DRUG MONEY WELL SPENT

What could you do with $1.4 billion? Would you be a hero and buy
health care for a large segment of the country? Would you spend it on
improving our nation's schools? Maybe you'd use it to build your own
makeshift shantytown and throw a yearlong, beer-flowing, tie-dyed,
bucket-of-drugs Phish concert extravaganza.

Well, the government did the opposite, dropping $1.4 billion on their
anti-drug campaign since 1998. And according to a recent study by the
Government Accountability Office-Congress' investigative arm-the
funds might as well have been used elsewhere. Rather than convincing
youths not to do drugs, the GAO found that the ad blitz may have
persuaded them that using drugs is a normal thing to do, fueling the
notion that marijuana usage among teens is higher than it really is.
In other words, the government campaign is so inept it actually
encourages drug use among teens.

The ad campaigns have run the gamut, from calling parents and
informed teens the "anti-drug," to encouraging teens to be "above the
influence." Drug Fascist John Walters and his staff disputed the GAO
report, pointing to a University of Michigan study that said 30
percent of 10th-graders reported using an illegal drug in the past
year, down from 35 percent in 1998. That's a 5 percent decrease over
eight years at a cost of $1.4 billion-or $280 million per
percentage-point drop. That's an even better benefit-cost ratio than
the Iraq war, which involves billions spent for every one of 10
Iraqis who have experienced anything akin to "freedom" since 2003.

The GAO investigation-a $43-million, government-funded adventure-was
launched to prove whether or not the ads were having a direct effect
on today's youth, as Bush's 2007 budget calls for a $20-million
increase over this year's $100-million campaign. Typical Bush-onomics
there: Spend $43 million in order to determine whether or not to
spend an additional $20 million on a $1.4-billion program that's an
abject failure.

Good to know our money is in competent hands, isn't it?