Pubdate: Sun, 11 July 1999
Source: The Media Awareness Project of DrugSense
Note: The following is a rare commentary by the undersigned.

General Barry McCaffrey, our Drug Czar and the leading advocate of the War
on Drugs, went on the attack in a congressional hearing. In the testimony
read into the subcommittee's records, he attacks the Media Awareness
Project no less than four times: 

"...Media Awareness Project's homepage (a group advocating drug policy
reforms)...." 

"...Media Awareness Project (a not-for-profit organization whose
self-declared mission is to encourage a re-evaluation of our drug
policies)...."

"The Media Awareness Project website also includes links to instructions
about how drug users can defeat drug tests." 

"Similarly, the websites of both the Drug Policy Foundation, a
self-proclaimed drug policy reform group, and the Media Awareness Project,..."

The General’s testimony is at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n636/a02.html

We have long known that his staff actively followed our efforts. We find it
typical of the hysteria he tries to promote that he finds links from our
link page at http://www.mapinc.org/dpr.htm will, after several jumps
through the pages of other organizations or publications, reach information
he thinks should be censored. But he fails to mention our even handed links
to his own Office of National Drug Control Policy and 22 similar sites.

Why single us out for this special treatment? Perhaps because we, daily,
are exposing the truth about our failed drug policies? Or is it because we
make available the growing number of editorials that question drug policy?
Perhaps it is because so many no longer fear to write Letters to The Editor
exposing the problems with our drug policies as shown at
http://www.mapinc.org/lte/

Or maybe it is because of the huge circulation of our DrugSense Weekly, the
first of it's kind in the country dedicated to providing original,
comprehensive coverage of the drug war and the growing movement for reform,
and now in it's 105th issue at: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm

NO, it is not for these reasons the General points us (and others) out for
attack. It is because he knows full well that there millions of you who,
each in your own way, are "Moving the Discourse on Drugs from Hysteria to
Sanity and Humanity."

"We say in a democracy that good ideas will drive out bad ones, so if the
good ones aren't there, we're left with the bad ones." - General Barry
McCaffrey -

You are insuring that we are not left with just the bad ideas. Thank you!

Richard Lake 
Sr. Editor; MAPnews, MAPnews-Digest and DrugNews-Digest
More than 23,653 Drug-Related News Clippings
in a SEARCHABLE database!
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/
For subscription information see:
http://www.MAPinc.org/lists/
Quick sign up for DrugNews-Digest, Focus Alerts or Weekly:
http://www.DrugSense.org/hurry.htm
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake