GOP POT ATTACK STALLS

House Republicans anticipated smooth sailing for legislation to
reauthorize the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP), including its controversial antidrug media campaign.

But Democrats rebelled in late May over provisions that would have
allowed drug czar John Walters to use the publicly funded advertising
as he saw fit to oppose state ballot initiatives or even specific candidates.

The ads, mostly on television, have stirred controversy since Walters
took over and began running strident drugs-equal-terrorism spots that
declare that personal use of marijuana supports terrorism.

The House Government Reform Committee tabled action on HR 2086 after
negotiations broke down over how far ONDCP could use its social
marketing muscle to influence elections.

The two parties will attempt some sort of compromise when the matter
is considered during the first week in June, but it's hard to see how
the Republicans' goal of allowing Walters sole discretion to use the
ads to "oppose any attempt to legalize" drugs can be squared with
Democrats' opposition to even more overt White House electioneering
than in the past. The media campaign cost taxpayers $930 million
during its first five years; Republicans seek to boost its five-year
funding through fiscal year 2008 to $1.02 billion. (Actual total media
time and space will be closer to $2 billion since, by statute, ONDCP
makes its ad buys at fifty cents on the dollar.)

By Walters's lights, even allowing dying cancer or AIDS patients some
pot to alleviate their pain is de facto legalization. Until drug
reform lobbyists sounded the alarm and Democrats dug in their heels,
starting this fall he could have used the ads to urge voters to reject
initiatives permitting medical marijuana or mandating treatment rather
than jail for nonviolent drug addicts.

The ads might also have been used against such candidates as
Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Texas Republican Ron Paul, who
have introduced legislation banning federal prosecution of pot-using
patients in states that have legalized medical cannabis.

Said Steve Fox, director of government relations at the Marijuana
Policy Project (MPP), "It's now clear that this media campaign is
about politics, not prevention." And, tossing aside seventy years of
broadcasting law by exempting ONDCP from the requirement to identify
itself as the ad sponsor, the proposed bill would shred the principle
that viewers are entitled to know who's attempting to persuade them.

Republicans offered a compromise provision that would have stipulated
that the ads would not expressly advocate support for or defeat of a
candidate or ballot initiative. But that didn't fly, since the ads
could still have described a candidate as soft on drugs.

Said the Drug Policy Alliance's (DPA) Bill Piper, associate director
of national affairs (who caught the bill's indirect language that
would totally free ONDCP's hand), "Anyone who knows campaign finance
law knows that's not any kind of real barrier."

Republicans also offered language preventing the ads from targeting
candidates. But even targeting only referendums was not acceptable to
the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, California
Democratic Representative Henry Waxman. While acknowledging that "If
the Republicans really want it, they'll find a way," one Democratic
staffer said they have "pulled it for now. It was a small victory."

However temporary the victory, it rose from an all-out effort by the
DPA and MPP, with additional support from the American Civil Liberties
Union and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
And opposition to the bill is mounting.

The libertarian Orange County Register led the nation's editorial
pages in slamming "a drug war slush fund." That was followed by the
Baltimore Sun's condemnation, titled, "Propaganda Czar," and the Los
Angeles Times's discussion of "Dopey Federal Thinking."

Opponents of the government's antidrug ad campaign note that there's
no evidence that the ads reduce teen drug use. At the House hearing,
Walters referred to an ongoing survey which showed positive results,
but the survey was not made available.

In June 2002, a National Institute on Drug Abuse evaluation found
"little evidence of direct favorable Campaign effects on youth...and
no tendency for those reporting more exposure to Campaign messages to
hold more desirable beliefs." In fact, among girls and younger kids,
NIDA found that more exposure to the ads was correlated with greater
rates of starting to use marijuana.

And for the half of the media budget that is directed at
voters--sorry, "adult influencers"--NIDA also found no effect on teen
drug use, though parents did become more aware of their need to
address the issue.

It's unclear how the recent reauthorization stalemate will
unfold.

Though they control the Government Reform Committee, Republicans want
a bipartisan veil over any move to even further politicize the ad
campaign. Should Democrats continue to balk, Republicans may just
settle for continuing the current "smoke a joint and support
terrorism" (or "shoot your friend or run over a kid on a bicycle")
messages.

A total of some $96 million in ads featuring those and other
mayhem-and-death scenarios flooded the country during and just after
last year's election season.

MPP campaigners pushing marijuana decriminalization in Nevada often
heard from voters about the "opposition's" ads they had seen.

What those voters didn't know was that they had paid for these ONDCP
ads with federal tax dollars.

In fact, the ONDCP campaign was born of partisan politics, engendered
by the passage of medical marijuana initiatives in California and
Arizona in 1996. (For more on the campaign's history, see my article
on TomPaine.com.) And why limit the propaganda to drugs?

During the costly, high-profile Super Bowl broadcast, ONDCP showcased
an ad titled "Pregnancy." Having the baby was the only option for a
young teen who lost her moral compass after smoking marijuana and
getting pregnant as a result.

As a spokesman for the American Life League told me, "Without
question, there is a very strong but subtle prolife statement in this
commercial."