Bush's Born-Again Drug War

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted August 12, 2004.

Listen to George W. Bush speak about substance abuse and it's apparent that one is listening to a preacher, not a president.

"There are faith-based organizations in drug treatment that work so well because they convince a person to turn their life over to Christ," Bush divulged to the religious journal Christianity Today. "By doing so, they change a person's heart [and] a person with a changed heart is less likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol."

Despite Constitutional restrictions requiring separation of church and state, Bush's ardent Judeo-Christian faith – the President is a practicing Methodist who "accepted Jesus Christ into [his] life" in 1986 – remains the staple of his administration's anti-drug platform. Whereas previous administrations commonly framed their anti-drug arguments in secular terms (i.e., former President Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" or the Reagan administration's "Just Say No" campaign), Bush's drug war, at least rhetorically, resembles that of a religious crusade. GWB's bottom line: Only through "God's will" may one be "saved" from the temptations of illegal drugs. It's a stance that many drug law reformers view as not only ineffective, but possibly illegal.

President Or Proselytizer?

"You know, I had a drinking problem. Right now I should be in a bar in Texas, not the Oval Office," Bush told author David Frum in his 2003 biography The Right Man. "There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not in a bar. I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the powers of prayer."

While stories recounting the President's prior alcohol and drug use – so-called "youthful indiscretions" – are well publicized, not as well known is his 1986 spiritual awakening that led him to quit his use of intoxicants cold turkey. It's this personal journey that led Bush to reach his conclusion that other drug users – recreational pot smokers in particular – must also undergo their own, albeit coerced, religious conversion to achieve drug abstinence. After four years in office, it's clear that Bush is willing to use the bully pulpit and Congress' deep pockets to accomplish his goal: a drug-free, religiously indoctrinated America.

As President, one of Bush's first actions was to sign an executive order establishing a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, presently headed by "Faith Czar" Jim Towey. In 2002, the Bush administration awarded nearly 500 faith-based programs – including several drug "education" and treatment programs – $477 million in taxpayers' funding.

In 2002, Bush doled out an additional $568 million in federal funds to 680 self-identified faith-based groups – programs like the fundamentalist Christian drug-treatment project "Set Free Indeed," which states: "We rely solely on the foundation of the Word of God to break the bands of addiction. Once a person ... recognizes that only God can set them free, the rebuilding process can begin." To date, the Bush administration has funneled several million dollars to "Set Free Indeed," and the President singled out its founder by name during his 2003 State of the Union address, lauding it as a shining example of federally backed, faith-based drug treatment.

Religion has also been the theme of several new high-profile anti-drug campaigns launched by the administration. In 2003, just months after being tapped by Bush to head the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Karen Tandy threw her weight behind a grassroots anti-drug campaign called "Pray for the Children." The group's website maintains that, "The power of prayer is unequaled" in influencing adolescents from refraining from drug use. Regarding her endorsement of the program, Tandy explained, "Drug abuse is a scourge that attacks a person's soul as well as body, so it's fitting that the solution should engage the soul as well."

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for The NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.