Drug War Propaganda i ii Drug War Propaganda Doug Snead iii Drug War Propaganda Copyright 2003 by Doug Snead All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Published 2005 Printed by CafePress.com in the United States of America iv Special thanks to the fine folks at MAPinc.org for all their help. v CONTENTS Introduction 1. Hated Groups Drug Users, Marijuana Users, Drug Offenders, Drug Vendors, Meth Cooks, Cartels, Kingpins, Terrorists, Racial Minorities, African- Americans, Hispanics, Counterculture, Bikers, Ravers, The Drug Culture, Hippies 1960s, Junkies, Legalizers, Bad Billionaires and Millionaire Malefactors, Summary, Notes 2. Crime, Violence, Insanity Drug Criminals, Drug Violence, Conflation, Drug-Related, Deadly Drug Use, Cannabis Crime, Marijuana Malady, Toking Threat to Body and Soul, Cannabis Crazies, Pot Problems, Meth Crime/Illness, Methamphetamine Madness, Meth Lab Land Mines, Dance Drug Danger, Dance Drug Crime and Violence, Opioid and Opiate, Crime and Illness, Crime in Colombia, Giving Addicts the Treatment, Sick Criminals, The Sick and the Dead, Criminal Addicts, Drug Court Criminals, Politicians, Prosecutors, and Punishment, Reasons to be Punished, Prosecutors For Prison, Summary, Notes 3. Survival of Society Downfall of Society, Democracy, Security, Community, Nation, World, The Future, Summary, Notes 4. Gates of Hell Marijuana Stepping-Stone, Marijuana Abuse, Drug Abuse, Gateway Drugs, Summary, Notes 5. Saving Our Children Marijuana Corrupting Children, Dance Drugs Corrupting Children, MDMA Killing Our Children, Children Consume Fake MDMA, MDMA -- Child Fiends, MDMA Ratchet Up Adult Jail to Save Children, MDMA Corrupting Our Children, MDMA and Meth vi corrupting the Children, Amphetamines Corrupting Children, Meth Lab Children, Parent/Child Meth, Opiates/Opioids Corrupting Children, Unspecified "Drugs" Corrupting Children, Schools and Drug Corruption of Children, Prenatal/Infant Drug Corruption, Parents Abetting/ Ignoring Child Drug Corruption, Lurid Drug Tales: Child Sexual Corruption, Date-Rape Drugs, Legalization Painted as Hurting Children, Summary, Notes 6. Battles with Demons Drug Fiends/Dope Demons, Scourges and Plagues Upon the Land, Demon Meth, Demon OxyContin, Demon MDMA, Demon Heroin, Cocaine Fiends, Other Dope Fiends, Dope Addicts/Demon Drugs, Epidemic, War, Drug War For the Children, Drug War Should be Escalated, Drug War -- Mythic, Poetic, War Metaphor, Children Victims of Fiends, Mythic Symbols of Good and Evil, Legalization Unleashing Epidemic of Fiends, Summary, Notes 7. Crack Sold Like Bubblegum Moral, Religious Battle for Good and Evil, Cannabis: Total Access or Total Prohibition, Hemp as Total Legalization, Using "Legalize" to Describe Medical Marijuana, Classic Slippery Slopes, Medical Cannabis to Total MJ Legalization, Cannabis to All Drugs, Supreme Court Saga, Other Medical Marijuana, Non-Medical Marijuana, Summary, Notes 8. Target: Dissent Dissent and Hated Groups, Hated dissenters pushing drugs, wealthy dissenters vs poor government, Other hated reformers, Claim Drug War Dissenters are Lying, "Cruel Hoax", Government Says Dissenters are Lying, Reformers: Liars, Liars!, Dissenters Should be Silenced, Dissent Causing Children to Take Drugs, Dissenters Jailed, Dissenters Executed, Summary, Notes vii Drug War Propaganda Drug War Propaganda: Introduction The rhetoric of the "drug war" pervades the media. News reports, papers, prosecutors, and politicians all assert that America and the world are in the clutches of a horrible drug "epidemic." They assure us drugs are a terrible "scourge," and that drug users are the despicable enemy of all good and decent folk. This work is a study of contemporary drug prohibition rhetoric: the propaganda of the so-called "war on drugs." This "war on drugs" is actually a misnomer: it is not an attack on (inanimate) drugs per se. Rather, the "war on drugs" is a euphemism for a police and government attack on people who disobey government drug dictates. "Government drug propaganda is just that: propaganda veiled as a behavior modification tool," as one observer stated it.1 This study uses the term propaganda in the sense of the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person; in the sense of ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause. (That definition was from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.) While the propagandist may be a formal official from a military psychological operations team, the propagandists to which we refer are police, prosecutors, columnists, and editorialists who are simply telling what, perhaps, they consider to be the truth. We will examine and sort out the ways government and press wage a battle of words on citizens who take drugs. The general approaches to vilifying drug users are described in a 1979 study paid for, ironically, by the US government itself. A National Institute on Drug Abuse paper written in 1979 by William L. White (entitled, Themes in Chemical Prohibition), described eight general prohibition themes that propagandists use. These eight "themes," or ideas, form the chapters of this book: each chapter is devoted to the examination of a given prohibitionist theme. Chapter one examines the prohibitionist theme of associating a drug (and the drug's users) with hated groups and accepted enemies. Chapter two compares rhetoric that claims the targeted drug causes great harm to people, making them insane, violent, criminal, or dead. Chapter three viii Drug War Propaganda looks at claims that the survival of society depends on jailing users of the prohibited drug. Chapter four juxtaposes various prohibitionist claims that drug A is a "gateway" to drug B. Chapter five continues, exploring ways prohibitionist propagandists exploit parental fears for their children. Chapter six details the rhetoric which paints users as demonic fiends, which paints drug use as "epidemic," and which paints government actions to hurt and jail drug users as "war." Chapter seven contrasts and compares drug war rhetoric as it repeats the (false) dilemma presenting drug policy options as a stark choice: the total prohibition of drugs, as opposed to the total access to drugs by everyone. Finally, in chapter eight, we see where prohibitionists, instead of demonstrating the truth of their reasons for jailing drug users, simply attack those who would dare question them. It is my wish that this book will help people to critically examine the claims made by drug war propagandists, and to effectively question drug war authorities in government and media. notes 1. Janelle Brown, Saying no to propaganda, Salon Magazine, March 12, 2002 ix Drug War Propaganda Hated Groups "Detective Stephen Stone, testified during the trial that he believed it was the type of concert that would attract drug trafficking. 'There's certain groups known as Goths that attend these events and they sort of have made a name for themselves to be against the laws of society.'"1 One way prohibitionists vilify drugs and their users is to associate them with groups within society that are hated.2 Drug warriors link drug users with those who are already hated, hoping that negative attributes established in people's minds concerning the hated subgroup may be transferred to the prohibited drugs, and their users. This is the propaganda technique of name calling and the technique of transfer in action.3 As we will see, the propagandist makes these associations work in either direction: the hated group is bad because they consume the drug; or, conversely, the drug is evil because it is taken by a hated group. The association of particular drugs with hated minority groups and foreign enemies has a long and colorful history in the United States. The association of opium with the Chinese, of cocaine with Blacks, of alcohol with urban Catholic immigrants, of heroin with urban immigrants, of Latinos with marihuana, the claim that a myriad of foreign enemies were using these drugs against the U.S., and the image of drug crazed bohemians such as Ludlow, Baudelaire, and DeQuincy all were integral to the propaganda that generated the prohibitionist policies on each of these drugs.4 Drug Users The rhetoric of prohibition fosters hate for drug users, simply because they are drug users. For example, one editor shared his dismay that drug users were not sufficiently hated in his community. "One might expect a law-abiding and decent society -- such as is found on the Gold Coast -- to react with outrage at this seeping poison around us, but there are 1 Drug War Propaganda signs of acceptance . even approval . of so-called recreational drugs," he said, urging greater intolerance for drug users.5 One writer spoke of the hated drug users: "drug addicts that have no respect for human life. drug addicts that care more for drugs than human life. druggies who can watch a murder take place and casually forget about it for months."6 There is an organization that openly promotes sterilizing drug users.7 The group's founder has a name she calls the children of drug users. "It's the truth. They don't just have one and two babies; they have litters."8 Declared one state Senator, "What we are trying to say to those involved with illegal drugs is, this is no place for you to be. Go some place else."9 One student of drug policy noted that drug