OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT TERRORISTS

During last Sunday's Super Bowl, the president's Office of National Drug
Control Policy aired the first two commercials of a new ad campaign linking
drug use with terrorism. The ads, aimed at teen-agers, are meant to
capitalize on the kids' growing sense of political awareness. Their message
is simple: If you buy drugs, you might be financing terrorists.

But, as is often the case, the simple message masks a more complicated
reality. The administration acknowledges that teen-age potheads aren't
terrorists. But the ad campaign is pretty clear when it comes to what those
little tokers are doing - they're helping to finance terrorism, kill
judges, murder families and torture people.

Sound a little extreme? It is.

One television ad, titled "I Helped," features a series of teen-age faces
reciting a litany of their crimes, "I helped kill a judge," "I helped kill
policemen" and, of course, "I helped blow up buildings."

These confessions are interspersed with the kids commenting, "I was just
having fun" and "My life, my body." The audience is clearly supposed to get
the message that drugs are not good clean fun, and that they affect more
than just your life and your body - because buying drugs supports terrorism.

But so does buying gasoline.

Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization al-Qaida - you know, the
people who actually do blow up buildings - are heavily financed by oil
revenue, from the donations of oil-rich Arabs and from bin Laden's personal
fortune. Are the kids who drive to the mall supporting terrorism?

The problem with these ads is not that they're anti-drug; the problem is
that they're absurd. Mom and her SUV are doing just as much to support
terrorism as the local weed dealer, and there's an obvious refutation of
the ads' message. If buying drugs supports international terrorism, then
just buy local. After all, bin Laden and his cronies don't make any money
from the "kind bud" growing in the basement.

Even worse, the government's ads ignore the real reason that drug money
supports terrorism: Drugs are illegal.

You can buy a six-pack of beer from a safe, well-lit corner store. But you
can't buy pot there. The ads aren't suggesting that last night's kegger
helped mobilize the Basque separatist movement. It's not like picking up a
pack of smokes and a couple of 4s means putting money into the pockets of
Afghani poppy farmers. It's illegal drugs that the administration is
claiming helps terrorism, not alcohol, nicotine, Valium, caffeine or Prozac.

Making drugs illegal creates a black market. Reputable businesses don't
deal in drugs, only criminals do. Buyers can't get warranties or refunds,
and black markets raise prices. They raise prices so much, in fact, that
people are willing to kill each other. You just don't see that happening
with goods that are legal, like chocolate, for example. But if the
government made chocolate illegal, then buying a candy bar would probably
"support terrorism." That's the nature of a black market.

All in all, these ads just make things worse. Teen-agers are young, and
they might even be stoned, but they're not stupid. And we shouldn't treat
them as if they are. They'll see through this propaganda, they'll recognize
that the emperor has no clothes and they'll lose respect for the whole
anti-drug message.

We need to teach our children to be responsible - but we won't succeed if
we treat them like fools. Drugs, both legal and illegal, can be dangerous.
But drug use is just nowhere near as bad as killing judges, murdering
policemen and blowing up buildings. We're at war with the terrorists who do
those things. Are we at war with our children as well?