ORGANIZATIONS PROTESTING DEA-SPONSORED TRAVELING EXHIBIT CONFLATING DRUG
AND TERRORISM ISSUES

News Release From the Drug Policy Forum of Texas

A growing number of Dallas-area organizations are planning to protest at
The Science Place in Fair Park when a DEA-sponsored exhibit opens in
September. In addition, a former DEA agent who is willing to speak at the
protest about DEA abuses has contacted the groups. The exhibit is billed as
"Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You," and features twisted
I-beams, shoes, children's toys, destroyed office products, large chunks of
limestone and damaged office equipment from the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks. The opening was originally scheduled for September 11,
but was changed to September 9 after public protests about capitalizing on
the horrors of 9/11.

According to Craig Johnson, head of the University of Texas-Dallas
chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the demonstrators are a
group of concerned citizens who believe that "it is shocking for the
DEA to exploit Americans' grief and anger over the tragic events of
9/11."

"I am appalled that The Science Place is lending its prestige and
spending its funds on an exhibit by the Drug Enforcement
Administration," says Suzanne Wills of Dallas, a member of the Drug
Policy Form of Texas, another of the groups represented. "In all its
policies the DEA is the antithesis of science. The most glaring,
inhumane and disingenuous example is its refusal to allow researchers
a supply of cannabis for medical trials approved by the Food and Drug
Administration."

Johnson added "while this crude exhibit remains in Dallas, it is our
intention to counteract it with a campaign to show the public what
little respect the DEA has for actual science, and the unintended but
disastrous consequences of drug prohibition. Because of our government
and the DEA, huge profits go to the underworld, kids sell drugs to
kids, diseases are spread by non-sterile syringes, and burglaries for
money to buy drugs are epidemic."

Currently nearly $50 billion per year is spent on the drug war and
500,000 Americans are imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses.

Organizations participating in this education campaign include The
Drug Policy Forum of Texas (http://www.dpft.org), Students for
Sensible Drug Policy (http://www.ssdp.org) and NORML Texas
(http://www.normltexas.org).