Date: Sat Oct 16 08:27:53 1999 From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) Subject: General Mccaffrey's History Of Misinformation To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
Subject: [] Kevin Zeese: General Mccaffrey's History Of Misinformation DrugSense Weekly, October 15, 1999, #119
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[Excerpt from] DRUGSENSE WEEKLY
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DrugSense Weekly, October 15, 1999 #119
A DrugSense publication http://www.drugsense.org/
Read This Publication Online at: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm
FEATURE ARTICLE
White Paper: General McCaffrey's History of Misinformation by Kevin Zeese - Common Sense for Drug Policy
The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey, has been known to play 'fast and loose' with the facts, especially when it comes to the success of his National Drug Control Strategy. This year General McCaffrey was publicly taken to task for inaccurately portraying the impact of Netherland's drug policies, needle exchange and medical marijuana by public health leaders, civil rights advocates and reform advocates.
While this White Paper details factually inaccurate statements, the drug czar has been correct in calling for increased drug treatment and methadone maintenance. Common Sense applauds him for dealing with these issues based on the facts and is willing to work with ONDCP in developing more effective drug control strategies. However, to have meaningful dialogue, it is imperative that our public officials have an accurate, fact-based discussion.
Common Sense provides a free online factbook on the drug war, available at: http://www.csdp.org/factbook/ and is available for comment at 703-354-5684.
McCaffrey
"Each year drug use exacts $110 billion in social costs, contributes to 52,000 drug-related deaths . . . ." Letter from Barry McCaffrey to Governor Gary Johnson, September 16, 1999.
"Each year, approximately 50,000 Americans die from drug-related causes." Testimony of Barry R. McCaffrey Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Building a More Effective Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program" Before the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, August 3, 1999
The Facts
The study Director McCaffrey used to estimate a $110 billion social cost states that sixty percent (60%) of those costs are due to drug-related law enforcement, incarceration and crime. These are the costs created by our National Drug Control Strategy and our policy of strict prohibition and incarceration. Only 3% of drug costs were from victims of drug-related crime, and less than 40% of the $110 billion social costs actually are due to the health impact of drugs.
General McCaffrey's failure to fully disclose the elements of this figure are just one example of how the ONDCP director seeks to distort the public's perception of drug policy.Source: The Economic Costs of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in the United States 1992.According to SAMHSA, the federal government's premiere substance abuse agency, about 20,000 people die each year from drug-related causes.
"Drug-related" includes much more than deaths from drug overdoses: it includes both illegal and illicit use of legal drugs, suicide, homicide, motor vehicle injury, HIV, pneumonia, hepatitis, endocarditis, infant deaths, and overdoses. Many of these deaths are due to the illegality of the drugs involved. The 52,000 figure McCaffrey refers to comes from "CSR Inc., unpublished research prepared for ONDCP, 1999" which ONDCP has thus far refused to release for public scrutiny. Considering that the SAMHSA figure of 20,000 already includes deaths which are already only tenuously related to drug use, it is difficult to accept that this number could be revised upward so greatly. More importantly, if this data is not suitable for public review, how can it be suitable for presentation as fact to Congress, Governor Johnson, or journalists?
McCaffrey
"We're making progress in reducing illegal drug use and its consequences." Letter from Barry McCaffrey to Governor Gary Johnson, September 16, 1999.
The Facts
The only evidence of "success" comes from voluntary surveys conducted by the federal government. Indeed, 20% of those selected for the National Household Survey do not participate. Furthermore, the Survey excludes all 1.8 million persons who are currently behind bars, many of whom are imprisoned for drugs, but now do not show up on national statistics.
It is hard to tell how accurate the results are or what impact increased drug war advertising has on survey responses. Second, throughout most of the 1990s, these surveys have shown adolescent drug use increasing (until last year when they showed a leveling off of youth use).
Third, the health and social consequences associated with drugs; overdose deaths, mentions of drugs in hospital emergency rooms and spread of disease, particularly AIDS, have worsened since 1978. Saying that the nation has made rogress on the consequences of drug use is simply untrue.
Similarly, the problems associated with the drug market; international drug cartels, street gangs, police corruption and the purity of drugs available have all worsened. For instance, the price of heroin has fallen from $1,200 per pure gram to $317 per pure gram, while average purity of street-level heroin has increased from less than 5% to 25% since 1981. The price of cocaine is half of what it was in 1981 and the average purity has risen from 40% to more than 70%.
Declining prices and increasing purity are hard evidence of a substantially increased supply of these drugs - this is not evidence of a successful drug strategy.Sources: National Drug Control Strategy, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse; Monitoring the Future Survey; Annual Medical Examiner Data; Drug Abuse Warning Network.
McCaffrey
"In the view of the nation's scientific and medical community, marijuana has a high potential for abuse and no generally accepted therapeutic value." Barry McCaffrey, July 22, 1997.
The Facts
"Federal authorities should rescind their prohibition of the medicinal use of marijuana for seriously ill patients and allow physicians to decide which patients to treat." Editorial, New England Journal of Medicine, January 30, 1997.
McCaffrey
"Marijuana is also a gateway drug." Barry McCaffrey, July 22, 1997.
The Facts
For every 112 marijuana users, there is only one regular user of cocaine and less than one heroin addict. Source: U.S. Government, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 1996.
"There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs." Source: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr. (1999). Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
McCaffrey
"The murder rate in Holland is double that in the United States. That's drugs." Barry McCaffrey, July 23, 1998.
The Facts
The Dutch homicide rate in 1995 was one-fourth that of the United States (1.8 vs. 8.0). Source: FBI, Uniform Crime Reports and Dutch Bureau of Statistics
McCaffrey
"The Dutch approach to drugs hasn't worked." Barry McCaffrey, July 23, 1998
The Facts
All categories of drug use in Holland are lower than in the US. While 32.9% of people in the US have used marijuana, only 15.5% of people in Holland have done so; 5.1% in the US have used marijuana in the last month; only 2.5% in Holland have done so. For cocaine, 10.5% in the US have tried it, compared to 2.1% in Holland, while .7% have used cocaine in the last month in the US and .2% have done so in Holland.Sources: National Household Survey 1997 SAMHSA, Office of applied studies Washington DC.; M. Abraham, P. Cohen, M. De Winter: Licit and Illicit drug use in the Netherlands, Center for Drug Research, University of Amsterdam.
McCaffrey
"The jury is still out on Needle exchange." Barry McCaffrey, August 16, 1996 "These programs are magnets for all social ills, pulling in crime, violence, addicts, prostitution, dealers, and gangs and driving out hope and opportunity." Barry McCaffrey, April 24, 1998.
The Facts
"A meticulous scientific review has now proven that needle exchange programs can reduce the transmission of HIV and save lives without losing ground in the battle against illegal drugs." Donna Shalala, Secretary of HHS April 20, 1998
Prepared by Common Sense for Drug Policy. Contact Kevin B. Zeese, 703-354-5694 http://www.csdp.org/
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