|
Annom
※※※※※※
Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 6,367
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 10 months, 6 days
|
Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense
#3139301 - 09/15/04 03:24 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen153969330sep15,0,7831039.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
Let me get this straight.
Some American kid smoking pot is to blame for the World Trade Center terror attack?
Apparently so.
That's the message, anyway, of a glitzy new museum show that opened yesterday on the first three floors at One Times Square, sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
"Drug Traffickers, Terrorists and You," the exhibit is called, which, if I'm not mistaken, was once the official slogan for Times Square.
OK, maybe not. But it probably should have been.
And all the top generals in the government's Official War on Some Drugs gathered yesterday in cleaned-up Times Square for a standing-room-only opening reception. All of them seemed to agree: That 16-year-old with the pack of rolling papers in his jeans pocket, he's pretty much responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
"If you use drugs, you are standing against the rule of law," warned John P. Walters, the White House drug czar. "You are standing against freedom. You are standing against those who fight against terrorism."
"Your drug dollars, this so-called victimless crime, fund people around the world who do us grievous, grievous harm," added Deputy Attorney General James Comey, after delivering the warm greetings of his boss, John Ashcroft.
Like many anti-drug campaigns before it, this one rests on shaky evidence and throws a fast emotional punch. Just inside the big glass doors is a green 1994 Thunderbird, smashed like an old Budweiser can. A few crayons, a toy truck, a couple of plastic ride-em cars and other heart-wrenching symbols of childhood strewn not-so-randomly nearby.
The little write-up says the T-bird driver was high on coke and other drugs when he killed a woman in Ohio.
Which is awful, I think we can all agree.
But that's just the start. The floors above are outfitted with meth-lab mock-ups, hypodermic needles under Plexiglas, a brightly lit model of a brain on drugs and photos of just about every famous druggie who ever OD'd.
Jim Morrison! Judy Garland! Elvis must be here somewhere.
Maybe he got crowded out by Osama bin Laden, al Qaida, the Taliban, Hezbollah and assorted other Middle Eastern terrorists, all getting fat off the dollars of high-school pot smokers and South Bronx crackheads. That highly tentative connection, anyway, is the real message here.
To hammer it home, there's a prominent display of World Trade Center debris accompanied by an audio sound track reliving Sept. 11 and tying it straight to the drug trade.
"Terrorist organizations are turning to alternative methods of funding for their activities," the museum material asserts. "One lucrative revenue stream is the sale of illegal drugs."
Just look how close they are!
"While not always involving the same groups, drugs and terror frequently flourish in the same environments," the write-up explains. "It is small wonder then that opium production and terrorism flourished in Afghanistan, just as coca production and terrorism flourish in other countries, such as Colombia."
Which is kinda like saying, "It is small wonder Broadway and the Mafia flourished in New York, just as lettuce-growing and car crashes flourish in California."
So close, they have to be connected, right?
Unfortunately, the evidence for these connections runs from murky to plainly overstated to partly-true-but-hardly-the-point.
Sure, terrorists have raised money from all kinds of sources, including the drug trade and any number of official United States IRS 503c charitable groups. The Mid East Fund for Easing of the Pain of Blessed Martyrs' Families, that sort of thing.
And the biggest terror-funder of all? The sale of oil to the West.
Didn't most of the 9/11 hijackers come from Saudi Arabia? Hasn't Saudi money supported those hate-filled madrases for years?
You want to starve terror? Get out of that SUV!
We got the first sniff of this exaggerated drug-and-terror link in the anti-drug ads at the Super Bowl in 2002. The spots were widely criticized, even within the anti-drug community, as unsupported by any firm evidence.
But now the message is back. The messengers are as unapologetic as ever. None of this should come as any surprise.
It's a political decision, really.
Since the War on Terror pushed its way to the top of the national agenda, America's long-running War on Drugs has found itself a little edged out. The public has been losing interest. So have Congressional funders.
Nothing like a little talk of terror to focus the mind in 2004.
You should have seen the crowds at the museum opening yesterday!
|
daussaulit
Forgetful
Registered: 08/06/02
Posts: 2,894
Loc: Earth
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Annom]
#3141057 - 09/15/04 08:49 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
They have one example of someone high on drugs driving a car and killing someone. They should have an exhibit on how many people get killed due to alcohol related accidents and an exhibit showing how cigarettes have killed thousands.
|
HarveyWalbanger
Demiurge
Registered: 06/24/02
Posts: 3,076
Loc: 8b
Last seen: 1 month, 23 days
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Annom]
#3142886 - 09/16/04 09:17 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Fight terrorism, grow weed.
|
Lazerouth
Drunkard
Registered: 10/15/00
Posts: 1,091
Loc: England
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: daussaulit]
#3153551 - 09/19/04 07:12 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
daussaulit said: They have one example of someone high on drugs driving a car and killing someone. They should have an exhibit on how many people get killed due to alcohol related accidents and an exhibit showing how cigarettes have killed thousands.
Better yet how about an exhibit of all the people involved in car accidents while being wrecklesly sober.
|
Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Annom]
#3153651 - 09/19/04 07:40 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Funny that - Opium trade in so-called "liberated" Afghanistan is flourishing as never before under the auspices of the US government.
|
kindadank
Stranger
Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 702
Last seen: 14 years, 1 month
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Le_Canard]
#3155386 - 09/20/04 11:25 AM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
...yup and it was supposedly pretty much stopped under the Taliban...guess they aren't going to mention that in the exhibit.
|
Ego Death
Justadropofwaterinanendlesssea
Registered: 04/27/03
Posts: 10,447
Loc: The War Machine
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: HarveyWalbanger]
#3155656 - 09/20/04 12:37 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Excellent
The shroomery should set up that one even if its just to show how rediculous this "war" on drugs is.
It makes you laugh then cry! Laugh at how insane the situation is and cry becuase that situation is our reality.
--------------------
|
gdman
badger, badger,badger...
Registered: 12/10/02
Posts: 16,286
Loc: Dancing In the Streets
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Le_Canard]
#3155972 - 09/20/04 01:42 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
wasn't opium banned by the taliban? after all, they where a religious islamic organization, islam prohibits teh use of all intoxicants.
-------------------- Got a question about a substance? Erowid might already have your answer! Have questions about the mushroom experience? The Tripper's FAQ may have your answer or someone else might have had your question before. I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights. - Theodor Seuss Geisel Dr. Suess "I didn't come here to be easily understood" - Steve
|
Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Annom]
#3156512 - 09/20/04 03:24 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
LMAO.. LMAO!
"Sure, terrorists have raised money from all kinds of sources, including the drug trade and any number of official United States IRS 503c charitable groups. The Mid East Fund for Easing of the Pain of Blessed Martyrs' Families, that sort of thing."
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
|
Tyger
PeAcE
Registered: 08/29/04
Posts: 412
Loc: My house (Canada)
Last seen: 19 years, 5 months
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: gdman]
#3165189 - 09/22/04 02:22 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
gdman420 said: wasn't opium banned by the taliban? after all, they where a religious islamic organization, islam prohibits teh use of all intoxicants.
even booze
|
gdman
badger, badger,badger...
Registered: 12/10/02
Posts: 16,286
Loc: Dancing In the Streets
|
Re: Drug-fighters high on their own nonsense [Re: Tyger]
#3166716 - 09/22/04 08:10 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
|
|
'specilly booze
-------------------- Got a question about a substance? Erowid might already have your answer! Have questions about the mushroom experience? The Tripper's FAQ may have your answer or someone else might have had your question before. I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights. - Theodor Seuss Geisel Dr. Suess "I didn't come here to be easily understood" - Steve
|
|