YOUR BONG: BASIS OF 'NARCO-TERRORISM'?

Two cheers for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), whose latest
public relations effort usefully reminds us that propaganda is not
simply intellectually dishonest. It's also morally repulsive.

Even critical news accounts of the DEA's traveling exhibit, "Target
America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists, and You" don't quite convey the
truly repugnant nature of this taxpayer- and government-contractor-funded
display of drug war hysteria.

Originally created in 2002, the exhibit debuted in a newly expanded
version on September 14 in the lobby of One Times Square-- the famous
triangular building in arguably the busiest intersection in America--
and there it will stay until January 2005, courtesy of the folks at
the DEA, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the biometric
technology giant CrossMatch, and many others.

Target America is intended to underscore how "narco-terrorism is only
one of the many costs and consequences to society of illegal drug
abuse." To that end, the exhibit features a mangled 1994 Thunderbird
that reportedly blew up during a methamphetamine run. Titled "What
Remains," the installation features pictures of children and spouses
with several tricycles strewn around for effect. Completing the grim
scene is an endless TV loop featuring punk rock icon Henry Rollins
solemnly reminding anyone passing by that meth kills.

Other installations include "short histories" of the cocaine and opium
trade. Whatever the creators intended, these brief accounts do little
more than prove the uselessness of trying to ban intoxicants that
people have wanted to use throughout recorded history. The history of
cocaine-- which notes that people have used it for over 4,000 years!--
fairly screams that coke has always been it.

Similarly, the history of opium traces that drug's origins back to
3,400 B.C. The unintended message to visitors: You might as well try
to keep the sun from rising as try to keep people from using these
substances.

Far from documenting the need for eradication efforts, the histories
reveal them to be Sisyphean tasks-- and not particularly heroic ones
at that.

In the end, the exhibit's raison d'etre is to equate casual drug use
with "narco-terrorism"-- and it's that equation which sets a new
standard in government mendacity. (Well, perhaps not exactly new: This
message was pioneered by a post-9/11 series of television ads produced
by the Office of National Drug Control Policy that rightly elicited
widespread derision.) The idea here is that terrorist groups sometimes
traffic in illegal drugs to fund their deadly activities; if you use
illegal drugs, then you are complicit in terrorist actions.

Like any good propaganda claim, it's not so much flat-out wrong as it
is woefully-- and purposefully-- incomplete and misdirected. Some
terrorist groups have indeed trafficked in illegal drugs because of
the huge black-market profits involved and the lack of legal
oversight. Similarly, drug traffickers (especially in Latin America)
have committed acts of terrorism to protect their trade. Needless to
say, the one clear solution to such problems is nowhere discussed in
"Target America."

If the drug trade were legalized, black market profits-- and
violence-- would disappear. When is the last time terrorists used,
say, the tobacco trade to finance their operations?

Yet just a few miles uptown from the site of the demolished World
Trade Center, "Target America" links the drug trade with the 9/11
attacks in a way that is simultaneously vague, evasive, and
unmistakable. Its official account of drug-related terrorism includes
such acts as the 1975 bombing of a Wall Street bar by Puerto Rican
separatists and the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-- events that,
however horrific, had nothing to do with drug trade.

Indeed, "Target America" explicitly acknowledges that drug money is
not the only source for terrorism funding-- even as all of its images
strive to create the impression that a Midwestern meth kitchen is
somehow a branch office of al Qaeda.

The focal point of "Target America" is an evocative hunk of wreckage
from Ground Zero-- of twisted metal, concrete, and wire-- that
features an endless tape loop of news broadcasts about the 9/11
attacks. Nearby displays feature intercut photos of the attacks, of
Bin Laden, of meth labs, of drug users. The intended messages are
unmistakable: If you've smoked a joint, then you're implicated in one
of the most horrific mass murders in world history. If you're against
the drug war, then you're for the terrorists.

As Drug Policy Alliance head Ethan Nadelman has asked rhetorically,
"With this exhibit, is the DEA saying that Governor George Pataki,
Mayor Bloomberg, and hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers who
have used illegal drugs are responsible for [9/11] and other acts of
terrorism?"

The short answer is a barely qualified yes. "While not always
involving the same groups, drugs and terror frequently flourish in the
same environments," reads part of the exhibit's text. "It is no small
wonder... that opium production and terrorism flourishe in
Afghanistan, just as coca production and terrorism flourish in other
countries such as Colombia."

But you could just as easily point out that it is no small wonder that
drug prohibition and terrorism-- and all other sorts of criminal
behavior-- flourish in the same environments.

The brightest ray of hope regarding "Target America"? When I spent 30
minutes or so checking out the exhibit on a recent weekday morning, I
was the only visitor. The rest of New York was far too busy to bother
with such a display. And, one assumes, far too smart to buy its message.