Just watch how the New York Times editorial board picks apart the Drug Czar's propaganda:

According to the White House, this country is scoring big wins in the war on drugs, especially against the cocaine cartels. Officials celebrate that cocaine seizures are up — leading to higher prices on American streets. Cocaine use by teenagers is down, and, officials say, workplace tests suggest adult use is falling.

John Walters, the White House drug czar, declared earlier this year that “courageous and effective” counternarcotics efforts in Colombia and Mexico “are disrupting the production and flow of cocaine.”

This enthusiasm rests on a very selective reading of the data. Another look suggests that despite the billions of dollars the United States has spent battling the cartels, it has hardly made a dent in the cocaine trade.

The Drug Czar's blog fired back with a predictably off-target, but uncharacteristically hostile response:

Today's New York Times has published an editorial that willfully cherry picks data in order to conform to their tired, 1970's editorial viewpoint that we're "losing the war on drugs."

Despite our numerous efforts to provide the Times with the facts, their editorial staff has chosen to ignore irrefutable data regarding the progress that has been made in making our nation's drug problem smaller.

 And yet, as anyone can see, the NYT piece clearly acknowledges this so-called "irrefutable data." They list the Drug Czar's favorite talking points right in the first paragraph. But then they do something he wasn't prepared for: they say it doesn't matter. The salient point of the whole editorial is that "the drug cartels are not running for cover." In short, for all the Drug Czar's proud proclamations of progress, the drug trade surges on unabated.

It's really just embarrassing that the Drug Czar's only response is to repeat the very points already acknowledged and overcome by NYT. His whole argument is that rates of drug abuse are lower than they were at their highest point in history. That's true, but it's not surprising, not impressive, and not even remotely a result of the Drug Czar's poisonous public policies. With the rage of a shamed tyrant, Walters claims a monopoly on "the facts," as though only the Drug Czar is qualified to interpret the success of his programs. It's like calling CarMax to ask them if they have the best deals on used cars.

Beyond all that, ponder the absurdity of the very notion that we must consult the Drug Czar and his overcooked statistics in order to know whether or not our drug policy is working really well. We can observe these things for ourselves. When we lead the world in incarceration, when we lead the world in drug use, when we drug test our own sewage, and deny organs to medical marijuana patients, and murder innocent people in their homes, and subsidize brutal civil wars in foreign nations, we have nothing to celebrate. All of these grand travesties fester before our eyes and are not mitigated, even to a microscopic extent, by the indignant self-congratulatory fulminations of the very people who visited this spectacular nightmare upon us.

In other words, when the pool is green, no one gives a crap if the lifeguard says the pH balance is normal.

[Courtesy of DrugSense]

Well if we didn't already know it was the month of May, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in Washington DC led by Drug Czar John Walters is doing their best to remind us - again. For the eighth year in a row under Walters' lead, the ONDCP has used the first half of May to release their annual "latest scary facts about marijuana" press release.

Packaged and carefully crafted in the guise of a scientific study, the ONDCP has again done nothing more than take a few correlative facts about teenagers and marijuana use and then 'conclude' that the pot use creates causative and inescapable debilitating health effects for our youth.

This year, it's "depression." Citing the results of a dubious survey from New Zealand wherein teenagers who acknowledged feeling depression also often cited use of marijuana, the ONDCP report concludes that teenagers who use cannabis face an increased likelihood of being depressed. Sadly, this is as scientifically causative as saying that many people who feel pain also use aspirin. And that therefore aspirin use causes pain.

Even more grim is that such junk science press releases are used to add fuel to the fiery federal insistence that all marijuana use - even for adults, and even for appropriate medical use with a doctor's recommendation (currently legal in 12 U.S. states and Canada) - should remain a criminal offense - an offense worthy of arrest, prosecution, incarceration and a lifetime criminal record.

Fortunately, based on our 11+ years of covering drug policy news at MAP, we've come to see that an increasing number of newspaper reporters and editors view information coming from the Drug Czar's office with a cocked eyebrow and/or even a smirking dismissal. That's in large part due to their receiving a steady diet of more honest and truthful information about marijuana - both it's negative effects and it's positive benefits. That flow of alternative personal and professional testimony comes from people like you - the users of MAP and the people most interested in a public drug policy that is founded on facts rather than emotionally driven misinformation.

MAP has been archived news clippings that resulted from the ONDCP press release over this past weekend and will continue to add more as newshawks like you find more. All the clippings found so far start with a subject line of "US" and may be found here: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/depression

Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor to the listed newspapers of your choice and the newspapers people read where you live. If you write to more than one newspaper, we strongly suggest at least some modification of your message so that each newspaper receives a unique letter.

Often the best targets for response are Opinion items (Editorials, OPEDs and other LTEs) which may be printed during the days ahead. Please recheck the link above during the week for additional targets for letters.

Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do.

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Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

Or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed.

heath@mapinc.org

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PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ( sentlte@mapinc.org ) if you are subscribed, or by e-mailing a copy directly to heath@mapinc.org if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( sentlte@mapinc.org ) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

[Courtesy of Drug Policy Alliance]

For Immediate Release: March 12, 2008
For More Info: Tony Newman (646) 335-5384 or Bill Piper (202) 669-6430

Drug Czar John Walters Testifying in Congress Today in Support of Bush’s 2008 National Drug Control Strategy

Drug Policy Alliance: Walters is Covering Up a Record of Failure

Fatal Overdoses on the Rise, Transmission of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C from Injection Drug Use Continues to Mount, 1 in 100 Americans Now Behind Bars

Drug Czar John Walters will testify today at 2pm before the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee. He is expected to defend the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s 2008 Drug Strategy, which continues to fund failed supply-side strategies at the expense of more effective prevention and treatment. Below is a statement from Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Every year the drug czar tries to put a good spin on the failure of the drug war, and this year is no exception. Americans should ask themselves, ‘Are drugs as available as ever?’ Answer: Yes. ‘Do our communities continue to be devastated by astronomical incarceration rates and death and disease related to drug abuse and drug prohibition?’ Again, yes.

Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars and incarcerating millions of Americans, experts acknowledge that illicit drugs remain cheap, potent and widely available in every community. Meanwhile, the harms associated with drug abuse—addiction, overdose and the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis—continue to mount. Add to this record of failure the collateral damage of drug prohibition and the drug war—broken families, racial inequity, wasted tax dollars, and the erosion of civil liberties. The evidence is clear and it is foolish and irresponsible to claim success.

What matters most is not whether drug use rates go up or down but whether we see any improvements in the death, disease, crime and suffering that are associated with both illegal drugs and drug prohibition. The current approach, with its “drug-free America” rhetoric, and over reliance on punitive, criminal justice policies costs taxpayers billions more each year, yet delivers less and less. It’s time for a new bottom line in drug policy, one that focuses on reducing the harms associated with both drug misuse and the collateral damage from the drug war.

[Courtesy of DPA]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 28, 2008
CONTACT: Jennifer Kern, DPA (415) 373-7694 or Zeina Salam, ACLU (904) 391-1884

White House Pushes Controversial Student Drug Testing Agenda at Summit in Jacksonville on January 29

Largest Study, Leading Associations Call Random, Suspicionless Drug Testing Harmful and Ineffective

Concerned Citizens to Provide Educators with Missing Information; Experts Available for Interviews

Jacksonville, FL — The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is conducting a series of regional summits designed to convince local educators to start drug testing students -- randomly and without cause. This policy is unsupported by the available science and opposed by leading experts in adolescent health. The third summit of 2008 takes place on Tuesday, January 29th in Jacksonville at the Jacksonville Marriott, 4670 Salisbury Road at 8:30 a.m.

The Drug Policy Alliance and American Civil Liberties Union are providing attendees with copies of the booklet Making Sense of Student Drug Testing: Why Educators Are Saying No, which presents research showing that such testing is ineffective and provides resources for effective alternatives.

Studies have found that suspicionless drug testing is ineffective in deterring student drug use. The first large-scale national study on student drug testing, which was published by researchers at the University of Michigan in 2003, found no difference in rates of student drug use between schools that have drug testing programs and those that do not. A two-year randomized experimental trial published last November in the Journal of Adolescent Health concluded random drug testing targeting student athletes did not reliably reduce past month drug use and, in fact, produced attitudinal changes among students that indicate new risk factors for future substance use.

“Drug testing breaks down relationships of trust,” said Jennifer Kern, Drug Testing Fails Our Youth Campaign Coordinator at the Drug Policy Alliance. “All credible research on substance abuse prevention points to eliminating, rather than creating, sources of alienation and conflict between young people, their parents and schools.”

A group of concerned citizens will also attend to provide educators with important information missing from the summit, such as the objections of the National Education Association, the Association of Addiction Professionals and the National Association of Social Workers to testing. These organizations believe random testing programs erect counter-productive obstacles to student participation in extracurricular activities, marginalize at-risk students and make open communication more difficult.

A December 2007 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Abuse and Council of School Health reaffirmed their opposition to student drug testing, holding: “Physicians should not support drug testing in schools … [because] it has not yet been established that drug testing does not cause harm.”

Schools in Florida have so far rejected the policy. In November 2006 the Citrus County School Board turned down a $317,000 federal drug testing grant, as board members were not convinced that testing would discourage drug use. Members felt subjecting students to drug testing was a misuse of authority and objected that the grant made them test subjects as part of a federal study of student drug testing. The following month the Hernando County School Board rejected a federal drug testing grant of at least $183,289.

“Subjecting students to unsubstantiated searches makes a mockery of the values taught in our nation’s classrooms, undermining respect for the Constitution among its future caretakers,” said Zeina Salam, ACLU of Florida Northeast Regional Staff Attorney. “Random drug testing must not become a rite of passage for America’s youth.”

Making Sense of Student Drug Testing: Why Educators are Saying No can be found online at www.safety1st.org. An excerpt from the booklet is included below:

Comprehensive, rigorous and respected research shows there are many reasons why random student drug testing is not good policy:

- Drug testing is not effective in deterring drug use among young people;
- Drug testing is expensive, taking away scarce dollars from other, more effective programs that keep young people out of trouble with drugs;
- Drug testing can be legally risky, exposing schools to potentially costly litigation;
- Drug testing may drive students away from extracurricular activities, which are a proven means of helping students stay out of trouble with drugs;
- Drug testing can undermine trust between students and teachers, and between parents and children;
- Drug testing can result in false positives, leading to the punishment of innocent students;
- Drug testing does not effectively identify students who have serious problems with drugs; and
- Drug testing may lead to unintended consequences, such as students using drugs (like alcohol) that are more dangerous but less detectable by a drug test.

[Courtesy of DrugSense]

One of the U.S. government's most persistently dishonest appointed officials - John Walters, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) - has been caught in yet another outright lie to the North American media.

His office's first major press release of 2008 made a disturbing announcement. According to Drug Czar Walters, there is a "dangerous new drug threat coming from Canada." The drug? - so called "Extreme Ecstasy."

In a news release distributed in the U.S. and Canada, Walters warned that the use of ecstasy is being fueled by Canadian producers smuggling the illegal designer drug -- which is increasingly laced with crystal meth -- into the U.S.

"Historic progress against ecstasy availability and use is in jeopardy of being rolled back by Canadian criminal organizations," Walters said in the release.

Scott Burns, the primary spokesperson for Walters' ONDCP office, echoed the alarming cry with "They are remarketing and packaging it and trying to glamorize it."

Certainly gives the guise of being important information for Americans - especially parents of teenagers, right? Unfortunately, it seems that John Walters and the ONDCP created "extreme ecstasy" out of their own imaginations.

The U.S. Drug Czar has been caught lying - again. And this time, the direct rebuttal of his lies comes from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Less than two weeks after the January 4th ONDCP press release, the head of the RCMP's national drug branch sternly rebuked the ONDCP claims.

Supt. Paul Nadeau said he doesn't know why Walters would make such fictional statements without checking facts with Canadian officials. He added that he himself has never heard of "extreme Ecstasy.... it would appear that it's a term that somebody came up with in a boardroom in Washington, D.C."

Please write a letter to newspapers that carry coverage of the false claims.

Let your local and state or provincial media know that the United States Drug Czar is a very unreliable and frankly dishonest source of accurate information.

Drug control policy was the arena where the often acrimonious relations between the US and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez played out this week, with Washington accusing Venezuela of colluding with

Josh Burnett at NPR has a strong article debunking the absurd cocaine shortage rumor started by the Drug Czar's office. Burnett explains that increased cocaine prices are temporary and that the Drug Czar's claims of "unprecedented" progress are just false.

Burnett reached these conclusions through an increasingly rare journalism technique known as "research." Rather than mindlessly regurgitating the government's claims of drug war success, he called police chiefs in cities with supposed cocaine shortages and asked them if anything had changed. He also spoke with ONDCP veteran John Carnevale, who, despite his extensive drug warrior credentials, conceded that the real trend in cocaine prices is a downward spiral.

Of course, the inevitable consequence of researching the Drug Czar's ridiculous claims is that the Drug Czar will accuse you of bad research:

When asked about the conflicting information found by NPR, Drug Czar John Walters dismissed it. He said his information is drawn from nationwide data collected by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is based on undercover buys, wiretaps, informants, and local police reports.

"Now we can do it that way or we can do it where you call somebody somewhere and they say something else," Walters said. "That's not data. That's a guy."

It's cute how pissed he gets when someone starts fact-checking his outrageous statements. And it's just priceless to hear the master of argument-by-anecdote accuse someone else of missing the big picture.

The results of Burnett's investigation are inevitable anytime a reporter deliberately researches claims from the Drug Czar's office. The information disseminated by that organization is always false, usually to a dramatic extent, so subjecting them to even minimal scrutiny will reveal that they are wrong 100% of the time.

Reporters need to learn this. It must be understood that press releases from the Office of National Drug Control Policy are a true or false quiz and the correct answer is always "F." If you simply cut and paste their claims into a story you fail the test.

The latest annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use was released Tuesday.

The United States military is melding counterinsurgency with counternarcotics missions in Afghanistan in what officials called "a basic strategy shift" in its Afghan campaign.

The ever-broadening scandal over White House political operatives' involvement in what are supposed to be non-partisan activities within the federal government engulfed the

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One out of every 12 full-time workers in the United States used an illegal drug in the past month, according to survey data released Monday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminis

In a bout of rhetorical excess unusual even for the nation's drug czar, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) head John Walters called California marijuana growers "violent criminals" and

"Oversight" is a funny word. It has two meanings, one the opposite of the other. "Oversight" can mean watching over, supervising, or reviewing an action, a policy, or a process. Or it can mean the failure to do so, as in: "I meant to keep an eye on those guys, but I didn't. I guess that was an oversight on my part."

When it comes to monitoring the activities of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and its head, drug czar John Walters, six years of Republican control of the Congress meant the only oversight that was practiced was of the latter variety. That was especially true when it came to looking into charges that Walters and ONDCP were using their drug-fighting mission to unfairly intervene in state and local ballot issues or legislation, or to seek partisan advantage for the Republican Party.

What a difference an election can make. With the opposition Democrats now in control of both houses of Congress, the drug czar's office is joining other large hunks of the Bush administration in coming under tough congressional scrutiny. Today, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), head of the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee, released the following statement charging Walters and ONDCP with coordinating with the White House to schedule events with some 20 vulnerable Republican incumbents in the months leading up to the November 2006 elections:

Politicization of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

At the request of Sara Taylor, the former White House Director of Political Affairs, John Walters, the nation’s drug czar, and his deputies traveled to 20 events with vulnerable Republican members of Congress in the months prior to the 2006 elections. The trips were paid for by federal taxpayers and several were combined with the announcement of federal grants or actions that benefited the districts of the Republican members.

A November 20, 2006, memo from Ms. Taylor summarizes the travel Director Walters took at her request. An agency e-mail sent the following day describes how Karl Rove commended the historically nonpartisan Office of National Drug Control Policy and three cabinet departments – Commerce, Transportation, and Agriculture – for “going above and beyond the call of duty” in making “surrogate appearances” at locations the e-mail described as “the god awful places we sent them.” Other documents include an e-mail from the Interior Department to Ms. Taylor’s predecessor stating: “these folks need to be reminded who they work for and how their geographical travel can benefit this President.”

Chairman Waxman wrote to Ms. Taylor to request her attendance at a Committee deposition on or before July 24 and her possible appearance at a Committee hearing on July 30. He also wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, the Republican National Committee, Director Walters, and the Secretaries of the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Agriculture requesting relevant documents.

There's a complete set of links to the documents mentioned at the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee web site linked to in the title of the Waxman release. It makes some interesting--and damning--reading. Waxman looks like he will schedule some hearings on this soon. Gosh, it sure is fun when we have someone on the oversight committee who actually practices the first definition of the word!

This is a rare chance to meet the other side head-on and show your discontent with wasteful, ineffective marijuana eradication programs and the Drug Czar and his policies generally.

John P. Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will be in Shasta County, California to conduct a marijuana eradication site visit as well as to attend the kickoff of a Federal, State and local law enforcement marijuana eradication initiative, Operation Alesia, a three-tiered marijuana eradication initiative coordinated by the California National Guard's Counterdrug Taskforce and the Shasta County Sheriff's Office.

Drug czar John Walters and his minions at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) have kicked off the summer season with