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The drug czar’s ad campaign shamefully blames America’s kids for terrorism and wastes precious resources better spent on drug treatment and real threats to national security.



See the Drug Policy Alliance ad that appeared in Roll Call
View the reformatted web version
Download the ad in pdf format (830 KB)

View the original ONDCP ad

According to recent polls, 70% of the public believes the war on drugs has failed. Since 1996, 17 out of 19 initiatives and referendums have passed around the country in favor of drug policy reform. In the months following the September 11 attacks, as the war on terrorism has become the nation’s top priority, drug war bureaucrats have seemed increasingly out of touch to many Americans:

The drug czar’s office is distorting the link between the war on drugs and the war on terrorism in order to justify its failed mission in a new political climate.
The DEA’s most high profile actions after September 11 have been raiding non-profits that provide medical marijuana to sick and dying patients in Los Angeles and San Francisco - though the organizations were supported by local police and California voters.
And across the nation, arrests of non-violent drug offenders, which totaled 1.6 million last year alone, continue to pile up.

As national priorities increasingly focus on questions of actual security, drug war bureaucrats are wary of declining public support and eager to protect their questionable share of the federal budget pie. Hence, the White House’s expensive ad campaign.

What’s Wrong With the Drug Czar’s Ad Campaign:

The ads are factually misleading: they blame drugs and nonviolent Americans for terror funding, when, in fact, the drug war itself is responsible for creating the illegal markets that generate those funds. Blaming Americans for funding terrorism is like blaming alcohol consumers in the 1920s for Al Capone’s violence.
The ads waste precious resources: the federal government is spending $10 million on a television and print ad campaign to demonize Americans when more than half of the people in the country who need drug treatment cannot get it.
The ads are politically motivated: the drug czar’s office is using millions of taxpayer dollars trying to persuade the American public and Congress that the failed drug war is still worth funding.
The ads do nothing to educate children about the health risks of drug use, or to stimulate real dialogue among parents and children about drugs. Instead, they dishonestly link the war on drugs to the war on terrorism in a desperate and cynical effort to protect drug war budgets.

Despite a federal drug budget of nearly $20 billion annually, illegal drugs remain as cheap, pure and readily available as ever. And more than half of the people who need drug treatment in the U.S. can’t get it. While the drug czar’s office is trying to use the war on terrorism to bolster support for the failed War on Drugs, real solutions to our nation’s drug problem are being ignored.

What Congress and the Administration Should Do:

Stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on expensive television ads that demonize nonviolent Americans.
Stop wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective Latin American counter-narcotics campaign. Funding would be better spent on drug treatment, which has been shown to be the most cost-effective way of reducing drug use.
Stop incarcerating citizens for drug possession.
Repeal federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and return sentencing discretion to judges.
Make appropriate treatment available to every addict who seeks it, including methadone maintenance - which has been proven to be the most effective treatment for heroin dependence.
Make sterile syringes readily and legally available through pharmacies and needle exchange programs in order to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. The United States is alone among advanced industrialized western nations in refusing to provide a penny for such programs, which save lives without increasing drug use.
Develop effective programs to reduce drug overdoses and save lives.
   
  More on Terrorism and the Drug War  
 
 
Background Text and Audio
CounterSpin talks about the new White House anti-drug ads with Deborah Small of the Drug Policy Alliance -- February 28, 2002
Perspectives on Drugs and Terrorism: American Policy for a New Age - Drug Policy Alliance Forum, December 19, 2001
Op-Eds
Judy Mann. Money Spent on Drug War Could Be Put to Better Use, Washington Post, October 17, 2001
Robyn Blumner, Watch the War on Terror Morph into the War on Drugs, St. Petersburg Times, December 11, 2001
David Broder, DEA Marijuana Madness, Washington Post, November 11, 2001
Deroy Murdock, Federal War Against the Sick, Oakland Tribune, February 19, 2002
Robert Sharpe, US Should Follow Europe's Lead in Drug-Law Reform, Newsday, January 3, 2002
Jacob Sullum, Drugs and Thugs, Reason Magazine, December 2001
Maria Cristina Caballero, Parell Tragedies of Colombia, the US, The Miami Herald, October 26, 2001
   
 
  More Facts on the War on Drugs  
 
 
Children, Education and the War on Drugs
Race and the Drug War
Public Health Casualties of the Drug War

 
Press Releases

U.S. Drug Czar Admits to Failed Ad Campaign, After Wasting Nearly $1 Billion in Taxpayer Money -- Drug Policy Alliance Press Release [3/14/02]

Bush Administration's Controversial New Anti-Drug Campaign to be Target of Upcoming Roll Call Ad By Drug Policy Alliance -- Drug Policy Alliance Press Release [2/25/02]

Drug Czar’s Super Bowl Ad Campaign Slammed in Print, on Airwaves Across Country -- Drug Policy Alliance Press Release [2/8/02]
Commentary

“I have to say I think these spots are a waste of $3.5 million."
--Tucker Carlson, CNN’s Crossfire

"The drug bureaucracy appears to believe that no one will take its drug war seriously unless the federal government resorts to propaganda worthy of the Zhdanov-era Soviet Union."
--Christopher Caldwell, a Senior Editor at The Weekly Standard.

Read Other Commentary on the ONDCP Ad Campaign

Read ONDCP's Communication Plan
News

Strong Views On Ads Linking Drug Use To Terrorism -- New York Times (NY), [4/02/02]