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Pubdate: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2007 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198 Author: Daniel Dale Cited: National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws http://www.norml.org Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal) SPOILS FROM DRUG WAR ON DISPLAY IN DISPUTED DEA MUSEUM The Drug Enforcement Agency Museum Highlights Law and Order, but Critics Say Drug Policy Outcomes Are Distorted ARLINGTON, VA. - Bongs, syringes and cocaine spoons line the display's back wall. Across the aisle, next to yet more drug paraphernalia, sits the replica crack house door. You're not hallucinating: The Drug Enforcement Administration Museum is a taxpayer-funded, government-run institution filled with artifacts that could've been Cheech and Chong props. Opened in 1999 on the ground floor of the DEA's offices in suburban Washington, D.C., the one-room museum draws about 12,000 visitors annually, director Sean Fearns says. Admission is free. Most visitors are middle and high school students on class trips. According to critics such as Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, it's a "terrific waste" of public money, a "boys with toys museum" that glorifies the DEA and its agents at the expense of the truth. The primary exhibit, "Illegal Drugs in America: A Modern History," describes the "rise of the modern drug culture" in the 1960s and "the return of cocaine and the rise of the cartels" in the 1970s and 1980s. Amid photos of despondent addicts and drug-addled celebrities, its displays showcase DEA-seized paraphernalia including a trafficker's diamond-encrusted Colt .45 and an eclectic array of guns, badges and clothing used by DEA agents. The museum's temporary exhibit, "DEA: Air, Land & Sea," features a retired DEA helicopter, a confiscated Sea-Doo and a red race car seized from an Austin-based trafficker. All eye-catching; none, according to Fearns, as popular as the biggest crowd-pleaser: a pair of green snakeskin shoes worn by an undercover agent in Detroit in the 1970s. "Quite frankly, folks would love to see us sell reproductions of these in the gift shop," he says. (Yes, there is a gift shop. Stuffed drug-sniffing DEA dogs go for $7.95.) Fearns says students, parents and educators appreciate the museum and the DEA's traveling exhibit, "Target America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists and You," which visited Dallas in 2003 and 2004 and has drawn 150,000 to 350,000 visitors per year. "Parents say to us, 'Thank you for allowing us to start the conversation about drugs and drug abuse," he says. But St. Pierre and other critics of U.S. drug policy argue that the public shouldn't have to pay for a supposedly educational institution that provides a "massively flawed" education. The museum received $349,000 from Congress to open. At present, it operates as a public-private partnership, getting at least $380,000 per year from the government. St. Pierre says the museum fails to note the cost of the war on drugs to taxpayers and ignores the nuances of drug policy. Caren Woodson, director of government affairs for the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, says its displays boast of raids on violent cocaine traffickers without mentioning raids on harmless medical marijuana users. Fearns says the museum's space is limited. Tentative plans are in the works for an exhibit on the history of marijuana use; drug policy "is certainly an area we want to further look at." With only one room at his disposal, it's impossible, Fearns says, to do more than "scratch the surface" of the complex drug issue at any given time. "Clearly," he says, "we'd need all 12 floors of this building to tell a complete story." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake