Terrorism, Drugs And You

By Bill Berkowitz, WorkingForChange.com. Posted September 13, 2004.

Every day Mary Lucey takes AIDS medications to stay alive. Without medical marijuana she gets so nauseous she can't keep the pills down. Lucey, a veteran activist and Interim AIDS Coordinator for the city of Los Angeles, serves on the board of the L.A. Cannabis Resource Center. When the LACRC was raided by the DEA in October, 2001, Lucey lost her safe, reliable source of medicine.

Jim and Roni Bowers and their children, religious missionaries working in South America, were in a plane shot down over Peru on April 20, 2001. It was a U.S. government-coordinated "drug interdiction" that went bad and Roni and her 1-year-old daughter Charity were killed. According to the Washington, DC-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), "This summary execution of suspected drug smugglers was carried out without benefit of evidence, a trial or any opportunity for the Bowers family to defend" itself. Suspended for a while, drug interdiction flights are expected to resume shortly.

Esequiel Hernandez was tending his father's goats 100 yards from his home in Redford, Texas when he was killed in May 1997 by U.S. Marines looking for marijuana smugglers. Hernandez, who had never been in trouble with the law, lived in a location sometimes frequented by marijuana smugglers. "His death," says the MPP, "was the inevitable result of a 'War on Drugs' fought with a real war's disregard for human life."

Trafficking Jam

These are some of the stories that you won't find at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Arlington, Va.-based Museum & Visitor's Center. The agency recently announced it was expanding the facility by 1,500 square feet. The first exhibit in the new gallery is devoted to the "connection" between drugs and terrorism.

The new exhibit, "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists & You," reflects the Bush Administration's recent anti-drug mantra that the "war on terrorism" is inextricably linked to the "war on drugs." The "use drugs/support terrorism" campaign organized by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP, the office of the "Drug Czar"), was unveiled with a $3.5 million ad buy during this past February's Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl ads received a resounding thumbs-down from political columnists, editorial writers, entertainers and citizens across America. Matthew Briggs of the Drug Policy Alliance accused the drug czar's office of "hid[ing] their failed war on drugs behind the war on terrorism. That's bad enough," he added, "but what's truly appalling is that they would stoop to blaming our own children."

Evolution of Opium Dens

The DEA Museum's current exhibit, "Illegal Drugs in America: A Modern History," traces the impact of drugs on society from the "opium dens in the mid-1800's to the international drug mafias of today." The exhibit "follows the evolution of the Drug Enforcement Administration to its present-day status.... highlights major trends in illegal drug use as well as milestones and accomplishments that DEA and its predecessor agencies have made."

Krissy Oechslin, assistant director of communications for the MPP, visited the museum last year with a group of students. She says "the exhibit lacked credibility, was bereft of context and provided no opposing points of view."

A timeline, running the length of the museum depicts the opium wars of the late 19th century, the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and marijuana use through the years as part of the same seamless drug problem. There were no references to the growing piles of documentation of the cynical role U.S. agencies have played in the drug trade.

Targeting Americans

Here's how the DEA describes "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists & You":

Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering right-wing groups and movements.