TRUTH, DRUGS AND OIL

Truth is the anti-drug, according to those government-funded advertisements
our tax dollars pay for on the television.

One recent advertisement from the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign makes a link between
drug use and international terror.

But the whole truth is a bit problematic.

It's our national addiction to foreign oil, not to drugs, that does the
most to bankroll terror. And the questions that poses are not as
politically palatable as an anti-drug campaign.

No doubt some terror groups do use drug money.

But it's misleading when the Web site, www.theantidrug.com, talks about the
demise of the World Trade Center, implying that drug money played a major
role in the attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on that September morning were from Saudi Arabia.

(A desert oasis is the perfect hideout for a pot farm. Or a meth lab. Why
didn't our satellites pick up those anhydrous ammonia tanks? We should've
known ...)

Drugs aren't the fuel of the threat our nation has been facing. Oil is
where Osama bin Laden's wealth is derived, that's what finances the
extremist schools that a minority of wealthy Saudis, and others in oil-rich
nations, support.

The U.S. even buys oil from Iraq. Of course, that funding is restricted to
humanitarian purposes.

Uh-huh.

Politicians from Bill Salier to Al Gore have urged the U.S. to step away
from its chemical dependence on petroleum. They have different motivations
and vastly different solutions, but they're both right.

But so far, I haven't seen that the Bush Administration is willing to take
the necessary steps to wean Americans off oil. The political withdrawal
symptoms would be painful for us all.

So this new wrinkle in the government's anti-drug campaign is convenient.

The arguments presented get even stranger when the government-funded Web
site notes that the Taliban helped support their government with drug money.

Of course, they forget about our friends in the Afghanistan's Northern
Alliance, who, until recently, were even more dependent on drug
trafficking. They lacked oil-rich patrons.

The real evidence of the American drug demand destabilizing social
institutions is in Latin America.

But that's not what leaps to mind to most when they see those television
ads. As far as wreaking social havoc in Latin America is concerned, I
thought that was the one area where the CIA has a demonstrated record of
competence.

Telling the whole truth is good enough to keep kids off drugs. But tax
dollars shouldn't be used for a campaign that's deceptive.

The harm here is not that it's deceptive about the dangers of drugs, it
misleads Americans about the root causes of the terrorist challenge.

And that's something we desperately need to address.