BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

What Really Went On At The Office Of National Drug Control Policy's Summit
Of New England Governors

The wisest words spoken at the Summit of New England Governors anti-drug
meeting, held at Faneuil Hall last week, came from a famously incoherent
local leader: the honorable mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino.

"There's a big difference between talking about drug abuse in a conference
room and talking about it on the streets with real people with real
problems," noted the keeper of Boston's keys during an introductory speech
before five New England governors and President Bush's drug czar, John
Walters, at a half-day affair sponsored by the Office of the National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP). Perhaps the rhetoric should've ended there, less
than 15 minutes into the proceedings, when everyone could still admit
relative ignorance of the subject, shake hands, and make 12 o'clock tee
times. Before an absurdly horrified Governor Mitt Romney would yelp about
the "maawwnnsters" who loiter around local playgrounds handing out
smiley-faced bags of high-potency heroin. Before Walters could slyly slip
in what amounted to a hurrah for high-school drug testing seconds before a
toilet break, a crafty tactic to avoid subsequent questioning on the issue.
Before panel presentations about medical marijuana would devolve into
reactionary ruminations about parenting better suited for a
school-committee meeting.

It could have been worse. The ONDCP could have shut out dissenters
entirely; instead, they were corralled in the back. In lieu of a
medical-marijuana panel, it could've gathered everyone together to screen
Reefer Madness and called it a day. It could've flown incarcerated ganja
guru Tommy Chong in from California, trotted him around in cuffs as Exhibit
A that pot doesn't pay, and then flogged him before the court.

Instead, ONDCP director Walters handpicked experts like Boston Police
Department (BPD) commissioner (and soon-to-be-expat) Paul Evans, US Drug
Enforcement Administration administrator Karen Tandy, and Dr. Bertha Madras
of Harvard Medical School to deliver spiels before five state
superintendents, circumnavigating public debate or open-floor Q&A sessions.

To the ONDCP's credit, the meeting was never advertised as an actual
dialogue. A press release clearly stated that this was to be an "Anti-Drug
Summit" for New England governors "to hear testimony" about substance-abuse
problems facing the Northeast region. And so the governors heard vague
stories of drug dealers dropping heroin into herbal tea and proffering the
potion to children. They listened to a turgid harangue about how every
tennis elbow shouldn't justify a toke, nor every skinned knee a hit from
the three-foot bong. They heard a pointless, misguided, and soporific
infomercial about Bush's Access to Recovery substance-abuse-treatment
program that could've put a nail-biting, teeth-grinding crackhead to sleep.

"It was a dog-and-pony show," said Tom Angell, co-president of the
University of Rhode Island's Students for Sensible Drug Policy, who sat
through the four-hour event. "The ONDCP stacks the panel and puts on a show
for these governors."

And in many respects, it was a show. Handpicked experts offered statistics
and relayed anecdotal evidence. They testified with their backs to the
room, addressing their remarks to Walters and the governors seated on the
stage, thus relegating the audience of law-enforcement officials, medical
directors, and reporters to spectator roles. Here's how the day went.

ALL THE DECISIONS surrounding the governors' summit seemed random. Nothing
like it had ever been held. Why was the drug czar coming to town? Was this
part of the ONDCP's 25-Cities Initiative, a "local approach to a national
problem" engineered to target urban centers like Boston, New York, San
Francisco, and Atlanta? And how was the agenda -- panels on "Heroin Use in
New England," the Access to Recovery program, and "Marijuana As Medicine"
- -- determined? How were the panelists chosen?

A week before the summit, the Washington DC based Marijuana Policy Project
(MPP) issued a press release stating that it had been asking the ONDCP
these same questions. "Despite the drug czar's history of hysterical
opposition to medical marijuana, we contacted his office in good faith,
asking if we could suggest panelists for a balanced discussion," the
release quoted Neal Levine, director of state policies for the MPP, as
saying. "On September 22, we were told by ONDCP staffer Brian Ferguson that
'the panels are pretty much set.' We've made four follow-up calls to try to
find out who is speaking, and none of those calls have been returned."

Indeed, a dismissive attitude permeated the ONDCP's treatment of drug-law
reformers who showed up for the conference. Program officials didn't appear
to believe that anything could be learned from them -- the ONDCP's deputy
director of demand reduction, Dr. Andrea Barthwell, made this clear later
on during the medical-marijuana panel -- so it ignored them. Case in point:
the pro-medical-marijuana faction was ghettoized in the back of the room
throughout the governors' summit, pink badges identifying them as "the
opposition," while the sheriffs, doctors, and substance-abuse officials
were sent to the front wearing yellow badges.

When dealing with drug-law reformers, the ONDCP oscillated between this
sort of condescending ignorance and abject fear. For example, last
Wednesday morning, 45 minutes before the summit's commencement, police
cars, mounted officers, and BPD Special Operations motorcycles were
deployed along the cobblestone outside Faneuil Hall. Metal barricades
aligned along the building's perimeter reinforced the notion that the
reformers posed a menace. This was obvious overkill, given that there were
only about 10 protesters assembled, some holding signs while others
disseminated National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
leaflets. Even the congenial woman at the summit's media table smilingly
compared the law-enforcement presence to "Fort Knox."

of course, like any cause, drug-law reform attracts its share of extremist
freaks. And there was at least one here, a wild-eyed, orange-haired man
named Lawrence McKinney, who argued aggressively with someone whose badge
identified him as Dr. Norman Wetteran from New York. Marijuana isn't bad,
ranted McKinney -- he'd gotten through school smoking it. Marijuana is
fine. And "we don't have a heroin epidemic" -- OxyContin is a much worse
problem. Wetteran countered with undecipherable verse from the Old
Testament, then politely tried to walk away. McKinney called after him:
"See, your types always run away from an argument."

Soon after, an American flag wobbled into the hall -- an older woman decked
out in a shiny red-white-and-blue-sequined cap, a star-spangled jacket, a
denim skirt, white tennis shoes, and a red handbag. The woman's name,
according to her business card, was J. Magic Black-Ferguson, and she'd come
to represent "Grammas for Ganja," a nonprofit whose name pretty much says
it all.

"You're all dressed up today," seethed McKinney.

"Yes, I am," Black-Ferguson retorted. "You like it?"

"You hurt your cause so badly."

"No, no, it doesn't," Black-Ferguson clucked, sitting down in the pro-pot
ghetto. Apparently offended, she looked away from McKinney, striking up a
conversation with the woman next to her, who wore a red button shaped like
a stop sign that screamed STOP ARRESTING PATIENTS.

ONDCP martinet Dr. Andrea Barthwell kicked off the panel by declaring
medical marijuana a "Trojan-horse issue." She denounced it as "the worst
scam the drug legalizers have perpetrated" and warned of the "great danger
posed by frauds in white coats." She said this very sternly. She wondered
aloud, "Is this the best that 21st-century medicine has to offer?" The
basic gist of her tirade was: science hasn't yet proven that marijuana is
medicine; we'd be setting science back to look to plants; states will face
more problems from both limit-testing defense attorneys and, implicitly,
the federal government if they try to be different on this issue, so they
may as well conform. Then she cited some anecdotal "evidence" from her 20
years as a physician in Illinois, where she worked with kids who said that
"marijuana is medicine and therefore thought it was good for them." She
concluded by saying, "But marijuana is not medicine." (See "Snake-Oil
Salesmen," page 30.) The pro-medical-marijuana faction hissed.

The Globe reporter scanned an R. Crumb cartoon about New York's Fashion Week.

The next speaker immediately contradicted Barthwell. Dr. Billy Martin,
chair of the department of pharmacology and toxicology at Virginia
Commonwealth University's medical school, said that yes, marijuana has
helped patients, but that's not the issue. The issue is that marijuana
needs further research before doctors start prescribing it to patients. "So
we have a choice," Martin said. "And I think it's a simple one. Do we want
to devote resources, do we want to try to answer this question, does it
have a role in medicine?"

Dr. Mark Kraus, president of the Connecticut Society of Addiction Medicine,
returned to Barthwell territory: "The campaign to legalize marijuana is a
campaign that in New England and other parts of the country is a campaign
of self-serving political propaganda, misinformation, and deception. It
must stop."

When the panelists opened themselves up to questions, Governor Rowland
nearly tripped over himself trying to commend their efforts. "I think the
panel hit the issue out of the ballpark." Their home-run, according to
Rowland? They helped show that "reporting mixed messages is a mistake."

Romney, for his part, asked some very levelheaded questions. Why don't we
treat marijuana like a prescription drug? Wouldn't it be appropriate to
subject marijuana to these same processes? What is the process? And why
don't we treat this like a pharmaceutical? The pro-medical-marijuana
advocates clapped.

Startled, he immediately clarified himself: "This isn't an advocacy
position." Which may be true. But Romney's questions are the same types of
questions advocates ask. Over and over. And so -- even though the panel
chose to answer his questions by focusing on who would fund the research --
he gave the advocates a glimmer of hope.

DURING the press conference held after the summit, each governor delivered
a post-event briefing. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, the
governors said. This is a serious problem and we must make changes, they
added. We're so thankful that this gathering has brought our regional drug
problem to the forefront of issues, they reiterated.

Then Dr. Barthwell opened the floor to questions.

A female reporter piped up first. "Two questions for Governor Romney.
First, Governor Romney, do you support school drug testing? And second,
have you made a bet with Governor Pataki about the Red Sox Yankees series?"

Romney grinned puckishly, explaining that he'd already chatted with Pataki.
"I suggested that the governor be required to ride a horse through the
Boston Garden" -- it was unclear whether he meant the Boston Common, the
Public Garden, or the FleetCenter, but very clear why the details of his
Massachusetts residency were an issue during his campaign -- "because of
the term 'cowboy up.' " Romney proceeded to explain that the prize hadn't
been set, but that the bet would be confirmed by the end of the day.

Oh, and drugs. "Your first question was about testing in schools," Romney
remembered. "I haven't formed an opinion on that."

"Governor Romney," interjected another reporter, who hadn't been sighted at
the summit. "Some local politicians had been given access to Red Sox
tickets which are pretty hard to come by; on top of that, they're getting
them for face value. Even though it's legal, do you think this is fair?"

"People can make their own decisions," Romney smirked, drawing a laugh from
the press corps. "I'm not going to be casting dispersions [sic] on anyone
else who takes advantage of that feature, but I personally am not."

Then political commentator Jon Keller, who hadn't been spotted at the
summit either, asked about the California recall election. The governors
looked uneasy, though a couple addressed the issue noncommittally. Keller
followed up, his relentless prodding even getting a hesitant Democrat,
Maine governor Baldacci, to take the podium begrudgingly and address what
the recall election meant.

Nearly 15 minutes into the press conference, someone finally called out,
"Do you think we can have Walters up here for some questions about drugs?"
Walters ascended the podium and repeated his pitch for school-based drug
testing, suggesting that in communities where it has been implemented,
students are "less afraid."

But the most vital questions remained unasked. Will drug abuse really come
to the forefront of local issues? Or was the ONDCP's summit merely four
hours of furrowed brows and theatrical bluster designed to grab a day's
worth of front-page headlines, put a bug in New England's ear about
high-school drug testing, and issue a stern warning to governors about
following federal law concerning medical marijuana?

"There's a big difference between talking about drug abuse in a conference
room and talking about it on the streets with real people with real
problems," said Mayor Menino before it all began. The fact that most of the
people making decisions are a million miles away from the problems they're
forced to confront seemed to be a minor technicality.