CITIZEN DAN

Mention Dan Forbes to most people and they'd draw a blank. But the Office
of National Drug Control Policy certainly knows who Dan Forbes is. In
January, Forbes, 44, broke the story on Salon.com about how the ONDCP
secretly gave financial incentives to television networks to insert the
government's zero-tolerance War on Drugs message into the scripts of prime-
time shows. Forbes, a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, with
experience in social work and acting, wrote and researched most of the
story from his Brooklyn apartment. Forbes followed with articles about how
the ONDCP used the same cash-for-content method to convince major national
magazines to print anti-drug propaganda and how the successes of the
November '96 California and Arizona medical-marijuana initiatives helped
spark this paid media campaign strategy.

HIGH TIMES: What was your area of expertise prior to breaking this story?

DAN FORBES: I used to publish a lot on business in two areas-finance and
labor policy. I wrote for Dunn and Bradstreet in their monthly publication,
Dunn's Review. That's where I really learned the nuts and bolts of
journalism. You could spend two and a half weeks on a story. That folded
and I found myself going more and more into writing on finance. It pays
really well, but boy, it's dry as dust. After a certain point, I was like,
what the hell am I doing with my life?

[HT] How did you uncover the ONDCP pot-ola story?

[DF] In the spring of '98 a friend of mine, David Kiley, who was features
editor for Brandweek, told me that the federal government was moving away
from the donated ad time and space model that the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America had been using for eight, nine years. The federal
government was proposing to spend a billion dollars of taxpayer money to
run the same sort of ads, only now it would be on a paid basis. Seeing how
there was now taxpayer money at stake, I wondered, what's the research
paradigm that supports the effectiveness of these ads? Kiley suggested I do
the library research involved, approach it from an academic point of view.

I figured there would be some decent research, four or five things
published and a couple would hold water pretty well. I went and checked it
out and was astounded that the PDFA refers to only three articles. Two of
them had never seen the light of day at that point. The third one was done
by a woman named Dr. Evelyn Cohen Reese, who had never studied drug policy
before or since, had a one-year, post-graduate fellowship at Johns Hopkins
and checked out the supposed effect of the ads. She stood by her paper,
though she told me she couldn't vouch for the effect of the ads.

[HT] What was your next step?

[DF] During the course of the Brandweek article I had an interview with the
ONDCP's Alan Levitt. He's Media Campaigns Director for [ONDCP chief Barry]
McCaffrey. Levitt told me that program and content may count as a match,
that all advertising is sold-this is my phrase not his-on a two-for-one
basis, but that TV networks can escape that requirement if their
programming content has the right anti-drug messages. Enormous bells went
off in my head-that the federal government was providing financial
incentives for the nation's sitcoms and dramas. I was astounded. This was
the spring of '98, but the TV ads weren't really going to kick in until the
fall of '98. In the spring of '99 I made some very preliminary calls
indicating that indeed programs were being valued by the federal
government. I got an assignment to pursue it for Mediaweek. I started
reporting the hell out of the story in mid-May '99. I made-counting calling
some people fifteen times before they'd talk to me-800 phone calls.

[HT] 800 calls?

[DF] I called one hundred people and that entailed at least eight hundred
phone calls. I've been accused of sleazy, manipulative tactics, but the
first words out of my mouth- "Hi, Dan Forbes, doing a story for Mediaweek
magazine on the ONDCP paid media campaign. May I ask you a couple of
questions?" -nothing could be more straightforward. Little did I know
people in Hollywood would rather have bamboo shoots under their fingernails
than take an unscheduled phone call from somebody they don't really know.

[HT] Why was there fear about this story?

[DF] Part of it is just working for the bureaucracy of the federal
government and part of it stems from the "take-no-prisoners" personality of
McCaffrey. He does not tolerate much dissent. He's a career military man
and is used to giving his marching orders. And network television is
certainly not an atmosphere where dissent is tolerated. I had one guy tell
me that there are twenty people in Hollywood who run the industry. If you
piss one of them off, you don't work.

[HT] Did your approach change once you confirmed that "pot-ola" was going on?

[DF] I realized there was payola from day one, that there were financial
incentives operating. I'm not an advocate for drug use and I'm not an
advocate for drug legalization, but I'm also not an advocate for what could
be characterized as covert government financial incentives to attempt to
shape the content of popular culture. It is government propaganda. That
motivated me from day one. It was a hell of a story and it needed to get out.

[HT] If you don't think that legalization is an answer, than what is?

[DF] I certainly don't think imprisonment for possession is the answer.
That's just ludicrous. Starting in a couple of months you're not going to
be able to get a federal loan for college if you've ever been found guilty
of possessing minor personal-use amounts of marijuana. What kind of
nonsense is that? "We're going to ruin your life because you smoke minor
amounts of dope, Mr. Nineteen-year-old." What's going on in this country?

[HT] What did you think of the altered television shows you watched?

[DF] I saw two-thirds of them. Some of them are relatively benign. The ones
they trumpet deal with parents not freaking out and keeping lines of
communication open. But the ones they don't trumpet involve blanket drug
tests at work, which is a real political agenda, or blanket drug tests for
a basketball team.

There's this myth that drugs are glamorized on television. There hasn't
been any glamorization of drug use on TV in fifteen years, except for a
nudge-nudge, wink-wink on That '70s Show.

[HT] How did the story end up at Salon.com?

[DF] The vast majority of Mediaweek's advertising is from media
conglomerates who own the TV networks. That led them to have a particular
take on how the story should be written. They said, "We want to run this
story, but we don't want to be critical of the government and we don't want
to be critical of the networks for their participation in this story." That
was on a Friday. I went home and I stewed over it. I walked in Monday
morning and I said, "I'm sorry, but I can't publish it under those conditions."

I called The New Yorker, but it didn't work out. Then, boom-I thought of the
Internet. What publication has the best, as far as I can tell, editorial
standards on the Internet? That would be Salon. I had no dealings with them
before. I called them up. I was given the brush-off at first, told to
e-mail the story. Aside from the fact that I didn't have e-mail at the
time, I was not sending the story off into ether. It was heavy-duty enough
that somebody should call me back. After the third call that day to Salon
somebody did call me back and jumped on it.

[HT] So you submitted the story, Salon published it and it ended up being
quoted on the front page of the New York Times. How did that make you feel?

[DF] It was something akin to your wedding day. You wish you could just
slow the whole thing down so you could really savor it. Surreal is not the
word. You had to constantly remember that this is a high- stakes endeavor,
that you're making accusations against the federal government and that some
of the best reporters in the country have a dual motivation to a)
corroborate your story and b) to punch holes in it.

The phone started ringing and a couple of hours later black town cars were
pulling up in front of my building to take me to TV studios. The neighbors
must have been wondering, "Why isn't he wearing his green sweatpants today
like normal?"

[HT] The ONDCP's Robert Housmann faxed Salon demanding a retraction. What
did it say?

[DF] Salon sent me a copy of the letter and this image of the White House
comes out on your fax machine and you realize, Wow, this is a letter saying
that you're a liar and you're full of shit. The letter shows their sort of
tawdry intellectual combat. Housmann questioned my ad budget for Family
Circle by making the fiscal year that ended in July '99 where my story
indicated clearly that it was calendar year '99. That wouldn't fly in a
fifth-grade debating society. There wasn't a single error they nailed me with.

[HT] Is it possible to have an honest debate with the ONDCP?

[DF] I don't think you can in this administration. I would love to have a
real honest exchange of ideas, but they're trying to defend the
indefensible and the best way to do that is to deny and to lie. Housmann,
in a very mild way, actually physically assaulted me at American
University's political club after my story came out in late January. After
McCaffrey gave a speech, there was a formal question period. I tried to ask
some questions from the floor and I was shouted down by students who said
it was inappropriate. Then McCaffrey said, "I'm not answering questions
from you. I'll set up an interview, if you want." The thing ended and they
gave out Parade magazine's laudatory story about McCaffrey.

[HT] With McCaffrey on the cover next to an American flag.

[DF] Right. So, as forty students rushed up to get his autograph, Housmann
charged out of the crowd and slammed into me. He put his hands on my chest.
Technically speaking, I could have charged him with assault. He said,
"Well, I'm standing here." It was comical. I walked away, but he shadowed
me. It was like he was boxing me out under the boards to keep me away from
McCaffrey. It's just so absurd that that's the level of discourse.

[HT] Does the corporate conglomeration of the media worry you?

[DF] Sure. How many places could I have taken this story if Salon didn't
have the balls to print it? It's getting tougher and tougher if you don't
dance to the piper's tune. It's really scary. I've got stuff that wants to
get out, and how many credible publications are there?

[HT] Has this story changed your opinion about the media?

DF: To have U.S. News and World Report, which has always been a
well-respected publication and even stodgy in its respectability, admit
they submited articles for evaluation is an eye opener.

[HT] What do you think this signifies for the future of journalism on the
Internet?

[DF] A friend of mine says that when they write the history of the Internet
as a medium this story will be mentioned. How many real heavy-duty scoops
have there been on the Internet prior to this? This was one of the first
pieces that could have been published anywhere.

[HT] Surely, your stories have added to the rising tide of voices against
the Drug War?

[DF] It seems that the public is open to a broader array of opinion than
was the case two, three years ago. There's a concept out there called the
tipping point where enough small little things accrue, then tip things over
to the other side. It seems like there's sort of a paradigm shift happening
about the War on Drugs.

My stuff needs to be put in perspective, but it's still pretty scary that
an ONDCP paid consultant told me on the record, "If this works with drugs,
why not go to sex?" And now you see on the sides of buses in New York City,
State Department of Health ads with Governor Pataki's name on them
advocating sexual abstinence among teenagers. I don't need the government
telling me as a teenager what kind of sexuality I should be expressing.

[HT] You testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee and various
other congressional committees. What effect does testifying before Congress
have?

[DF] It remains to be seen. The TV folks will be a lot more aware of it,
but they are still receiving financial incentives to promote the
government's line on the Drug War. What this is really all about is
promoting acceptance of the current drug policies and the current anti-drug
budgets. And it's directed at adults. Ultimately, I haven't gotten any
indication that that's going to change.

HT: Where do you go from here?

DF: Bigger-picture issues. Why is the government doing this and what's
their ultimate motivation aside from the politically-correct one of
everything in politics is for the children? So that's what I'll be talking
about next, and then I don't know if I'll have anything more to say about it.