SOUDER MAY NEVER UNDERSTAND NEPS WITHOUT A BRAIN EXCHANGE

If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, call him a slow
learner. But after so many years of socially-destructive stupidity, the
problem seems to go beyond confused facts.

I'm talking about Congressman Mark Souder (R-IN). When there's a drug
policy choice, expect him to go with the most vicious, counterproductive
option.

His most famous efforts include the drug provisions in the Higher Education
Act, which deny federal financial aid for students with drug
convictions. But he shows unwavering commitment to all the bad polices of
the drug war, like the suppression of needle exchange programs. Not
satisfied with trying to hurt people in his own country, Souder and other
U.S. drug warriors are attempting to spread their disease through the
world by restricting funds for groups that promote needle exchanges.

When most experts on AIDS and other blood-bourne diseases support needle
exchange as a way to reduce disease, Souder says the exact opposite,
contrary to all facts.

It's an impossible position to defend. So Souder has attempted for years to
create his own facts. Fortunately mainstream newspapers like the Chicago
Tribune and the Washington Post have caught on to him.

Here's what a recent Chicago Tribune editorial said about Souder:

"Souder cites a study of a needle-exchange program in Vancouver that,
according to his spokesman, demonstrated the 'HIV and hepatitis epidemics
exploded in the aftermath of the introduction of needle-exchange programs,
as did the drug epidemic.'

"But the doctors who conducted the Vancouver study wrote, in an April
letter to the director of the National Institutes of Health, that Souder's
interpretation of the data was incorrect. 'For Mr. Souder to take the
Vancouver data out of context, is selective and self-serving,' they wrote."
( See http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n399/a01.html for the whole
editorial.)

Now corrected, Souder won't try to pull the old self-serving
misinterpretation trick again, will he? Don't be so sure. He was corrected
the same way more than six years ago, and it clearly taught him nothing.

Back in 1999, Souder wrote this letter -
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n895/a01.html - to the Washington Post,
making essentially the same unsupportable arguments he makes today. He was
quickly challenged by AIDS experts in a response letter -
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n975/a08.html - who noted that the
obvious misinterpretation had already been repeatedly corrected in other
media by the authors of the study cited by Souder.

"...[L]ast year on the op-ed page of the New York Times, the authors of
those studies wrote that their research was being misinterpreted. They
stated that a comprehensive approach, including needle exchange, was needed
to reduce the spread of HIV among injection-drug users," the AIDS experts
wrote in the Washington Post.

Perhaps Souder just forgot, or thought activists, as well as the New York
Times and the Washington Post, would forget. Fortunately, the Media
Awareness Project archives don't forget.

I'm neither scientist nor doctor, but I interpret this ongoing episode as a
sign that support for prohibition leads to (or results from) memory loss
and brain decay. That might not seem too smart in itself, but it's the
nicest thing I can think of to say about either prohibition or Souder.