DEA and Female Legislators Group Join Forces

By Phillip Smith, DRCNet. Posted June 6, 2002.

The DEA kicked off a joint campaign against "club drugs," such as MDMA (ecstasy) and the "narco-terror connection" with a little-known but politically potent group of women legislators at a May 23 press conference in Washington, followed by similar press conferences in states across the country. The "Shoulder to Shoulder" campaign is touted as educating youth and parents about the dangers of club drugs, but could have more serious political ramifications. The campaign will peak in November with a national conference where the DEA will assist the National Foundation for Women Legislators (www.womenlegislators.org), a more than six decades old group currently representing more than 3,000 female members of state legislatures, in drafting "model legislation" on club drugs and possibly even narco-terrorism.

"We have joined forces at a unique time in our history -- when Americans are focused on strengthening our country," said DEA head Asa Hutchinson at the inaugural news conference. "After the September 11th attacks, Americans came to understand as never before the kind of destruction drug money funds. The consequences of drug abuse are far greater than the individual or even the family or community," he said.

"But our fight against drugs is more than a battle against traffickers. It's a battle against misinformation -- the kind that tells our youth that ecstasy and other club drugs are somehow safe. It's the perception that so long as they drink enough water or take small amounts of ecstasy, no harm will come," Hutchinson continued.

"That can be a deadly distortion. Just two days ago, an 18-year-old California girl died after taking ecstasy at her senior prom," Hutchinson said. "The girl had told her sister she planned to take the drug. Her sister told her to be careful. And that's the misperception with ecstasy -- that it's different, safer, better than other illegal drugs. Today, we stand together so that no teenager will ever stand alone when they face that kind of misinformation."

For a more nuanced look at the dangers of MDMA, one can turn to last week's report from the British parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee on drug policy, which recommended lessening penalties for the popular drug and instituting harm reduction measures. During its 10-month inquiry, the committee turned to Professor John Henry, Professor of Accident and Emergency Medicine, Imperial College School of Medicine at St. Mary's Hospital in London:

"Quite clearly it causes about 20 something deaths per year [out of an estimated 50-100 million doses consumed in Britain each year], and that is very small in terms of the large number of users. You could even use the word minimal for the short-term risks of ecstasy when you compare them with those of cocaine and heroin. Addictiveness is low. The other thing is that there is emerging evidence that it causes damage to memory processes. There are epidemiological comparisons of users versus non-users and even more recently we have seen studies which have followed up ecstasy users for a year and they have shown that aspects of memory function deteriorate during that year. Long-term use might lead to considerable impairment of memory," Professor Henry testified.

The select committee also cited a March 2000 Police Foundation inquiry, which relied on the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Faculty of Substance Abuse to evaluate ecstasy's harmfulness. The report observed that "population safety comparisons suggest that Ecstasy may be several thousand times less dangerous than heroin... there is little evidence of craving or withdrawal compared with the opiates and cocaine." The report continued: "Although deaths from ecstasy are highly publicised, it probably kills fewer than 10 people each year which, though deeply distressing for the surviving relatives and friends, is a small percentage of the many thousands of people who use it each week. Nor is it always clear whether the deaths are caused by ecstasy itself... or the circumstances surrounding its use... in many cases they are due to environmental aspects of the dance club scene, particularly overcrowding, overheating, poor availability of cool-out rooms and restrictions on or the high cost of drinks.")

But rhetoric like Hutchinson's flowed across the country. "Our youth are led to believe that 'club drugs' like ecstasy are harmless," Illinois State Sen. Kathy Parker (R-North Brook) told a Springfield press conference the same day. "The grim facts show otherwise."

In New Jersey, meanwhile, Assemblywoman Clare Farragher (R-Monmouth) told her local "Shoulder to Shoulder" press conference she wanted to raise awareness of the link between drugs and terrorism. "Long before September 11, New Jersey faced increasing illegal drug problems, but in the past eight months the nation has learned how drug habits often put money into the pockets of terrorist organizations," she said.

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