-
- As an ex Federal agent with almost three
decades of law enforcement experience in four Federal agencies, local enforcement
and military police, I find it easy to define a "rip-off," as
any method of relieving us of our money and giving us absolutely nothing
in return. So when Gnewt Gingrich and President Clinton raised each other's
"bipartisan" hands in "victory" over their awarding
$2 billion in taxpayer funds to every mass media communications corporation
on the big board for already proven useless and even contra-productive
anti-drug ads, the rip-off alert sirens began to wail. $2 Billion dollars
of our money to be funneled through the Partnership for a Drug Free America
to giant media corporations without the taxpayers having an opportunity
to object? And not one of our elected protectors even questions the efficacy
of this mountain of our money moving directly into the coffers of giant
corporations like Disney and The New York Times, without one dollar gong
into the drug ravaged communities that need it the most? Can this be true?
Holy Brinks Robbery! To give you an idea of how this massive expenditure
of money might have been fought, Brand Week, the leading advertising trade
magazine, last week, called the whole anti-drug ad campaign "suspect."
In an article with the ironic title "Drug Money," Daniel Hill
observed that "Before a company like General Motors or Colgate-Palmolive
goes out and spends $100 million on an advertising campaign, they do massive
amounts of state-of-the-art quantitative and qualitative research, producing
data that determines how best to communicate to the target audience. But
with the PDFA/White House effort, that data is simply gossamer." "Gossamer?"
As a court-qualified expert witness in drug trafficking and many other
related matters, I would not use "gossamer" to describe the "research"
of the PDFA/White House before expending our money. It is more like fraudulent
and/or massive ineptitude. In my own book Fight Back, (recommended reading
by the Clinton Administration for Communities with Drug Problems ((1993))),
which may be downloaded free of charge from the above web site, you can
find the proof that the federal government already knows that these ad
campaigns are useless and even contra productive. The Bainbridge Washington
school district (P. 160) was the example I chose to use, although there
were many others to chose from. The reason I chose Bainbridge was that
it was written about in a Wall Street Journal article by Joseph Pereira,
"Even a School That Is a Leader in The Drug War, Grades Itself a Failure,"
(11/10/90) and that it was considered by our federal government "one
of the most intensive and innovative anti drug programs in the country."
It was in fact a model for the Bush-Bennett anti-drug campaign of that
same year. The Bainbridge School district found the intensive anti-drug
ad campaign, (identical in content to the current $2 billion campaign)
not only unproductive, but contra-productive, that is the blatant hypocrisy
of the TV and print anti-drug ads seemed to cause kids to rebel and take
the very drugs they were being brow beaten about. As I pointed out in Fight
Back this sentiment was echoed by educators all over the land. For example,
Robert Ryan, then, an administrator in the California Department of Education
stated that "We've thrown $45 million over the last three years into
drug education in our schools. But as of yet I don't think we can say
what helps and what doesn't." $45 million in ad money that could not
be proven effective, and now $2 billion? Is this yet another sign that
our political leaders' handling of taxpayer funds is out of control? Judge
for yourself. In a recent AP release (October 17) entitled "Ad Spending
Continues To Climb" it was pointed out that avertising spending was
up 9.7% from last year. The largest advertiser listed was General Motors,
spending an approximate $1.1 billion on print, TV and radio ads. It seems
that AP left out one even bigger spender"the Gingrich/Clinton, $2
billion, anti-drug campaign. It is difficult for me, a career law enforcement
officer, to imagine that our leaders have allowed this fraud to come this
far. Especially in light of the fact that those $2 billion could have bought
just about every coca leaf grown in South America this year and saved us
the $14 billion we are about to spend on federal enforcement.
-
- Sincerely
-
- Michael Levine
-
- c/o WBAI Studios 120 Wall Street New
York, NY, 10005 212-209-2800 (voice mail 2970)
-
- Michael Levine is a 25 Year veteran federal
agent and author of the NY Times best seller "DEEP COVER" - (just
optioned for movie) "THE BIG WHITE LIE" -The fact-based thriller
(now in paperback) THE TRIANGLE OF DEATH (a/k/a The CIA's Worst Nightmare
)
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