Posted in Chronicle Blog by Scott Morgan on Thu, 05/31/2007 - 11:40pm
Ever wonder what it's like to watch a drug warrior squirm? I've had the pleasure a few times now, but the discussion I witnessed this afternoon at the Cato Institute was particularly intense.
Today, Matthew B. Robinson and Renee G. Sherlen presented the findings of their new book Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Impressively, ONDCP's brave "Chief Scientist" David Murray was on hand
to address this particularly comprehensive attack on the credibility of
his office.
The authors delivered a tight synopsis of their findings, bashing
ONDCP propaganda with charts, graphs, and effects. Dr. Murray made a
show of feigned surprise and eye-rolling, but the breadth and substance
of the criticism leveled against his work was too substantial to shrug
off. It almost felt like a set-up; the dignified Cato equivalent of
strapping a mob snitch to a chair and beating him with a blackjack.
In turn, Dr. Murray spat blood on his tormentors, dismissing their
analysis as biased and incompetent. Unlike his disciplined performance
at last year's medical marijuana debate,
Murray was irreverent and visibly angry. From my second row seat I
could see his face turn crimson, but his voice never shook. Murray's
composure and efficiency is the reason he makes these appearances
instead of his boss.
The question of the day among my colleagues was why ONDCP would even
respond to such a categorical refutation of its right to exist. As a
young reformer, I learned from Eric Sterling
that drug warriors typically avoid debate because doing so inherently
legitimizes opposing viewpoints. Moreover, the discussion of statistics
paints ONDCP into a particularly dark corner by rendering irrelevant
the emotional appeals and factually-vacant soundbites that generally
dominate their rhetoric.
This level of engagement between ONDCP and its critics is rare if
not unprecedented. Hostile as it may have been, today's conversation
demonstrates that the federal government no longer perceives itself as
impervious to criticism. Murray praised the Cato Institute's work in
other areas and was clearly exasperated to find himself in its
crosshairs. ONDCP's crumbling monopoly on serious drug policy
discussion becomes increasingly vivid when calls for accountability
emerge from prestigious think-tanks, Congress, and the GAO.
As the old cliche goes, "First they laugh at you. Then they ignore
you. Then they fight you. Then you win." They're fighting back now.
I was there, too. Had a nice talk with Cato's Timothy Lynch
afterward, who moderated the event, somehow our paths have never
crossed in person before. Lynch is a strong voice against prohibition,
which you can see if you read his material on Cato's web site, or for
that matter the interviews he's done for us.
This was indeed an intense event, as Scott described. I confess that
for a couple of hours I actually felt a little bad that we basically
call these ONDCP guys liars all the time. I commented to Tim, and to
Eric, that it's possible these guys actually believe the things they're
saying.
I still think that's possible, but my moment of feeling bad for them
is over. Now I'm just offended. Maybe Dr. Murray does believe the
things he's saying -- maybe they really didn't want the Monitoring the
Future methods to change midstream, one of the few points Murray
self-righteously argued to play victim. There's still no excuse for the
unceasing games they've been playing in how they've presented the
numbers all these years. And he calls US the dishonest ones?!?!?!?!?
One example: One of the authors, Prof. Scherlen, if I remember
correctly, discussed how in the 2003 Strategy they omitted a large
portion of the drug enforcement expenditures from the budget figures,
with the effect of creating an appearance of an even split between
enforcement and treatment/prevention, whereas in reality the budget is
even more skewed toward enforcement than before. I can't fault Murray
for not addressing that in his reply, because it wasn't a situation in
which all the different points could be debated back and forth. But it
is still a glaring example. I wasn't picked to ask a question, but if I
had been I was going to ask Murray about it. Shortly after that
Strategy was released, I heard Murray's boss, drug czar John Walters, give a talk for a small prohibitionist student group at American University,
and I took the opportunity to ask him about it. He "explained" that
they had made the budget reporting more "accurate" -- get this -- by
omitting line items from the budget if they were from programs that are
not exclusively devoted to drug control.
Think about that -- if only half of a program costing a million
dollars was devoted to drug enforcement, using Walters' scheme none of
that would be counted in the budget, even though half a million of it
obviously should be. I'm sorry, that is the picture of dishonesty,
Murray's real or pretended feelings of offense notwithstanding. It was
really brazen too -- Walters actually had his revision of the budget
reporting "to make it more accurate" included in his bio as read by the
student organizer when introducing him.
The bottom line: Don't believe the drug czar or his minions, but
don't take my word for it either -- buy this book, and read it! Ideally from us.
David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network
Washington, DC
http://stopthedrugwar.org
