law reformers in Great Britain have made inroads in public-health policy that exist only in the dreams of their US counterparts.European public attitudes toward drugs — particularly marijuana — are partly responsible for this.This divergence in attitude might best be illustrated by an idea floated seriously last January concerning the Scottish capital of Edinburgh — a generally dour and straitlaced metropolis that lets its hair down only twice a year, for its fabled "Fringe" arts festival and its annual "Hogmanay" New Year’s festivities.Hogmanay has now become Europe’s largest street party, and its organizer, Pete Irvine, penned an op-ed for the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times last January in which he called for a liberalization of marijuana laws in Scotland. Such a move, he argued, could make Edinburgh into a "new" Amsterdam. "It may be seedy," Irvine wrote, "but that city’s tourism is booming and much of the year it’s colder and wetter than it is here. Most people who visit Amsterdam don’t necessarily visit cannabis cafés, but they love the flavour of that freedom."It’s impossible to conceive of the tourism board of Boston or Seattle making a similar pitch. In Britain, however, Irvine’s proposal is playing out against a fast-changing policy on marijuana embraced by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government. Last week, for instance, British home secretary David Blunkett scaled down targets set in 1998 for reductions in the use of drugs such as crack and heroin (labeled "Class A" drugs in the UK). A 50 percent reduction in the use of such drugs, Blunkett said, was not "a credible target." He added that "no one else thinks it’s a credible target."This comes on the heels of Great Britain’s planned downgrading of marijuana from a "Class B" drug to a "Class C" drug. It’s a change that will prevent the arrest of those caught merely using pot, though its sale will remain punishable by arrest and imprisonment. It also opens up the potential for the "pot tourism" proposed by Irvine for Edinburgh.These changes in British policy and law owe much to the tactics of UK reformers. Just how have they done it? Alun Buffry is the national coordinator for Britain’s Legalize Cannabis Alliance (LCA), a political party devoted to gaining a larger profile for drug reform in Britain. He says that the emergence of his party has "allowed us to enter the political arena and not simply put our points across [in the media]." The party ran 13 candidates in Britain’s last general election — and it plans to run 120 in the next election, which must be called by 2005.The registration of LCA as a legitimate political party hasn’t had an earthshaking effect on Britain’s rigid parliamentary system just yet. But Buffry argues that the move has allowed the drug-law-reform movement to "gain extra respect from other politicians and the media, show that we are not just a ‘bunch of stoned hippies,’ and, perhaps more important, get the votes that the other political parties want."Buffry also points to Britain’s drug-law reformers’ efforts to adopt a single, clear message for their campaign as another factor. The "Angel Declaration" (which has been signed by members of the British Parliament and a wide swath of the UK’s drug-law-reform community) offers what Buffry says is "a general outline of principles with a general set of proposals" — including scrapping the UK’s 1971 drug laws and creating a new "National Drugs Agency" to supply use and health guidelines and regulate supply and sales.Though Buffry argues that the Blair government’s drug-law reform amounts to "little change" (particularly in its shuffling of drug penalties and arrest powers), it is clear that Britain is undergoing a massive reorganization of its drug policy — in part as a result of the efforts of reformers.Asked if he had a critique of US reform efforts in light of the changes in Britain, Buffry’s answer amounts to what might seem to be counter-intuitive advice in an increasingly conservative US political scene. "US groups focus far too heavily on a limited number of ‘medical’ uses for marijuana, albeit the most serious illnesses," he says. "They campaign for the right of the sick whilst ignoring the rights of the hale. The biggest cause of premature death, illness, absenteeism, and maybe even violence is stress. Marijuana is very helpful for many people in relieving that stress. We feel that cannabis would be useful to a great percentage of the population for that reason. In the US, they tend to ignore that."If the advice of Britain’s drug-law reformers is to "lighten up," they operate in a political atmosphere completely different from their US counterparts. Despite the Blair government’s alliance with the Bush administration on many issues, Blair’s Labour Party occupies the political center in Britain, with vestigial ties to the political left.US drug-law reformers face an entirely different — and far more conservative — landscape. It’s a landscape in which the Bush administration can plan to appoint Dr. W. David Hager — author of As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now (Fleming H. Revell, 1998), who won’t prescribe birth control to unmarried patients and offers Bible reading and prayer as ways of coping with premenstrual syndrome — as the head of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. Meanwhile, the most recent elections have given Republicans control of the US Congress. Conservatives there have already put the kibosh on the District of Columbia’s medical-marijuana initiatives (approved overwhelmingly), and they figure to extend their opposition to other publicly supported initiatives. The feds have also gone after medical marijuana in states such as California, which have approved measures allowing its use.In light of the general national political picture, it’s hard not to notice that all the states where drug-law-reform initiatives failed were "red" states that cast their electoral votes for George W. Bush. But drug-law-reform advocates dub this a "red herring" of sorts. "It’s true that states in the West that were ‘red’ states rejected these measures," says NORML’s St. Pierre. "But it has been these same states in the West [such as Alaska] that have previously led the way" in passing ballot initiatives to reform drug laws. The legal delays that forced reformers off the ballot in states such as Michigan and Florida didn’t help reform’s record in the West, either.Merkin also points out that despite the gloomy prospects that a GOP-controlled federal government presents to drug-law reform, Democrats have not exactly pushed the reform issue forward. The Clinton administration reinforced the "drug czar" position, and the Democrats did little to liberalize drug laws over the past decade when they had control of one or both houses of the US Congress."The Democrats have been profiles in cowardice on this issue," says Mirken.But part of the electoral-postmortem critique inevitably settles on the reformers themselves. After all, St. Pierre notes, the drug-law-reform movement did take some risks. It lost its gamble to force the issue in states such as Nevada, for example, where polling support before the initiative’s introduction was softer than the 60 percent or so preferred by reformers. "There’s a point," says St. Pierre, "where we have to balance political goals with the idealism that we all still possess."Another possible factor in the 2002 defeats was that the ballot initiatives were drawn too broadly. Many of the initiatives called for state roles in distributing or sanctioning marijuana, or combined decriminalization measures with reductions in penalties. Mirken points to Arizona’s initiative, which mixed decriminalization measures with state distribution channels and reforms of asset forfeiture, as an example of a case where people "might have been pulled in too many directions."Such weaknesses left drug-law reform vulnerable in 2002. The Arizona defeat, for instance, proved that the tactic of pulling voters "in too many directions" was not the doing solely of reformers. On the ballot alongside the drug-law reformers’ Proposition 203 was another initiative floated by that state’s drug-war advocates — Proposition 302. This drug-war "countermeasure" — spearheaded by Maricopa County district attorney Rick Romley — actually reinstated probation and incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders, and it passed with 69 percent of the vote.The battle in Ohio, moreover, illustrates yet another new obstacle faced by drug-law-reform proponents. In that election, opponents of the reform proposition — including Governor Robert Taft — managed to insert into the measure a preamble that outlined the costs of the proposed switch from jail time to treatment ($247 million) with no mention of its potential savings. This move alone put a serious dent in public support for the proposition and ultimately helped defeat it.Drug-law reformers point to the involvement of government officials such as Walters, Romley, and Taft as a signal of elected officials’ new willingness to push back hard — and openly — against their efforts. "We’re facing a well-financed, cleverly constructed, and taxpayer-financed opposition for the first time," says Mirken. "It’s essentially a taxpayer-funded PAC."Mirkin adds that his group is reassessing its efforts. In addition to publicly challenging Walters over his role in the Nevada ballot, that rethinking extends to what they will do in 2004. "We’re all going to be trying to sort through things," he says, "and figure out what worked and what didn’t."St. Pierre argues that to combat a drug war that’s piggybacking on the war on terror in an increasingly conservative environment, the drug-law-reform movement has to get smarter — and get back to basics. "We’d be foolhardy not to learn from these things," he says. "We need better legal counsel and clearly worded initiatives in states that are picked carefully. We need to focus on who and when we’re asking for these measures."We have the muscles for a sprint," concludes St. Pierre. "But we need the endurance to get through the marathon."The problem for the drug-law reformers is that the war on terror — and the collateral damage to their movement it causes — has pushed the finish line of that marathon farther down the road, just as they thought they had glimpsed it. It will take stronger muscles — and equal measures of brains and determination — to finish the race now.Note: US drug-law reform’s electoral winning streak came to an abrupt end in November. How can the movement regroup in the face of the White House’s reinvigorated war on drugs?Richard Byrne is a freelance journalist based in Washington, DC. Source: Boston Phoenix (MA) Author: Richard ByrnePublished: December 12 - 19, 2002 Copyright: 2002 The Phoenix Media Communications GroupContact: letters phx.com Website: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Legalise Cannabis Alliancehttp://www.lca-uk.org/Gateway To Heaven? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14949.shtmlPost-Election Marijuana Fight Heats Up http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14917.shtmlRebellion Against the Drug Czarhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14885.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by Morgan on December 12, 2002 at 08:26:00 PT
Propaganda machine
This and more can be found at http://www.adcouncil.org/about/Senior_Staff/#conlonA few highlights:Peggy Conlon
President & Chief Executive Officer, The Advertising CouncilMs. Conlon serves on the board of directors of the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA)Kathy Crosby
Senior Vice President, Group Campaign DirectorIn this position, she is responsible for the development of Ad Council campaigns in the Washington, D.C. office.Her experience includes... conducting research and planning for McDonald's and Mobil Oil.Donna Feiner
Senior Vice President Office of National Drug Control PolicyDonna Feiner is a Senior Vice President and Managing Director of The Advertising Council's programs for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.Constance Gerard
Vice President Director of Human ResourcesMs. Gerard has experience in... the corporate (Chase/ Citibank),,,Diana Martin
Senior Vice President Director of Non-Profit and Government AffairsMs. Martin brings more than 10 years of professional experience in the Federal Government - including Congress and the Executive Branch.I'm sure there is more...the tentacles reach far and wide.
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Comment #2 posted by TecHnoCult on December 12, 2002 at 07:22:44 PT
Ad Council
Does anyone know anything about the Ad Council? I looked up their website and gained little info. I am curious if they are an honest source or if they are just a propaganda machine. Who runs it?THC
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Comment #1 posted by p4me on December 12, 2002 at 00:56:21 PT
What do you mean regroup?
Note: US drug-law reform’s electoral winning streak came to an abrupt end in November. How can the movement regroup in the face of the White House’s reinvigorated war on drugs?Well, first I must say that it is delusional to say that the reform movement hit its high water mark on November 5th. The tide is coming in or can't you tell? In about 6 months the percentage of people that conclude with their minds that cannabis is a respectable medicine rose from 73% to 80% and those people will not be converting back to the brainwashed opinion.Now how hard do you think it is for these people to figure that the government is lying about medical cannabis? And how hard do you think it is to figure out that the government is using taxpayer's money at an incredible rate in a time of big deficits to demonize marijuana. The real demons are T&A and the government remains silent on the huge misery cost by these substances.Then there is the thing that I will remember EJ for. She said that a vote for Nader was not a wasted vote because if the fundamentalist came in and showed their asses like they did starting with the killing of Tom and Rollie at Rainbow Farms and continuing to send people to a premature death or a life of needless suffering by attacking medical marijuana clubs starting with the Resource Center in Orange County while talking a bunch of crap about some marketing slogan of compassionate conservatism, it would lead to an earlier demise of this corrupted view of freedom known as cannabis prohibition. Not that any newspaper uses the term cannabis prohibition. The Busch team might appeal to the fundamentalist but they have pissed most everyone else off.A year ago the progressive writers of the Internet did not use the word fascism like they now do and the media did not get blasted as an embarrasment to the potential of free speech. We have figured it out and now the ONDCP has to use taxpayer money to run ads in the New York Times saying they don't engage in propaganda by using propaganda.Walters makes a fool of himself by saying the government has plenty of lawyers to defend him against violations of the Hatch Act. He goes to Vancouver with maybe a dozen bodyguards and gets laughed at and called a liar while representing the US as a member of of the Cabinet.Yes, the reform movement must regroup because the group is becoming larger. There is reason being demonstrated in the rest of the world and it will serve to awaken people when they are told the land of the free is an island of prohibition with only the Swedes to talk to. Wait until people find that 30% of the people in Morocco use cannabis and they are those religious fanatics that pray 5 times a day.There is a great awakening coming to some brainwashed people. The New York Times might be on that list with the other media companies at the ONDCP website, but that just shows how little credibility they really have and how in bed they are with the government. If Walter's had any sense he would be too embarrassed to show his pin head in public, but he has no sense. There is an expression you don't hear much about people that got addicted to smoking because they grew up in a house where the parents smoked. If someones parents smoked a person might be said to have developed the habit honestly. I can see how people come by the Christian habit honestly and live in the Christian world, but these fundamentalist are still believers in a mythological middleman to God and for my definition of God I use the definition listed first in the unabridged dictionary- the ultimate reality. But despite the religion stuff, they don't even practice what they preach and several church groups have called for a better way which is legalization.I could rant on, but I will acknowledge the wisdom of EJ's thoughts and say the fundamentalist will embarrass prohibition out of America. The tide is coming in and only the fools and the financial benefactors of prohibition remain on Prohibition Beach.Look at the people in Venezula as they surround the 5 television stations that are openly partisan to overthrowing the democratically elected leader that has the people's interest at heart. It can happen here. Having the conservative press paint the media as liberal only works on the misguided fundamentalist and makes any educated person laugh at the stupidity of such an idea. This blanket approach to saying drugs instead of staying on the subject of cannabis is not a tactic of a reformer. We will focus the debate one on one without the need to sommun all the evils of drug addiction on a miracle plant that never killed anybody. Rebecca Knight at Buzzflash even took a blast at Republican nonsense when she said that the idea of Democrats as a tax and spend party is false but the Republicans as a borrow and spend party cannot be reasonably argued. Well, something like that anyway. And then the fundamentalist run five ads to say marijuana is not harmless and in one of them all they can say is that marijuana can get you busted. How stupid is that? Marijuana does not bust anyone, It is the insanity of prohibition that gets people busted and your commercials will only highlight prohibitionist insanity. And just wait until somebody collects all the lies that Walters told this year and puts them in one place. There is only one Logical Conclusion and that is legalization. If you want to argue that point with me in real life I personally will call you ignorant or a fool and tell you to go away and maybe you should try reading more. The intolerance is growing and the tide is coming in.1 
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