Open Letter: Daniel Forbes Responds to Richard Linnett

Advertising Age columnist Richard Linnett's article (6/10/02) on my recently published work demands a response. He wrote of my months-long study published by the Washington think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. It discusses the covert campaign - pursued by public employees while on the clock - embarked on by the administration of Gov. Bob Taft (R-OH) to defeat a treatment rather than incarceration initiative likely to appear on the ballot in Ohio this November. It's modeled on a similar ballot measure, Proposition 36, that passed overwhelmingly in California in 2000. Among other topics, the report discusses the supposedly apolitical Partnership for a Drug-Free America's cooperation with the Taft administration effort. Its URL: www.ips-dc.org/projects/drugpolicy/ohio.htm.

The PDFA's PR chief, Steve Dnistrian is correct when Linnett quotes him saying the PDFA did not actually create any advertising to influence state elections. My report makes that clear. But his statement does not address the fact that, in league with the Taft administration, the PDFA was up to its eyebrows in planning how to do so.

First though, a certain slur demands to be addressed. Though never raising the topic with me, Linnett blithely quotes Dnistrian: "Clearly, Dan is smoking some of the wacky weed that he has a great affection for when he is sitting down writing these things."

Dnistrian's McCarthyite attack demands either evidence that I produce my work under the influence of "wacky weed" (how precious, how positively fey), or an apology and a retraction from both the PDFA and Ad Age. On what basis does Dnistrian make this accusation? More to the point, on what basis does a presumably responsible reporter give credence to the obviously absurd notion that Dnistrian has any idea whatsoever of my work habits? Just because a PR guy at an organization I write about makes an ad hominem attack, is that alone reason enough to print it? It's not incumbent on the reporter to offer me a chance to respond? Do his editors exercise no fact-checking authority? Do Ad Age's lawyers know this?

All the PDFA has in its corner is smear and attempted character assassination. Dnistrian's slur just underscores the cheapness of its response. It's classic PR: attack the journalist personally, deflect attention, obfuscate.

Let me state that a tightly focused, approximately 22,000 word monograph is the product of hard work and indignation at taxpayer-funded subversion of democracy in this country. No more, no less.

Of course, Linnett cites my work in High Times. But he neglects to mention Rolling Stone, Salon, The Village Voice or Alternet. That said, my HT's articles meet the same standards that have been recognized with awards from a chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism/Online News Association. My work has also engendered congressional hearings on the White House anti-drug media campaign; I testified before both the Senate and the House.

Linnett writes there's "not a whiff of a smoking gun in the [ISP] report other than some publicly available transcripts of meetings between the alleged conspirators ... " That's plain silly, since the entire report is based on FOI-ed documents from the offices of Gov. Bob Taft, the First Lady and his cabinet officials. Oddly enough, Linnett adds that no one returned my calls. Actually, I quote extensively from an interview with Taft cabinet member Domingo Herraiz, who runs Ohio's criminal justice department.

Linnett points out correctly that there is no ad campaign -- I never said there was one. My report focused, in part, on the PDFA's overt, manifest willingness to insert itself into a state election in Ohio.

The PDFA's intent is indicated by the fact it sent its four top executives to a meeting last July to formulate plans to defeat the proposed treatment initiative. Ohio's first lady and two Taft cabinet members participated in this strategy session, which was held in the U.S. Capitol building itself and hosted by a senior U.S. Senate staffer. Employing the canard that the treatment initiative is de facto decriminalization, in a letter on PDFA letterhead confirming the four executives' attendance, the PDFA's Director of Operations, Michael Y. Townsend, termed it a "counter-legalization brainstorm session." Only nuts-and-bolts planning would justify sending four top men rather than one or two; the four traveled to Washington in July to discuss strategy and tactics, not generic politics.