The ads by the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy aired during last night's Super Bowl marked an escalation in the selling of the administration's war on drugs -- for the first time, the illegal narcotics trade is linked to terrorism. Previously, government anti-drug messages focused on how users harm themselves. The two Super Bowl ads, which cost nearly $3.5 million to place during the widely watched Fox television broadcast, claim that money to purchase drugs likely ends up in the hands of terrorists and narco-criminals. [continues 707 words]
Of all the advocacy groups and all the activists and all the talking heads clashing over Sen. John Ashcroft -- and there are many -- the people who broke up the first day of his confirmation hearings yesterday had little to do with the issues that have thus far dogged Ashcroft's candidacy for attorney general. People in favor of abortion rights, people opposed to abortion rights, libertarians, the Feminist Majority, the religious right -- they were all outside, circling in front of the Hart Senate Office Building, holding signs and chanting, or working Hill sidewalks elsewhere. [continues 880 words]
