CRITICS DECRY EXHIBIT LINKING DRUGS, TERROR

Advocates Of Legalization Say DEA Display Ignores Role War On Drugs Plays

A photograph of President Bush waving a flag after the Sept. 11,
2001, terror attacks is juxtaposed against a black-and-white image of
a mother smoking crack cocaine in bed next to her baby.
Larger-than-life portraits of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar line
the walls. The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement
Administration exhibit unveiled Friday at Chicago's Museum of Science
and Industry is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked.

But advocates of legalization who are leafleting outside the exhibit
say the DEA is leaving out an important part of the story. Critics
agree that drug trafficking provides a potentially lucrative revenue
stream for terrorist organizations. But they say the profit is
actually fueled by the government's war on drugs, which creates a
situation akin to the prohibition of alcohol.

"If we taxed and regulated drugs, terrorists wouldn't have drugs as a
source of profit," said Tom Angell of the nonprofit Students for
Sensible Drug Policy, which focuses on restoring financial aid for
college students with drug convictions.

"With the connection to Prohibition in Chicago, we should know
better," said Pete Guither, a professor of theater management at
Illinois State University and founder of the blog DrugWarRant.com.

DEA spokesman Steve Robertson responded: "We enforce the laws as they
are written. Congress makes the laws. People say if we didn't have
(drug) laws, there wouldn't be a problem. But there was a problem
before, and that's why laws were established."

Critics of the DEA exhibit also question its linking of drugs to
al-Qaida. Another Web site with which Guither is affiliated,
www.deatargetsamerica.com, quotes the Sept. 11 commission report as
finding that "there is no reliable evidence that bin Ladin was
involved in or made his money through drug trafficking."

"For al-Qaida, it's hard" to prove a link, said DEA public affairs
chief Garrison Courtney. "I don't think we're saying 9/11 was caused
by drug financing. But we're saying there is a link between drugs and
terror, and September 11 is a poignant example of terrorism.

Terrorists don't hold bake sales to raise money."

The exhibit, titled "Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs
Cause," includes a list of organizations designated as terrorist by
the State Department, with the explanation that "nearly 50 percent"
of them get funds through drug trafficking.