White House and DEA Work to Defeat Michigan
Drug Initiative; ONDCP’s New Pot Ads Play a Role
By Daniel Forbes- Special to DrugWar.com
September 2, 2002
ONDCP Deputy Director Mary Ann Solberg
Drug initiative backers with the contumacy
to flank a laggard government by appealing directly to the people
are met yet again with a covert, multi-state gathering of government
officials planning partisan electioneering on the public dime.
And, given the presentation by the Bush Administration’s
drug policy second-in-command - a job senior enough to require
Senate confirmation - the White House-backed effort will apparently
include government propaganda to sway the vote of those who pay
for it.
That’s the unmistakable conclusion drawn
from Office
of National Drug Control Policy Deputy Director Mary
Ann Solberg’s disquisition on the government’s new
anti-drug ads.
She spoke last Monday (8/26/02) at a forum at Detroit’s Drug
Enforcement Administration office to some fifty-odd sheriffs,
judges, prosecutors, DEA agents, state cops, the drug czar of
Michigan and private drug policy professionals, the group as a
whole representing Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Washington,
D.C. and perhaps even Nevada.
November’s election looming, Solberg’s
discourse came as the Midwest’s political struggle over ballot
initiatives mandating treatment rather than jail for low-level
drug possession offenders heats up. The enormously wealthy trio
of Peter
Lewis, John Sperling and George Soros - who’ve backed
reform initiatives throughout the country, primarily medical marijuana
measures out west - has now brought treatment rather than jail
initiatives to the eastern half of the country.
Based loosely on California’s
Proposition 36, which passed overwhelmingly in 2000, their
effort
in Florida has been postponed, stymied by a balky Florida
Supreme Court. Ohioans will vote on their version, the Ohio
Drug Treatment Initiative, come November. And Michigan backers
and opponents sweat out this three-day weekend awaiting Tuesday’s
(9/3/02) procedural ruling by the state Board of Canvassers
as to whether Michigan’s rather different initiative, the
Michigan
Drug Reform Initiative, qualifies
for the ballot.
(Watch this space for my Labor Day analysis
of the Michigan Board of Canvassers’ decision, including
my interview with board member Stephen Borrello detailing what
he’s looking for in arguments from both sides on Tuesday
as he decides his vote.)
Doubtless dozens of high-powered state control
types, men with overwhelming jobs - heck, men with guns, some
of them, who face down, or prosecute or judge criminals - didn't
travel to Detroit last Monday to hear, among other topics, some
abstract treatise from Solberg for the heck of it. This gathering
was proactive in the extreme. But her topic makes sense if you
meld Solberg's discussion of the White House's soon-aborning marijuana-scare
ads with the DEA meeting's stated goal that attendees "share their
ideas and strategies and possibly combine resouces in combating
drug legalization [sic] proposals."
Given Solberg’s talk at "a forum
… to discuss the drug legalization [sic] efforts that are
being proposed throughout the United States, specifically in Michigan",
it seems clear that this senior White House official feels the
new ads will contribute to the government’s anti-initiative
effort. Otherwise, why waste these topflight folks’ time
discussing the ads at meeting geared to "provide insight
on successful strategies to combat legalization," a meeting
that promised to "provide presentations on how the DEA can
assist state leaders in this battle."
The passages quoted above come from a formal
invitation printed on DEA/U.S. Department of Justice letterhead.
Date-stamped 8/2/02 and signed by DEA
Special Agent in Charge Michael A. Braun - who runs federal
drug enforcement in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky - it was sent
to a prominent Michigan initiative opponent, James
Halushka, an Oakland County, Michigan Deputy Prosecutor.
Referring to the ads, meeting participant
Judge
Brian W. MacKenzie, District Judge in Michigan's 52nd District,
said that a fellow-attendee asked Solberg about the possibility
of the new ad campaign targeting or emphasizing Michigan and Ohio,
but she replied that wasn’t possible. The two states will
instead have to settle for their standard share of the White House
ad buy, including the spots that air nationally in every state.
Judge MacKenzie said Solberg "talked
of the federal government’s new initiative with regard to
marijuana." He added that she described it as a new nationwide
ad campaign geared to educate the public about pot’s dangers,
including the controversial - many would say, discounted - notion
that it serves as a gateway
drug to abuse of more pernicious substances. The ad campaign
was pretty much her entire focus, according to MacKenzie.
Goodness knows the paroxysms that will grace
the ads that should debut in a week or two. Solberg’s boss,
Drug
Czar John P. Walters has been preparing the ground with his
release last Thursday in Miami of a federal
study purporting to show that youthful marijuana use is associated
with adult hard drug use. According to the Associated Press, Walters
said, "Marijuana is not the soft drug."
And just yesterday, in the San
Francisco Chronicle, Walters railed against pot -- which he
declared is up to 30-times more powerful than that of "the Woodstock
era" -- as producing, at high doses, "paranoia or even violence."
As to medical marijuana, that is: "smoking an intoxicating weed,"
he said the very notion is "medieval. It is, in fact, absurd."
By selective quotation, he baldly misrepresents
the Institute
of Medicine report that Barry McCaffrey commissioned then
ignored. He also cites sky-rocketing adolescent marijuana treatment
admissions without mentioning the percentage of kids
admitted against their will, either at the hands of the criminal
justice system or their guardians. There's much more -- fire-and-brimstone
sulfur of the highest order.
Though she’s one of the nation’s
top experts on anti-drug coalitions, it’s curious that Solberg
apparently failed to address such topics as coalition building
or drug courts or the need for those present to have their opposition
heard.
In fact, her presentation presents the intriguing
conundrum of why the upcoming marijuana ads were considered on-topic
at a meeting strategizing on "combating drug legalization
proposals" - i.e., treatment in lieu of incarceration ballot
initiatives. In the absence of any ONDCP response to numerous
phone calls, it’s useful to note the White House media campaign’s
political genesis and intent.
As disclosed in Salon (7/27/00) in, Fighting
"Cheech & Chong" Medicine -- the phrase is Clinton
Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey's -- the initial
five-year, White House media campaign was engendered at a
meeting McCaffrey convened in Washington nine days after medical
marijuana initiatives passed in Arizona and California in 1996.
Minutes of the meeting reveal that some forty
officials and private sector executives met to discuss the need
for taxpayer-funded messages to thwart any potential medical marijuana
initiatives in the other 48 states and perhaps even roll back
the two that had just passed. They included two policy advisors
from the Clinton White House, the head of the DEA, representatives
of the FBI,
Departments of Justice,
Health and Human Services,
Treasury and
Education, along with
state law enforcement personnel. One private participant was quoted
in the meeting's minutes as saying, "We'll work with Arizona
and California to undo it and stop the spread of legalization
to [the] other 48 states."
Initiative Backers' Line in the Sand
Hubris or not, Dave
Fratello, Legal Affairs Director for the national Campaign
for New Drug Policies which launched the Michigan initiative,
declared CNDP ready to keep the ads from running: "If we
have reason to believe that the government is running PSAs [public
service announcements] designed to thwart the campaign, we’ll
stop them by telling station managers that the ads are of a political
nature - not a public service - and are an in-kind contribution
to the anti-initiative political campaign." He warned broadcasters
of myriad and expensive legal entanglements attending such in-kind,
political contributions.
Pondering the anti-marijuana ad campaign’s
likely effect on Michigan voters should the ballot measure qualify,
Kevin Zeese,
president of Common
Sense for Drug Policy, said, "No doubt these sorts of
ads lay a foundation of fear that can be used by the initiative’s
opponents. Ads that seek to create fear about marijuana lead to
the sort of fear and ignorance that drive the drug laws and work
against reform, work for just sending people to jail."
The ONDCP anti-marijuana ads Solberg touted
are part of a second, five-year ad campaign that July, 2002 press
reports indicate Congress
has refunded for $762 million over the next five years.
This despite the fact that, according to
a 7/3/02 AP story, Drug Czar John Walters, "has repeatedly
criticized the ad campaign, saying teenagers
were ignoring the ads. In May, he said the office would cancel
the campaign if it was not effective." The AP cited a survey
released in May that "found no evidence the ads were
discouraging drug use."
According
to USA Today, (7/8/02) of the $762-million that federal taxpayers
will pony up over the next five years, some $130-million annually
- or approximately $650-million total - will go to purchase advertising,
along with a very small amount for media planning. ($112-million
over five years is a heck of a chunk for expenses, ancillary or
otherwise, but no matter.)
Should the next five years mirror the campaign’s
first five, then, by design, half the ad budget will go to ad
buys targeting adults - that is voters. And, if past remains prologue,
that $650 million is only the half of it since Congress requires
the media to sell its ad time and space to ONDCP for half-price.
That is, broadcasters and publishers, etc. cough up two ad slots
for the price of one.
So, (minus those relatively tiny media planning
fees) approximately $1.3 billion over the next five years will
be available for anti-drug advertising. Half will be directed
at adult voters, and all of it will tend - however indirectly
- to poison the drug-reform well.
Along with maintaining the drug-war status
quo, the ads also work to support blanket drug tests at school
and work, massive law enforcement expenditures, the shredding
of the Bill of Rights - the whole delightful interdict-and-incarceration
noose around the country’s neck. Alarmist? Well - citizens,
attend: Drug
Use = Terrorism! as the only new ads yet released under Walters/Bush,
the ones that engendered
such ridicule and disgust, would have voters believe.
Rather implausibly, President Clinton’s
then deputy press secretary Jake Siewert, informed me back in
2000 that, "The ONDCP is prohibited from involving itself
in political causes in its advertising." Talk is cheap.
Parsing Clues on Participants
Though the DEA raised the moat, it is possible
to glean some notion of the meeting’s participants. Braun’s
invitation promised "state leaders from Michigan, Kentucky
and Ohio at this forum."
Oakland
County Deputy Prosecutor James Halushka confirmed his participation
along with that of various law enforcement personnel, the DEA’s
public affairs and congressional liaison director, Christopher
Battle, and by "some CADCA people too, a couple of representatives
from Lansing and Battle Creek who continue to spread the word."
CADCA refers to the Community
Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, whose board Solberg graced
prior to joining ONDCP.
(In December, 2001, Bush announced re-authorization
of a Department of Justice program that will distribute $450-million
over the next five years to community anti-drug groups. Approximately
one-fifth of that money is available for what is termed voter
education.)
MacKenzie, who attended only part of the
morning session of what he termed a 9-to-3 meeting, was particularly
interested in the presentation by Judge
Harvey Hoffman, the president of a Michigan drug court advocacy
group, the Michigan Association of Drug Court Professionals. He
said Hoffman discussed the impact of California’s Prop. 36.
MacKenzie also noted the presence of Oakland
County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, a co-chair of the Committee
to Protect Our Kids, a "registered ballot question committee
formed to oppose" the treatment initiative, according to
an 8/9/02 letter sent to Christopher Thomas, director of the Michigan
state Bureau of Elections, by the committee’s counsel, the
powerhouse Michigan law firm of Dykema
Gossett.
(This letter, according to Board of Canvassers
member Stephen Borrello, contributed greatly to the board postponing
for a week its decision regarding the initiative. See my Drugwar.com
article tomorrow in this space on the postponement, including
the influence wielded by Dykema Gossett partner and head of its
Government
Policy & Practice Group, Richard
McLellan. A hand-in-glove ally of rabid initiative foe, Michigan
Gov. John Engler - in 1990 he served as director of the governor-elect’s
transition team - McLellan has also chaired a committee helping
Engler and President George W. Bush pick federal appeals court
judges. He’s served as Michigan’s drug czar and as an
advisor to President Gerald Ford. According to a filing with the
Michigan secretary of state, the committee’s treasurer is
Richard
M. Gabrys, an executive with the accounting and consulting
firm, Deloitte
& Touche. He and McLellan both refused comment.)
Referring to this committee and to initiative
opponents in general, Halushka said they hope to mount a "massive
public education campaign … to expose [proponents’]
myths in a sound-bite world." Though decrying the impossibility
of matching the rich backers’ potential ad budget, he added,
"We are raising money, going [nationally] to big-name donors."
Additional meeting participants, said MacKenzie,
included members of the state police; one or more representatives
of Detroit anti-drug coalitions; both a "police commander"
and a prosecutor from Ohio; as well as someone from Kentucky.
Altogether, he estimated there were "fifty or sixty people
in a big conference room."
Additional clues regarding attendance come
from the fact that prior to the meeting, the office of Rep.
John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of the House
Judiciary Committee, obtained a copy of Braun’s invitation,
according to Deanna Maher, a special projects coordinator on Conyers’
staff. Wearing two hats, Maher works part-time for Conyers and
part-time for the initiative’s sponsor, the Michigan
Campaign for New Drug Policies, CNDP’s state affiliate.
CNDP’s Fratello stated that Maher segregates her time religiously
- a common practice, he said, of congressional staffers with outside
political pursuits.
The letter at hand, the week before the meeting
Maher called both Braun and DEA Special Agent Rich Isaacson (whose
name and number were also on the invite) to inquire whether the
lack of an invitation to Conyers’ office was inadvertent.
After all, a Conyers staffer’s participation would be fueled
by propinquity, the two offices across the street from each other
in downtown Detroit.
The DEA agent responsible for demand reduction
throughout Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky (or so he told me last
winter), Isaacson extended an invitation, which Maher declined.
While doing so, he told her that Craig
Yaldoo, the Director of Michigan’s Office of Drug Control
Policy, four judges, representatives from the anti-initiative
Committee to Protect Our Kids and "regional" officials
would be among those assembling the following Monday.
Taxpayers Bought Rusche's Flight?
A main speaker was Sue
Rusche, executive director of Atlanta-based National
Families in Action, who fired up the troops with visions of
the perfidy they face. Describing her as "a nationally recognized
expert on the history of the drug legalization effort in the United
States," Braun promised Rusche’s "insight[s] on
successful strategies to combat legalization." Rusche’s
website is indeed a comprehensive distillation of reformers’
either stark truth-telling or public faux pas - depending on your
point of view.
It’s worth noting that, according to
Philanthropic
Research, Inc., Rusche’s
organization had total 1999 revenues of $487,376; of this,
a whopping $429,503 was from the government. Figures for the prior
two years are similar: 1998 total revenue, $542,762, of which
$490,913 was from the government. In 1997, the total was $507,291;
the government’s portion, $451,123.
Describing Rusche as the "keynote"
speaker, Halushka said, "She basically talked of the arguments
that needed to be made, talked of the myths and the [proponents’]
true agenda. She proved it with a statistic-filled" presentation.
(The portion of Rushche’s talk on opponents'
successful strategies, at least regarding CNDP, might have been
brief. Thirteen of its 14 campaigns have passed, not including
the postponed effort stymied by a recalcitrant Florida Supreme
Court. In Massachusetts, CNDP reached for the moon and crashed
on the launching pad.)
Braun also promised potential attendees that,
"DEA’s Demand Reduction and Congressional and Public
Affairs Sections will provide presentations on how the DEA can
assist state leaders in this battle."
Braun’s last reference was presumably
to Christopher Battle, who runs the DEA’s PR and congressional
affairs out of Washington. Halushka said Battle attended and "talked
of the need for a grassroots [effort], of working with community
groups." Thus, according to Halushka, this top agency official
sent the gathering forth to proselytize to the public. He also
said the meeting focused, in part, "in terms of getting the
word out."
(To that end, Halushka said that he, Judge
MacKenzie and a county sheriff recently visited the editorial
board of a local paper to voice their opposition. He’s also
given "some speeches during the day to community coalitions
and prevention groups." But, he said, "That’s part
of my job: public education regarding public safety." It
seems voters may be endangered should they flip the wrong lever
come November.)
Finally, to finish this discussion of the
roster of attendees, a single source not mentioned elsewhere in
this article stated his or her belief that the following individuals
or groups attended: Yaldoo (as Isaacson told Maher) and various
Michigan state police and Michigan sheriffs and prosecutors. Sheriff
Bouchard and Deputy Prosecutor Halushka confirmed their attendance,
and Judge MacKenzie confirmed the state police’s presence.
Therefore, this source’s knowledge of
the attendees listed in the previous paragraph was corroborated.
Consider then his or her following two claims in that light.
This individual asserted that Charles List,
a coordinator for the Committee to Protect Our Kids, also attended.
Prior to my hearing this, List spoke to me briefly, but directed
all inquiries to Sheriff Bouchard and to Saginaw
County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Thomas, who List declared
the committee's co-chairs. Thomas refused to be interviewed. Bouchard
attended the meeting briefly and spoke to me only in general terms.
Most tellingly, this individual also asserted
that an anti-initiative representative from the state of Nevada
attended. The presence of a fellow-strategizer from Nevada has
not been confirmed at press time as at least half-a-dozen calls
to Braun and DEA public affairs chief Battle were not returned.
Of course, an adult-use, marijuana
legalization initiative recently qualified
for the Nevada ballot; current polls indicate a tight race.
Initiative opponents there may well feel the need to, as Braun’s
invite encouraged, share ideas, strategies and perhaps resources
to combat initiatives. If someone from Nevada was indeed present,
his or her anti-initiative colleagues back home would welcome
his or her summary of the "presentations on how the DEA can
assist state leaders in this battle."
Everyone gathered knowing they face an uphill
climb should the Michigan Board of Canvassers not toss the initiative
tomorrow, Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal has cited an April,
2001 Pew Research Center for People and the Press study that
"found that a 52%-to-35% majority of adults believe drug
use should be treated as a ‘disease,’ not a crime."
And Dave Fratello points to an August, 2001
Buckeye State poll indicating that 74% of Ohioans favored treatment
rather than prison for low-level offenders. He’s told me
previously that that exceeds California’s approval rating
at a comparable time in its Prop. 36 campaign, indicating, he
felt, that "voter attitudes on drugs are massively in flux."
DEA a Slice; IPS Report the Whole Pie
I myself was lucky enough to dissect the
overall scheme being propagated by senior federal, state and local
officials to covertly usurp the voters’ franchise in a report
published this May by the venerable D.C. think tank, the Institute
for Policy Studies. Entitled, The Governor’s Sub-rosa
Plot to Subvert an Election in Ohio, it can be found at www.ips-dc.org/projects/drugpolicy/ohio.htm.
This DEA meeting is but the latest manifestation to surface of
a multi-state effort that dates to July, 2001.
The product of five-months’ work, the
IPS report focuses on the anti-initiative
efforts of Gov.
Bob Taft (R-OH), his wife, Hope Taft, and the highest reaches
of his administration. Their close allies include Solberg; Yaldoo;
James
McDonough, the drug czar of Florida; Betty
Sembler, the wife of the former finance chair of the Republican
National Committee and current
US Ambassador to Italy; a senior U.S. Senate staffer (who
hosted an anti-initiative strategy session in the U.S. Capitol
itself - yes, the one with the dome) and the supposedly apolitical
Partnership
for a Drug-Free America.
Detroit’s own Rep. John Conyers was
responsible for disseminating news of last week’s DEA confab.
Obtaining Braun’s invitation the week before the strategy
session, Conyers followed with a letter 8/22/02 to DEA
Director Asa Hutchinson demanding
an investigation and a press release on Friday, 8/23/02.
Conyers’ letter and subsequent release
call on Hutchinson to investigate the DEA’s "possible
misuse of federal funds without proper authorization by Congress
and in contravention of existing law." Conyers stated: "It
appears that the DEA has been actively engaged across the country
in collaboration with groups who are opposed to ballot proposals
involving reform of our drug laws."
Referring to political campaigning "on
federal property and on government time," Conyers charged
that the meeting undoubtedly violates a 2001 federal law "which
clearly states that no part of any appropriation for DEA can be
used for ‘publicity or propaganda purposes’ not authorized
by Congress." He wondered whether the upcoming meeting would
run "afoul of federal laws prohibiting unauthorized lobbying
activities by federal agencies."
Government Integrity Besmirched, Conyers Charges
Conyers castigated the judges who participated
in violation of their Canon of Ethics and implied that the DEA’s
activities have compromised "the integrity of our national
government."
Referencing Braun’s "invitation
to a forum ‘to discuss drug legalization efforts,’ "
Conyers concluded, "I am concerned that this meeting, with
its specific purpose of devising a lobbying and public campaign
against Michigan drug reform proposals, is … an unauthorized
use of funds."
One question Conyers will want answered is
who paid for all these people to make their way to Detroit? Someone
from Kentucky was there, along with at least two from Ohio, according
to Judge MacKenzie. Private citizen Sue Rusche came up from Georgia.
Having voiced nothing but her intention to hang up, she did so
as I blurted a question on whether the DEA had paid for her trip.
Then there’s the question, as Conyers
pointed out, of all these government officials taking this time
while on the clock, ostensibly serving the public in non-partisan
fashion. It’s a stretch beyond tearing to think they all
took personal days and traveled at their own expense. As discussed
below, the DEA’s Rich Isaacson said his overnight lodging
was paid for by the taxpayers of Ohio, his time and travel by
federal taxpayers when he attended a similar anti-initiative meeting
at the Governor of Ohio’s mansion last October.
MacKenzie said that one notable Detroit participant
was a DEA lawyer who discussed Conyers’ advance criticism
of the meeting. He said the lawyer discussed at some length how
"it was not a violation."
Pointing to the Solberg-initiated efforts
of his boss, David Gorcyca, himself and Solberg herself in Oakland
County, Halushka also spoke of getting "Craig [Yaldoo] organized
to get the state organized." He added, "Craig is working
more on a statewide level." Aiding that effort, Gorcyca enlisted
the Prosecuting
Attorneys Association of Michigan to get all 83 counties involved.
One wonders if Yaldoo and Gorcyca’s outreach to their professional
colleagues occurs entirely during off-hours.
Curiously, the same day Conyers publicly
blasted the DEA (8/23/02), its response was to send Detroit-area
Democratic Rep.
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick an anti-initiative ten-point talking-point
memo that Halushka told me he helped write. While the memo does
artfully and often disingenuously critique the initiative, it’s
hard to see it absolving or even addressing the issues raised
by partisan electioneering by dozens of officials at a federal
office in Detroit.
According to Conyers’ staffer, Deanna
Maher, Rep. Kilpatrick received a call the Friday before the Monday
meeting from Asa Hutchinson denouncing the initiative. He then
faxed her Halushka’s effort: "10 Reasons that ‘The
Michigan Drug Reform Initiative’ is BAD FOR MICHIGAN."
[Upper case and bold in original.]
(The memo’s second point stands out
as particularly misguided: "It effectively legalizes use
of all dangerous drugs, including cocaine, ecstasy and heroin,
for anyone who merely states that they seek treatment, regardless
of whether they even attend treatment sessions.")
Maher adds that Kilpatrick herself dropped
by Conyers’ Detroit office the day of the meeting to question
whether Halushka’s memo accurately represents the initiative.
Said Maher, "Rep. Kilpatrick expressed her concern regarding
the DEA’s activities and her support for Rep. Conyers’
inquiry."
Hutchinson himself has not shrunk from the
fray. A DEA
release noted his address last October to an Ohio drug court
graduation ceremony. He thanked the defendants for their success
and "for the example you’ve set." And he warned
of "a growing challenge to drug courts" - in this case,
the Ohio ballot initiative. The measure lacks accountability,
Hutchinson asserted, and was thus "a program that is doomed
to failure." Then in May, 2002, Hutchinson blasted the Ohio
initiative in an op-ed published by The Columbus Dispatch.
Solberg the Master
Aside from her dangling the promise of new
anti-marijuana advertising, there’s more to be said of ONDCP
Deputy Director Mary Ann Solberg. Asked the genesis of the Committee
To Protect our Kids, Halushka said, "The godmother is Mary
Ann Solberg." Replying to a question, he added, "The
spark came from Mary Ann - no question." That spark flared
months after President Bush publicly nominated her in July, 2001.
Halushka noted that Solberg enlisted prosecutors
in Detroit, Oakland and McComb counties to fight the threat in
2000 of a stillborn medical marijuana initiative. Then, in November
and December of 2001- months after her nomination- Halushka said
Solberg "alerted" him and "wanted to galvanize
people" regarding the threat of the new treatment initiative.
Consequently, he examined its "frightening" language
and "brought it to my boss," David
Gorcyca, Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard then
signed on, said Halushka, and Halushka’s own January address
to the Troy coalition Solberg had run "started the ball rolling."
Halushka added, "We’ve been proactive in Oakland County….
David Gorcyca, myself and Solberg have worked in Oakland."
Though it’s certainly more racially integrated than it once
was, Oakland can perhaps be fairly described as the white-flight
county north of Detroit.
As to Solberg’s current involvement,
Halushka said, "She has continued to be of help - she has
continued to help with connections to people and data. She does
come to town. She was in town Monday [8/26/02] at DEA headquarters
in Detroit." Speaking of the initiative in general, he reiterated:
"She was responsible for alerting us."
Informed of Solberg’s participation
in the meeting (initially disclosed here, I believe), initiative
campaigner Dave Fratello stated: "I always knew Mary Ann
Solberg would take the White House too far. She’s a zealot,
hired to be on the far right on the drug-abuse issue. She’s
not cautious and she’s not being restrained. I always thought
her zeal would get the better of her, and now she’s taken
the White House over a cliff."
Asked how, Fratello said, "The voters
of Michigan will not take kindly to the White House telling them
how to vote. Barry McCaffrey learned that lesson in California
in1996 when there was a palpable backlash against his heavy-handed
intervention against medical marijuana."
Referring to the initiatives’ active
opponents sprinkled throughout the highest levels of Michigan
and Ohio officialdom, reformer Kevin Zeese added, "They fear
these millionaires and activists who are getting their message
out. What’s more, despite hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of government-paid ads, they can’t figure out how to
get their own message out."
If Zeese is correct, that failure certainly
cannot be laid at Solberg’s feet. As discussed in my Institute
for Policy Studies report, upon her July, 2001 nomination Solberg
received a congratulatory e-mail from Ohio First Lady Hope Taft.
Referring to the Ohio and Michigan initiatives, Taft wrote, "We
are interested in sharing info and ideas with both states and
wondered who in Michigan will be in charge. Could you let me know
what you know or think?"
Taft assumed as a matter of course that someone
in Michigan would be in charge of opposing the ballot measure.
Solberg to Ohio's First Lady: TV Is Key
In her reply, Solberg immediately referred
- not to some private individual more suited to run a political
campaign - but to Michigan’s new drug czar, Craig Yaldoo.
She wrote: "I met with Craig last week, and he is very interested
in taking up the fight and appears to be on top of the Soros people
and their movements in Michigan. I suggested he form a partnership
with you to fight the prop[osition].
Quite telling in a quite brief e-mail, Solberg
then told Taft: "It would be very effective if we could pool
resources to produce TV spots. I have some funding commitments,
and I believe we could raise even more as a team. I would love
to meet with an Ohio/Michigan team before I leave Troy [MI] to
begin planning."
Solberg was not referring at that point to
the combined $1.3-billion worth of ads over the next five years
that, between them, taxpayers will buy and the media be bludgeoned
into giving. Nonetheless, note her immediate emphasis on TV ads
and the money to air them in what she told Taft would be "a
very hard fight."
My IPS report also detailed a skull session
similar to the DEA meeting, a "Multi-State Drug Policy Forum"
held at the Tafts’ official residence in Columbus, 10/12/01.
Solberg, Isaacson, Yaldoo and Florida drug czar James McDonough
all attended. The state of Ohio offered to pay for meals and lodging
for out-of-state attendees and did in fact pay $2,000 to a local
"meeting facilitator." As mentioned, Isaacson’s
lodging was paid for by the taxpayers of Ohio, his time and travel
by federal taxpayers.
Writing the IPS report many months ago, I
questioned DEA spokesperson Thomas Hinojosa about the potential
impropriety of Isaacson’s government-paid trip. Back when
the DEA actually responded to press inquiries, Hinojosa told me,
"[Isaacson’s] job is drug investigations and stopping
the flow of narcotics." Asked how attending a strategy session
on defeating initiatives fit that brief, Hinojosa said, "That
initiative deals with illegal drugs, which come under the Controlled
Substances Act. So there’s nothing wrong with that."
Last winter, Isaacson told me the Ohio meeting
in October was "merely to determine what is happening in
these states regarding possible legalization efforts." Evaluate
his statement in light of the numerous political tactics participants
agreed were necessary in a five-page "Outcomes" memo
summarizing the day’s conclusions.
It features such overt exhortations as: "Have
a seamless, collaborative effort of organizations involved, mobilized
and working hard to oppose the Initiative." To quote a second,
one of many outcomes: "Beat the Initiative back in the entire
country, not just in each state." At meeting’s end,
the Ohio, Michigan and Florida officials present that day in October,
2001 pledged to work together and stay in touch through e-mail,
conference calls and possible future meetings.
Despite all that - and this is the sketchiest
of summaries of the IPS material - Isaacson told me months ago
that this Governor’s mansion meeting was for informational
purposes.
Public Billions Fuel Private Juggernaut, Yet
Voters Sneer
Solberg’s activities in Michigan prior
to her April, 2002 Senate confirmation shed light on the state
and federally funded private apparatus that defends the drug-war
status quo, as my IPS report makes clear.
Her base was the Troy
Community Coalition for the Prevention of Drug and Alcohol Abuse,
which, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, was formed
with federal money in 1991. (Philanthropic
Research, Inc. notes that for the FY ending in June, 1999,
the Troy coalition had total revenues of $254,000, with government
grants providing $163,000.)
The next calendar year, in September, 2000,
it received a $100,000 Dept. of Justice grant, the money to be
spent in part for the group to act, according to the DOJ, "as
a catalyst for collaboration among all segments of the community,
thereby building … awareness that will lead to an increase
in the perception of the health risks involved [with drugs] and
growing social disapproval within the community." [Emphasis
added.] Not incidentally, the DOJ requires that grantees include
"at least one" media representative.
The year before, the Coalition
of Healthy Communities (CHC), an umbrella group for seven
community coalitions located north of Detroit that Solberg also
directed, received $99,209 in DOJ money. According to the DOJ
website, CHC used some of the $99,209 to "implement a public
awareness campaign." Referring to this social marketing,
Mary Louise Embrey of the DOJ
Office of Congressional and Public Affairs told me last winter,
"The way they were going about it is multi-faceted: They’ve
hooked in with the Ad
Council and the national ONDCP anti-drug media campaign -
they use print materials from ONDCP. And they used the local media
to make connections. They have people [appear] on the local news
or they feed them different stories."
My work in Salon proved that the White House
used taxpayer funds to reward broadcasters and publishers who
inserted government-approved anti-drug content. But according
to Embrey of the DOJ, public funds were also used to help local
coalitions propagandize citizens through local media north of
Detroit.
(See the IPS report for full proof of the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America’s manifest willingness
to create ads to try to influence the Ohio election. The partnership
inaugurated its effort by sending its four top executives to that
July, 2001 planning session hosted by a U.S. Senate staffer and
held in the U.S. Capitol - what one of them termed a "counter-legalization
brainstorm session.")
As to the Ad Council’s role, according
to a 8/12/02 ONDCP release, it will team with the Ad Council to
"launch new ads next month to promote awareness of - and
involvement with - community drug-prevention coalitions…."
This new campaign - separate from the ONDCP anti-marijuana ads
- will feature, says the White House, a Web site and toll-free
number and "TV, radio, print, outdoor and Web banner ads"
designed to help people "get involved with or start a coalition
and locate a coalition in their community." From 2000-to-2001,
this "campaign has received more than $120-million in donated
[sic] media support through the Ad Council’s media outreach
and ONDCP’s" fifty-cents-on-the-dollar deals with the
media. Prior to her ONDCP deputy directorship, Solberg helped
advise the Ad Council’s Community Anti-Drug Campaign.
Local anti-drug coalitions receive government
funding nationwide. One Dept. of Justice program, authorized at
$144-million for its first five years, was reauthorized this past
December for another five years for a staggering $450-million.
(Approximately two-thirds of the first $144-million’s 464
total grants went to CADCA member coalitions; the rest went to
other local groups.)
Since ONDCP ultimately decides where these
Justice Dept. grants end up, depending on John Walters’ degree
of micro-management, Solberg may have more say than anyone in
the country as to this $450-million’s ultimate destination
and purpose.
Twenty Percent for Voter 'Education'
But what possible objection could there be
to using this money for community-based prevention and treatment?
Consider that this past January, CADCA
spokeswoman Betsy Glick told The Detroit Free Press, "Under
federal law, the nonprofit coalitions generally can spend up to
20 percent of their budgets ‘to educate voters.’ "
According to the article: "Solberg said she is determined
to see more coalitions spawned and strengthened. And … she
is expected to help them play a key role in opposing any easing
of drug laws" - i.e., any initiatives. The paper added, quoting
one of Solberg’s Michigan coalition colleagues: "Behind
the scenes, Solberg is ‘spearheading the campaign against
this initiative.’ "
With last December’s huge reauthorization,
20% of $450 million - that is, up to $90-million - will be available
over the next five years for publicly funded voter education to
try to influence elections, whether on a state initiative, or
just a contest for county sheriff between a hard-liner and a reformer.
As to any ‘spawning,’ on September
9th, Solberg will address the annual Michigan Substance Abuse
Conference, speaking on "Successful Strategies for Coalition
Building." Sponsored by state and federal health agencies,
the sold-out, two-day seminar offers professional continuing education
credits, and attendees’ expenses are tax-deductible.
Solberg’s a self-acknowledged pro at
publicly funded electioneering. In 2000, after that medical marijuana
measure failed to gain the Michigan ballot as she ran numerous
coalitions north of Detroit, Solberg told the Detroit News, "A
good offense is the best defense." The article noted that
in May that year, as part of that offense, one of her coalitions
had "hosted a two-day conference in Lansing about the perils
of pot." It added that the seminar was controversial since
the coalition receives state, county and federal grants. Both
Michigan’s drug czar and the head of its state police participated,
as did, for some reason, Northwest Airlines.
According
to DRCNet, the conference was entitled, "Training the
Trainers: Putting the Brakes on the Drug Legalization Movement."
DRCNet cited Greg
Schmid’s charge that Michigan promised state criminal
justice training funds to facilitate police attendance at the
meeting. A main backer of the Personal
Responsibility Amendment (as it was known), Schmid told DRCNet,
"It looks like a public fund is being used for electioneering
training of law enforcement personnel." A Saginaw lone-wolf
at Schmid Law Office, he told me his formal complaint to the State
Bureau of Elections was referred to the state Attorney General,
who dismissed it.
So, no doubt the poll-beleaguered local officials
in Detroit welcomed the presence of the ex-school teacher who’s
now found her way to the White House. Keith
Stroup, head of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said, "Her
presence gives enormous empowerment to the local partisans - to
know that the federal government, the White House in particular,
is supporting their efforts. Sitting in Detroit, when the White
House shows up, it may not be illegal, but it sure as hell is
improper."
Numerous phone calls to ONDCP and the DEA,
including to ONDCP PR chief Tom Reilly and to DEA Special Agents
Battle and Braun were not returned. Reaching Solberg’s personal
voice-mail, I outlined my understanding of her Detroit discourse
on the new ads, hoping to prompt a response. Without much of a
leg to stand on, the White House and the DEA refused to teeter
on the precipice of actually discussing their active opposition
to state ballot measures - Bush administration rhetoric about
devolution of power to the states be blowed.
-------------
Daniel Forbes (ddanforbes@aol.com)
writes on social policy. His recent report on state and federal
political malfeasance geared to defeat treatment rather than incarceration
ballot initiatives was
published by the Institute
for Policy Studies. Much of his work, including his series
in Salon that led to his testimony before both the Senate and
the House, is archived
at www.mapinc.org.
