cannabisnews.com: Senators Join Critics Of ONDCP Program 





Senators Join Critics Of ONDCP Program 
Posted by CN Staff on November 10, 2003 at 16:37:39 PT
By Wendy Melillo 
Source: Ad Week
Washington -- The draft of a Senate bill that would oust Ogilvy & Mather from the White House's anti-drug media campaign and give the Partnership for a Drug-Free America as much control over strategy as the Office of National Drug Control Policy is the latest sign that lawmakers intend to rein in an effort they feel has run amok, congressional and other sources said."This bill reflects a concern about how the program has been managed in the past," one congressional source said.
The reauthorization bill—expected to be introduced this week—will have to be reconciled with a House version introduced in May that does not address Ogilvy's role or the amount of creative control allocated to the Partnership. In the Senate, the bill is being sponsored by Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah.The lawmakers' dissatisfaction stems from concern that the campaign has shown mixed results, dismay over the public feuding between ONDCP and the Partnership over creative control, and anger over the White House drug-policy office's decision to select the New York office of Ogilvy again after settling civil charges over its billing practices. "If you are putting together a campaign where the purpose is to change beliefs, you don't want someone with questionable morals trying to preach that message," the source said.The draft bill calls for hiring an agency that would solely handle the media portion of the campaign; the Partnership would then handle all the creative. Ogilvy handles media and some creative. (Before Ogilvy was hired, during the campaign's pre-launch phase, Zenith Media handled media.) "The media buying firm shall not provide any service or material, or conduct any function or activity which can be provided by the Partnership," the draft bill reads.The Partnership, which coordinates pro bono ads for the campaign contributed by about 40 shops, was unhappy when the ONDCP asked Ogilvy to prepare ads for its drugs-and-terror campaign outside the Partnership's process. Those ads debuted during last year's Super Bowl.Both ONDCP and the Partnership declined comment. Ogilvy referred calls to ONDCP.The draft bill also calls for all PSAs aired as part of ONDCP's media match to "directly relate to substance-abuse prevention." (When ONDCP buys time for an ad, the media company must air another message approved by the campaign for free.) Through a contract managed by the Ad Council, media outlets currently can select from a reel of approved messages that include PSAs for after-school and mentoring programs not directly related to drug prevention. The Ad Council opposes a change in policy. "The way we look at it, keeping kids off drugs is more than telling them not to do drugs," said its president, Peggy Conlon. "It's giving kids and their parents viable programs and something to do so the kids are not hanging out on street corners."Some sources familiar with the campaign said the Senate's draft bill, which also calls for a General Accounting Office audit of the campaign, is a testimony to the Partnership's lobbying effort. If Congress were to pass a bill that included all the measures in the Senate's draft, it would be a big victory for the Partnership, which has argued that the campaign, now in its sixth year, should return to its original vision as a public-private partnership.Partnership president Stephen Pasierb testified at a House reauthorization hearing in March that the campaign veered off-track. "In years three and four, the campaign stopped showing effectiveness," he said at the time. "Multiple themes were incorporated into the campaign's advertising, diluting focus. The campaign changed its target audience ... to younger teenagers ... who predominantly do not use illicit drugs. The campaign's advertising-approval process grew complex and time-consuming. The majority of the campaign's match ... was no longer dedicated to the effort's core anti-drug messages."Fighting for creative control, the Partnership and ONDCP have blamed each other for the campaign's mixed results. At press time on Friday, ONDCP continued to lobby Hatch's office over the bill, sources said. Hatch's office did not return calls.Sources said the fighting has hurt the campaign's financing. For next year's budget, the Senate has proposed spending $100 million on the effort, while the House has called for $150 million. Even if the campaign receives the higher figure, it will be the lowest spend since the effort began. "There is no empirical formula that proves how much is enough," noted Rich Hamilton, CEO of Zenith Optimedia Group, Americas, who once worked on the campaign. "As long as the pro bono match is retained, $150 million would still be quite an effective level. And even if it was $100 million, it would still be worth investing in."The Partnership has argued that more should be spent on the media buys and less on other efforts, such as public relations and Internet outreach. But some sources argue that ONDCP's evaluations have shown that awareness of the campaign is high among parents and teenagers, and that the real issue is producing messages that will change behavior. "Spending more is not going to have a different effect unless the message is different," said one source familiar with the campaign. "And everyone involved is accountable for the advertising." Note: 'This bill reflects a concern about how the program has been managed in the past.'Source: Ad WeekAuthor: Wendy Melillo Published: November 10, 2003 Copyright: 2003 VNU eMedia Contact: info adweek.com Website: http://www.adweek.com/Related Articles:Ogilvy Faces Anti-Drug Challenge in Senatehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17737.shtmlPartnership Gets Sarcastic In Latest Anti-Pot Spothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17678.shtml
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Comment #13 posted by Jose Melendez on November 12, 2003 at 09:48:58 PT
what the other side is still saying . . .
These are relatively simple to debunk:http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/druglegal/17dl.htm
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Comment #12 posted by Jose Melendez on November 12, 2003 at 05:39:29 PT
Got Rights?
from:http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s987257.htmSoros pledges millions to oust BushAM - Wednesday, 12 November , 2003  08:24:56Reporter: John Shovelan DAVID HARDAKER: The billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros says his main goal right now is to get US President George W. Bush out of office in 2004, and he's put his money where his mouth is, donating about $8-million to a left-wing group which has the same aim.George Soros is worth about $10-billion, and he says there's more where that came from if it's needed.From Washington John Shovelan reports.JOHN SHOVELAN: Unseating President Bush is, according to George Soros, the "central focus" of his life. "America," he says "under Bush, is a danger to the world."GEORGE SOROS: I think we are now being led by people who follow a false and dangerous ideology. They are normally referred to as neo-conservatives or neo-cons. I call them American supremacists.JOHN SHOVELAN: Mr Soros is handing over $8-million to MoveOn.org, a left-wing group also opposed to the policies of President Bush, and which has begun a television advertising campaign to press its case.EXCERPT FROM TELEVISION AD: If there's money for Iraq, why isn't there money for America? The truth is, we're not being led, we're being misled.JOHN SHOVELAN: Soros has never hidden his dislike of the Bush administration, outlining it earlier to the Open Society Institute, but rarely has this been so bluntly put as today in an interview with the Washington Post.Mr Soros says the supremacist ideology which he claims guides the White House is reminiscent of his childhood in occupied Hungary. He told the Post "when I hear Bush say you are either with us or against us, it reminds me of the Germans, conjuring," he went on, "a nazi slogan on the walls – the enemy is listening."GEORGE SOROS: The United States, being in the dominant position that it is in, does have to take an active role in the world. It has to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, but it has to do so as part of an international community. So by going it alone and imposing our will and riding rough-shod over the opinion of the rest of the world, we are disqualifying ourselves from playing that role, that by going about it the wrong way we are destroying our chances of being a constructive leader of the world.JOHN SHOVELAN: The Soros campaign to defeat President Bush began several months ago, and he's so far contributed over $20-million to MoveOn.org and another group dedicated to mobilise voters in 17 battleground States expected to be the most tightly fought contests in the presidential election.(snipped)from:http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=565&fArticleId=282302Soros's foundation left 'paralysed' after raid  November 12, 2003By Sapa-AFP  Moscow - Fifteen years since it started work in post-Soviet Russia, US billionaire financier George Soros's foundation has been "paralysed" after 50 camouflage-clad men seized its Moscow offices and removed computer records and archives.
 
 Yekaterina Geniyeva, the head of Soros's Open Society Institute in Russia, told journalists yesterday that the raid, ordered by the building's owner ostensibly because of a dispute over rent, appeared to be politically motivated.
 
 The raid, at about midnight on Thursday, came just days after Soros publicly criticised the jailing of Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky as "persecution" that would force business to submit to the state.
 
 The organisation had lost all information on its 1 000 grant recipients, Geniyeva said.
 
 "This means that the work of the Soros foundation is paralysed. We can't work without our financial framework."
 
 "I really hope that there is no connection between the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and what happened with our building ... But I cannot rule this out completely. There are too many coincidences: the interview of Soros, the arrest of Khodorkovsky, the seizure of the Soros building and the removal of documents. We do not understand why they were needed.              top.DisplayAds("Pos7",2,565);      
 "The Soros foundation has been stripped bare. There is nothing left but the walls. We will try to resurrect our activities but we cannot be certain when," Geniyeva said.
 
 The foundation is involved in promoting civil society and the development of democratic ideas, chiefly in former Soviet bloc countries.
 
 Khodorkovsky, the former boss of oil giant Yukos, has been in jail since October 25 on seven charges including fraud and tax evasion.
 
(snipped)
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Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on November 12, 2003 at 04:47:33 PT:
I'd recommend everyone read this
I can't post the article here because of the snip rules, but it gives you an idea of the sneakiness of the present Administration...and how they learned NOTHING from Iran-Contra:CITIZENS, NOT SOLDIERS 
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1068535831313320.xmlThe civil war in Colombia, the one many of us here and elsewhere predicted would suck the US in like quicksand, is heating up. US 'contractors' (free translation: mercenaries) have ben captured, and the US government is dithering about their fates.Originally, they were highly paid DrugWarriors, and that's the cover they still insist on. But the fact of the matter is they are no different from US military intelligence gathering personnel. Except that their legal status provides them no protecetion. And the FARC sees them as enemy soldiers...who can be *and have been* executed. "Air America" in Viet Nam, And Southeast Air in Nicaragua, all over again.
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Comment #10 posted by delariand on November 11, 2003 at 13:00:29 PT
Oops... my apologies.
Typing too fast, thinking too slow.... I freely admit that I didn't have an ecstasy problem, I had a self control problem. I didn't intend to imply that ecstasy is a problematic drug, in fact it's quite the opposite. I had so many wonderful experiences with ecstasy, as a whole far more good came from using it than bad. The problems that I had arose from my own personal failings, and addictive non-MDMA substances being sold to me as ecstasy.
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on November 11, 2003 at 11:46:22 PT
One More Question
No one I knew drank beer or any alcohol. No one wanted to do Heroin either. Alcohol and Heroin were shunned by people I knew. When did alcohol become acceptable?
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on November 11, 2003 at 11:32:22 PT
I'd Like To Ask Something About MDMA
Is MDMA Ecstasy? I am not familiar with these new modern drugs. I am from a time when Cannabis and LSD were the drugs that people wanted to try. Tripping was what people did at a party. We had good speed because diet pills were very good. Then they started making Fastin and I quit. They were yucky. What is the difference between MDMA and diet pills from way back in the 70s?
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Comment #7 posted by Max Flowers on November 11, 2003 at 11:24:50 PT
Delariand
"I'm still smoking the cannabis, to no ill effect, but the ecstasy was a problem. Thankfully it's in my past, but I know I'm not alone."I hope you will clarify; MDMA may have been a problem for *you*, but you are dangerously close to falling into a very common trap of non-critical thinking and making it sound like it is a problem for anyone who would do it, or that it is a problem drug in general. It is most certainly NOT. The only problem that occurs with MDMA use is when people take it before taking the time to learn the basic facts about it, and thus fail to take it in the right setting, and/or take it under the wrong physical conditions (like while dancing hard and sweating for one example!). We also don't want people under 18 doing it, but the way to accomplish that is not to prohibit the entire population from having it. Also, people who tend to abuse any psychoactive substance are another group who probably should not do MDMA (or any other psychoactive compound/substance) but again, their failure to be able to control themselves should not have any effect on what I do with such compounds, since I do not have that lack of control.I do MDMA about twice a year and it is an extremely healing, beautiful and positive experience for me every time. I have had numerous very healing and beneficial revelations with it and the experience is always of the most personal, spiritual nature for me. It really irks me that just because some people can't handle such a powerful entheogenic experience, the rest of us have to suffer negative stigma because of that. Not picking on you specifically delariand, but in keeping with the open nature of this site, it would have been nice for you to explain why it was a problem for you and not just alluding to it being a big problem for you and the others you refer to. If you did MDMA more than you should (more often than several months in between sessions) then the problem was yours. I'd like to hear more about why you can handle cannabis, but you can't handle MDMA.Sorry if I seem a litte touchy on this issue, but I just got done reading a shocking post on a private email list I belong to which exposed how in 1985 a drug war prostitute by the name of "Dr" Charles Schuster tossed any scientific ethics down the toilet, sabotaged MDMA research and got in bed with the federal anti-drug goons, giving vital assistance to the emergency scheduling of MDMA, which has been called the most valuable compound in psychiatric therapy (by real scientists who haven't been bought off). Schuster's rationale for this slide into scientific prostitution? "Sometimes I have to do what he I'm asked to do, and that's all there is to it."Wow, what a fine researcher. His credentials aren't worth using to wipe my butt with.AP
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Comment #6 posted by delariand on November 11, 2003 at 06:05:11 PT
Speaking for the DARE generation
When I was little, all I knew about drugs was that they were bad and my mommy told me not to do them. That was good enough for me, until I heard about pot from the DARE officer. He made it sound pretty fun and I decided then to try it if I ever came across it. Then, later on after I'd already tried pot but was still firmly against synthetic drugs, I saw a video in a high school health class about ecstasy. The video made it sound pretty fun, and once again I decided to try it if I ever came across it.I'm still smoking the cannabis, to no ill effect, but the ecstasy was a problem. Thankfully it's in my past, but I know I'm not alone. Most of my friends got their first look at drugs in DARE, and that's when the curiousity started.Look, I don't claim to be some genius of human behavior or psychology, but lets look at this realistically: Take a bunch of young children, show them a bunch of drugs they don't recognize, tell them a few basic facts and then tell them they aren't ever allowed to go near any of them. When's the last time your kid listened to YOU when you told him or her not to do something? Much less if you present it as "Hey, this is really mysterious and dangerous, and alot of people do it for fun, don't you even think about it or else!"
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on November 11, 2003 at 03:43:13 PT:
It's like "How many angels can dance 
on the head of a pin?" The whole issue has about as much relevence.The entire argument of WHO should get the funding completely obscures the real question: WHY should they get the funding, when the entire project is a fool's errand to begin with?Today's anti-drug 'public service announcements' (odd how they don't seem to have the desired effect, isn't it?) aren't serving the targeted public at all. Not when the DARE generation has shown a propensity to use MORE illicit substances than previous ones. The kids LAUGH at them. But these lawmakers and their industry bedmates refuse to look at the reality of their ineffectiveness, while unconsciously admitting it by having this argument take place. Because if there *were* any evidence of their effectiveness - instead of the plethora of facts denoting it's lack thereof - the entire argument would be moot.But these people will continue to spin their mental wheels...and waste billions of badly needed funds for other, more worthy projects in the process. Such as treatment beds for those who truly want to get that damn horse or coke monkey off their backs.I still hold there's a secret lab somewhere that pols are whisked to for lobotomies after election; it's the only explanation I can come up with for them acting so stupidly once in power...Our tax dollars at work...NOT!
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on November 10, 2003 at 20:35:41 PT
Thanks EJ!
I have it posted now. Here it is.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17775.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on November 10, 2003 at 20:17:21 PT
News about to break
The Kubbys are about to hear about their refugee case:http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3178.htmlI can see now why Steve Kubby hates SB420 so much -- the government is trying to use it to argue that he can go back safely.
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on November 10, 2003 at 18:29:14 PT
A big picture link
I thought about this all day. It is my belief that prohibition is just about keeping the prices up just so that the global mafia or CIA or whatever can benefit by the profits. They are not going to abandon all the money just because of someone's rights or if people have to die or go to jail. It is all about the money just like the Opium War with China was not about stopping opium sales in China, it was about making sure England could get people hooked on something they did not want and surely did not need.This is a big story and part of the big picture- http://www.nypress.com/16/45/news&columns/cage.cfm
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Comment #1 posted by OverwhelmSam on November 10, 2003 at 16:54:25 PT:
Only $100 Million?
Heck, go ahead and spend a billion, ten billion or more. Bleed money until it becomes evident that the most effect measure is legalization and regulation.
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