I sent a letter critical of the writer of the Globe and Mail and I hope more people will follow through with Scott's request. It's this type of media activism that can get assignment and editorial page editors to take notice that when drug warriors make false claims. This is the kind of scrutiny that can be applied to many facets of the media's coverage of the drug war.Whether, it's your classic drug bust symbolic victory press conferences with the drugs and cash laying out on a table or an op-ed piece such as the one Ms. Wente wrote for the Globe and Mail.

It's great that Scott uses this blog to that effect and I hope he exposes more of this bad journalism in the future.

I'm not familiar with Wente, but it's disturbingly common in my experience for journalists to simply accept government talking points as truth. More than once recently I've had news people say to me that marijuana "is a whole different drug now" due to increased potency, and I have to start from square one to explain to them why that's pure fiction. Sign...

Everytime some journalist decides to throw away their professional integrity and become the one-sided megaphone for the prohibitionists, CALL OUT THE SO-CALLED MESSENGER and THEIR PROPAGANDA. Ask the world why a particular journalist is misleading the public. Here's an example,

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080619031026AAiNp1u

To address the problem of biased journalism regarding drug prohibition, I have started an organization called the Liberators (the hub is at myspace.com/wetheliberators, while work is done on the website at wetheliberators.com).

The Liberators are focused solely on public relations.

I believe that an effective, perpetually-evolving public relations campaign to complement the fine work done in the reform movement would be very beneficial.

It is only in the beginning stages (run entirely by yours truly at this point), but the goal is to establish media connections (including the mainstream) to inform the misinformed journalists, who then with respect to their journalism Code of Ethics, will inform the misinformed public majority, the people running our government.

If we can afford it, we will hire a major public relations firm, if that will expedite achieving fast and strong connections to the mainstream media.

If you feel strongly about this issue, please feel free to help us out.

Spread the word, and contribute financially.

I can tell you from direct experience that drug testing was pushed into newsrooms almost before it was pushed for police, fire and commercial pilots. Many a good journalist was driven out of the industry because right-wingers would freely impugn writers with drug use innuendo and push for a "random" drug test whenever a journalist attempted any form of objectivity on the drug war policy.

It was and still is a major intimidation for a young journalist to have to
subject themselves to the sexual emasculation of a job interview drug test as a way to start a new job or career. That indelible impression serves to intellectually repress a young reporter. Spend $ 80-thousand on an education then get these thugs threatening it all with drug tests. It tends to induce conformity.

Drug testing in journalism fundamentally subverts the constitution of the United States for all Americans in that it is a litmus test for one political perspective 'support for the political policy of drug prohibition'. Anyone who might not conform to that political perspective is not welcome in American journalism. Conform that with the First fuckin Amendment.

Simply put a "hard line approach" to drug abuse puts more drugs into the hands of more children by giving the sales and distribution of the world's $ 320-billion annual consumer demand for intoxicant drugs into the hands of addicts and gangsters who thrive on selling to new generations of children. The black market created by Ms. Wente's preferred prohibition policy is also a subsidy program for crime and terrorism.

In Sept. 2006 U.S. foreign policy expert Barnett Rubin told the U.S. congress Foreign Relations Committee: "The international drug control regime, which criminalizes narcotics, does not reduce drug use, but it does produce huge profits for criminals and the armed groups and corrupt officials who protect them. Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies."

More recently British military expert John A. Glaze wrote a report for the U.S. Army War College that asserted that "an estimated 70 percent of the Taliban’s income now comes from protection money and the sale of opium."

Harm reduction supporters and drug war abolitionists around the world want to see governments stop this subsidy program for criminals and terrorists. Regulate, license and tax the black market for drugs out of existence. Drug war proponents like Ms. Wente 'just say no'.

I sent a letter to the Globe. Thanks, Scott, for the suggestion. Using Yahoo Answers to get the truth out is also a great tactic. And thank you, ph0ed1n, for your Liberators PR work. Connecting, suggesting tactics and following up in a thousand little ways will eventually shift consciousness. I have suggested something similar in my reader blog post -- The Significance of US Govt Cannabinoid Patent 6,630,507