Pubdate: Sun, 24 Mar 2002
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2002 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author:  Naftali Bendavid, Washington Bureau

CRITICS DECRY ADS LINKING DRUGS, TERROR

White House Says Tactics Are Justified

WASHINGTON -- With the war on terrorism threatening to siphon support, 
money and attention from the fight against drugs, Bush administration 
officials increasingly are linking terrorist groups with drug traffickers. 
But some experts in drug control believe it is a dubious and dangerous 
strategy that could backfire.

The strategy, featuring splashy television commercials that debuted during 
January's Super Bowl, tells teenagers that by buying drugs they are handing 
money to the Sept. 11 terrorists and their ilk. It is backed by an official 
push to make sure the anti-drug cause does not get swallowed up by the 
anti-terror campaign but becomes part of it.

That message is factually suspect, some in drug control say, because most 
drug money goes nowhere near terrorists. Worse, they add, fingering 
America's millions of drug users, including pot-smoking teenagers, as 
accomplices to terrorism is unrealistic and counterproductive.

"It's despicable and dangerous," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director 
of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that favors alternatives to the drug 
war. "When you start labeling tens of millions of Americans as accomplices 
to terrorists or de facto murderers, you are creating and stirring an 
atmosphere of intolerance and hate-mongering that ends up being destructive 
and dangerous to the broader society."

Tom Riley, spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said 
the new message simply tells it like it is.

"Every time you buy drugs, the money goes to people who hurt, kill and 
maim," Riley said. "People won't buy a brand of sneakers because they use 
substandard labor in another part of the world. This money goes to people 
who are far, far worse than that."

The administration seized on the new message in the wake of Sept. 11 and 
shows no signs of letting go. Riley's office is running an elaborate ad 
campaign, leaders are testifying before Congress, officials are meeting in 
high-profile conferences, budget documents are being carefully crafted; all 
to make one basic point--that terrorists use drug money to finance their 
evil works.

In one sense, the new approach fits Bush's current pattern of casting many 
of his goals as crucial to the war on terrorism, from tax cuts to health 
care to energy policy. But the drug message is being broadcast with special 
vehemence.

The message sprang into public notice when the Office of National Drug 
Control Policy, often called the drug czar's office, launched a $10 million 
advertising campaign with two jarring 30-second ads during the Super Bowl. 
The ads have run frequently since, and print versions have appeared in 
nearly 200 newspapers.

In one, a young man says, "Yesterday afternoon, I did my laundry, went out 
for a run, and helped torture someone's dad." In another, a youth says, 
"Last weekend I washed my car, hung out with a few friends, and helped 
murder a family in Colombia."

The ads conclude somberly, "Drug money helps support terror. Buy drugs and 
you could be supporting it, too."

The idea, sponsors say, is to get through to jaded young men and women who 
have been contemptuous of previous anti-drug messages and who view drug use 
as a victimless crime and a personal choice.

"One of the reasons these ads are so potent is that they appeal to the 
idealism of young people," drug czar John Walters said recently. "Where 
previous anti-drug ads have focused on the devastating toll that drugs take 
on individuals, these ads speak to young people's desire to make the world 
a better place."

Ads only part of the strategy

The ads are only a small part of the administration's new 
drugs-equal-terror campaign. Last December, Bush signed a new anti-drug 
initiative and told his audience: "Terrorists use drug profits to fund 
their cells to commit acts of murder. If you quit drugs, you join the fight 
against terror in America."

Last week, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft announced the indictment of three 
members of a Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC, accused of conspiring to ship cocaine into the U.S., and 
he stressed the "evil interdependence" between drugs and terrorism.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Drug Enforcement Administration 
convened its first-ever conference on drugs and terrorism.

In pushing a $1.7 billion budget request, DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson 
played up the drugs-terror connection. Hutchinson knows he must compete 
with the enormous spending on the war on terrorism; Congress approved $40 
billion to fight terrorism last year, and Bush is now asking for $27 
billion more.

In asking Congress last month for a budget increase, Hutchinson said the 
proposal would give the DEA "not only the money needed to fight drug abuse 
and drug trafficking, but would also help break the historic link between 
drugs, violence and terrorism."

Critics: Connection is forced

Those who oppose the war on drugs are distressed by this drumbeat. The new 
message, in their view, is merely a way to reinvigorate a discredited war 
on drugs. Only a tiny fraction of drug dollars flows to terrorists, they 
said, and the assertion that buying drugs helps terrorism is questionable 
at best.

"You have to stretch a long way to make that plausible," said Peter Reuter, 
a drug policy expert at the University of Maryland. "Marijuana, which is 
what the vast majority of drug users use, is grown primarily in the United 
States and Mexico and has no connection with terrorism."

Others said a portion of the money from many purchases--from diamonds to 
athletic shoes--goes to unsavory characters, so drugs are hardly unique in 
this way. And they questioned the ads' effectiveness, saying skeptical 
teenagers were unlikely to buy the argument that smoking marijuana helps 
Osama bin Laden.

"This is an effort to demonize drug users," said Eric Sterling, president 
of the liberal Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. "At a time when many are 
talking about the importance of drug treatment, this rhetoric sends the 
message that drug users are not people with chemical dependencies, they are 
aiding and abetting terrorists and need to be locked up."

Riley, the drug czar's spokesman, said such arguments merely reflect the 
message's effectiveness.

"The reason the drug legalizers have been incredibly critical of these ads 
is that their argument has always been, `Hey, drug use doesn't hurt anyone 
else, it's my choice,'" Riley said. "This exposes that. When you buy drugs, 
you are hurting other people."

Supporters of the campaign say it is obvious that terrorism and drug 
dealing form a seamless web: Terrorists use drugs to finance their killing, 
and drug lords kill to protect their trafficking.

The FARC, a group that has murdered and kidnapped thousands, receives $300 
million a year from cocaine trafficking, U.S. officials say. The Taliban, 
while officially banning poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, nonetheless 
profited financially from the opium trade, according to the DEA.

Critics say the Northern Alliance, America's ally in the war, was involved 
heavily in the narcotics trade. But the DEA says the Taliban ran a "drug 
state" whose economy "was exceptionally dependent on opium," and that bin 
Laden financed and facilitated heroin trafficking.

"Some of the critics say, `I just buy my marijuana locally, it probably 
comes from Mexico,'" Riley said. "What do they think, it's from some nice 
Mexican farmer who FedExes it to your door? It goes through the hands of 
hideously violent people who kill women and children and probably use 
organized crime to distribute it in the United States."

Right or wrong, the public is likely to see more of the drugs-and-terror 
message in the future. Walters, the drug czar, has ordered up another batch 
of ads.

"Our goal was to introduce an idea," Walters said. "I believe we have 
accomplished that goal."
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