Why Pot Smokers Are on the Side of the Terrorists

Jacob Sullum | September 14, 2004

Although the federal government is no longer running those ads that accuse drug users of supporting terrorism, the Drug Enforcement Administration has a traveling exhibit with the same message. After stops in Arlington, Virginia (home of the DEA's museum); Dallas, Texas; and Ashland, Nebraska, "Target America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists, and You" opened today in Times Square, missing the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks by just a few days.

USA Today reports that "the exhibit includes a large display of debris collected from [the Pentagon and the World Trade Center]. The exhibit does not specifically tie the attacks to drug trafficking, but it uses the events to explain how terrorists use the drug trade as one of several methods to fund attacks. It cites U.S. intelligence linking the Taliban in Afghanistan, and by extension its thriving heroin economy, to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda."

Never mind that any link between drugs and terrorism is an artifact of prohibition, or that Afghanistan's heroin ends up in the veins of Europeans (many of them French, no doubt) rather than Americans. The latest government figures indicate that three-quarters of illegal drug users are pot smokers. In what sense were they complicit in the murder of 3,000 Americans?

"The ONDCP spent millions on ads that blamed U.S. teenagers for murder and torture," says Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance. "With this exhibit, is the DEA saying that Governor George Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and hundreds of thousands of other New Yorkers who have used illegal drugs are responsible for [9/11] and other acts of terrorism?"

Good question. I doubt the DEA knows the answer.

Comments

|9.14.04 @ 4:42PM|#

I guess the feds will try anything to keep a small fire under the smoldering remains of the "War on Drugs". If anyone, including the president, would like to make some progress on the "War on Terror", how about crying uncle with "the pot" and other drugs and reallocating funds and personnel to help stop people who are really are harmful...

|9.14.04 @ 4:43PM|#

I guess the feds will try anything to keep a small fire under the smoldering remains of the "War on Drugs". If anyone, including the president, would like to make some progress on the "War on Terror", how about crying uncle with "the pot" and other drugs and reallocating funds and personnel to help stop people who are really are harmful...

|9.14.04 @ 4:44PM|#

sorry for the duplication...

|9.14.04 @ 5:00PM|#

"The latest government figures indicate that three-quarters of illegal drug users are pot smokers. In what sense were they complicit in the murder of 3,000 Americans?"

Maybe they're working on a new theory that Humboldt County is an Al Qaeda stronghold.

|9.14.04 @ 5:00PM|#

So when W was snorting 8-balls at Camp David, he was supporting terrorism?

Kitty Kelly better have her facts straight!

|9.14.04 @ 5:28PM|#

The best line from the article:

***"The same techniques used to smuggle in drugs can be used to smuggle in weapons of mass destruction," Placido says.***

Hmmm, maybe if people didn't have a reason to smuggle drugs, those techniques would not have become so developed and refined in the first place...

|9.14.04 @ 5:28PM|#

The latest government figures indicate that three-quarters of illegal drug users are pot smokers. In what sense were they complicit in the murder of 3,000 Americans?

Well, being a pot smoker for 30 years I can honestly say one thing, there's no way in hell will I ever call a cop when I see some arab male between 15-65 years old taking photos of some high rise or bank building. I can't afford the risk to myself and those I might share a little bud with just to report some one's questionable behavior. Sure, everything changed after 9/11, the gov't now groups me with those arab fellows who want to do harm to Americans. The gratitude I get for paying my taxes, my bills, working a career job, voting, and shopping at Wal-Mart. Not to mention owning a home, marrying a member of the opposite sex in a good christian church, member of the NRA, donating to the Fireman's Fund, and volunteering for the blood bank drive.

If Kerry wants to truly recognize the difference between terrorists and pot smokers, I'll gladly vote for him. But, not only is Kerry a douche bag, he is also the big stinking pussy to boot.

|9.14.04 @ 5:29PM|#

If the drug demand were met by domestic supply, very little revenue might make its way to foreign shores and terrorist training camps.

Overgrow Osama!

|9.14.04 @ 5:30PM|#

How anybody will make it through four more years of Bush or four years of Kerry without drugs I don't know.

Phil|9.14.04 @ 6:03PM|#

SR, I'm trying to imagine Nuke Mules swallowing condoms full of fissionable material to bring into the U.S., but the image won't quite coalesce. Still, it's a funny image.

|9.14.04 @ 6:20PM|#

Not only has the war on drugs greatly enhanced the technology of smuggling, it has made the smugglers very, very wealthy.

This thread gives me an idea for a small "l" candidate... "Elect me and I will reduce illegal drug use in America by 75 percent!" What voter could refuse such a beguiling promise.

|9.14.04 @ 7:43PM|#

How perverse is it to perpetrate the biggest, nastiest most violent fraud in the history of man, and then trot out the graphic casualties as evidence to support its continuation... I need to go puke now...

|9.14.04 @ 8:03PM|#

Someone who thinks he or she is making an individual choice that won't harm anyone else is not seeing the larger picture of where their money eventually goes," says Anthony Placido, special agent in charge of the New York division of the DEA.

That is the best line... Yes actually I believe I have "seen the big picture"... you would probably rather I didnt...

|9.14.04 @ 10:03PM|#

We "swarm journalists" have deeply embarrassed CBS and Dan Rather, but compare that to the damage we do against the DEA.
Where is the swarm for this discrepancy?

|9.15.04 @ 12:59AM|#

Wha? Holy Cripes, the *DEA* has a friggin' *MUSEUM*?

AAAAAAAAAARRRGGHGHGHH!!!

|9.15.04 @ 1:34AM|#

dead_elvis,

That's exactly what I thought. :)

James Anderson Merritt|9.15.04 @ 1:58AM|#

So, if you vote Kerry or Bush, you will almost certainly get more and worse of the drug war. If you don't vote at all, someone else will almost certainly give you Kerry or Bush, along with more and worse of the drug war.

You really need to vote FOR somebody in November, someone who isn't Bush or Kerry, and someone who will end the Drug War.

Can Bush get much worse? Can Kerry be much better? If you aren't afraid of either one, you can vote for somebody else altogether. There's some righteous anger here. Use it to overcome the fear and loathing that the two-party scam induces.

And if you're in California, try applying that same thinking to the Senate race. Boxer and Jones will never end the drug war. But there is a serious, capable candidate who will.

|9.15.04 @ 2:39AM|#

To amplify on James' point, the LP candidate for Senate in CA is actually mainstream and articulate. Oh, and sane. By LP standards, that's saying a lot! ;)

|9.15.04 @ 2:47AM|#

"To amplify on James' point, the LP candidate for Senate in CA is actually mainstream and articulate. Oh, and sane."

...and he won't win either.

|9.15.04 @ 10:13AM|#

I disagree that Kerry and Bush would be about the same on the drug war.

Kerry almost lost his Senate seat because he stood up and opposed mandatory minimums for drug posession. While that is certainly not good enough, it is way ahead of Bush. Name a single time George Bush ever took a stand against expanding the drug war.

|9.15.04 @ 12:34PM|#

i belive he was buried face first in a pile of blow at the time.

i'm sorry, but i don't quite see anyone scaling back the war on drugs that segrams doesn't sell. there's just too much fucking money in it.

|9.15.04 @ 1:27PM|#

Honest Pot Smoker:

"and volunteering for the blood bank drive"

Keep your THC-polluted blood away from my baby!!

|9.15.04 @ 1:29PM|#

joe: when he was huffing 8balls at camp david!

|9.15.04 @ 1:35PM|#

Honest Pot Smoker: You're not the only one!!!

Mad Mother: I used to work at a blood center. You wouldn't believe what kinds of folks donate blood. If you don't like it start your own blood bank!

James Anderson Merritt|9.15.04 @ 1:57PM|#

Joe said, "I disagree that Kerry and Bush would be about the same on the drug war.

"Kerry almost lost his Senate seat because he stood up and opposed mandatory minimums for drug posession. While that is certainly not good enough, it is way ahead of Bush. Name a single time George Bush ever took a stand against expanding the drug war."

Here's what I originally said: "Can Bush get much worse? Can Kerry be much better?" This left open the possibility that Kerry might be a little bit better, but that the delta between the two men was, in my opinion, negligible, especially when measured against the potential for really improving things by deserting the Demos and GOP, and in view of the fact that small deltas tend to be ground down and smoothed out by the rigors of the two-party game now being played in Washington.

Remember that candidate Bush did take a noteworthy and encouraging drug war stand, saying that things such as medical marijuana should be left to the states to decide. President Bush, however, did the opposite. Even if Senator/Candidate Kerry did or said things that would suggest he would handle the drug war better, can we really trust him to follow through as President, unless his campaign positions are fairly potent to begin with, and unless they sit at center stage? (Even then...?)

I am becoming more and more convinced that the central issues of this campaign are the three Wars: The War in Iraq (or the "peace" that is still a war); The War on Terror; and the War on Drugs. End them, and most of the domestic and foreign policy issues will improve, some markedly so. Ending these wars, and proceeding on a non-interventionist path both at home and abroad, is uppermost in the agenda of Libertarian candidates for national office.

|9.15.04 @ 2:00PM|#

Keep your THC-polluted blood away from my baby!!

Mad Mother, Keep your baby away from my THC-enhanced blood!!!

Actually, for the record, I solicited donations at local businesses, and like a typical pot smoker, I wasn't high at the time. Also, like a typical pot smoker, I donated some piss to my company, it was clean as usual.

The joke has always been and always will be on you, Mad Mother.

|9.15.04 @ 3:02PM|#

anon:

I happen to have a walking blood-bank at my disposal. It's called my husband.

|9.15.04 @ 3:20PM|#

"Ending these wars, and proceeding on a non-interventionist path both at home and abroad, is uppermost in the agenda of Libertarian candidates for national office."

Cue sappy music and roll credits.

|9.15.04 @ 3:38PM|#

As far as Kerry V. Bush, Kerry has said at the very least that it should be up to states to regulate Medical Pot, not the federal govt. We all know where Bush falls. So I'd say that makes it rather obvious which way one should vote. Unfortunately in this country votes for 3rd party candidates do NOT translate into seats in the house/senate, so please esp. during this election, do not throw your vote away. There's a very good chance that bush will win re-election this year, and between that and the patriot act, that should scare you to your core.

|9.15.04 @ 4:40PM|#

As previously stated on this site, voting for a third party candidate is not throwing your vote away, if it forces one of the major parties to lose and then conside taking up some of your third party positions.

Worked for the Dixiecrats in the 60s, the reform party/balanced budget folks in the early 90s, and hopefully for whoever has the balls to push for decriminalization in the 2010s.

|9.15.04 @ 7:52PM|#

I agree with James and the Guy in the back row...

|9.16.04 @ 7:45PM|#

Phil - you kind of beat me to it (no surprise, as I'm a day behind). I was going to say: Who knew you could hide a weapon of mass destruction up your ass when you crossed the border? Even though I don't even particularly care for pot, I'm so tempted to smuggle a joint into that museum.

|9.17.04 @ 12:23AM|#

I am, of course, pro-legalization.

But what gets me is that pretty much all of the drug users I know are also the same people I see insisting that I buy "fair trade" products, or that I boycott some shoe company that uses sweatshop labor, or that I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because it doesn't provide health care to its employees. Just how do these people think the drug manufacturers and distributors treat *their* labor force? Do the drug mules who risk death smuggling drug balloons in their stomachs get health coverage and 401k's? Are pot growers allowed to unionize? Are environmentally-friendly methods used for brewing up crystal meth?

Now, me, I have no problem with people buying illegal drugs (although I myself don't). But then, I also buy coffee at Starbucks, and wear tennis shoes made by oppressed third-worlders, and don't try to make people feel guilty about it.