The media and the war on drugs

by Stan Gotlieb

Mérida, Yucatan. Capital of the “Independent Republic of the Yucatan”, as the locals think of it: their ancestors fought a long and bloody war to secede from Mexico. They didn’t make it, but they are proud of the effort. Along with the state of Quintana Roo (KEEN-ta-na ROE), the Yucatan is the major entry point for Colombian cocaine on its way to a dealer near you.

Along with a couple of hundred other people, we are here to attend a conference. “Out From the Shadows: Ending Drug Prohibition in the 21st Century” has everything. There are experts, many of whom “wrote the books” about drugs and drug prohibition. There are government representatives from Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Brazil talking about the bad experiences of “co-operation” in the U.S. led “War on Drugs”. There are indigenous peoples from places where “eradication” and “crop substitution” programs are poisoning the water, increasing the cancer rate, destroying local social structures. One man brings a bag of coca leaves from Bolivia and passes them out: coca leaves are not illegal in Mexico. There are advocates of decriminalization, champions of total legalization, and various combinations thereof. There are policemen and bureaucrats tired of the useless practice of prohibition. There are reporters and investigators, lawyers and philanthropists talking about the difficulty of getting the anti-prohibitionist story out.

There is no-one from Associated Press. Not a single U.S. television team. No satellite feed. This is, in the great tradition of the mass media, a non-event. This in spite of the fact that the United States spends billions of dollars to prohibit and punish drug use; that there is a growing and ever more vocal and organized groundswell of opposition to this misbegotten policy at home and abroad; that the presidents of several countries are beginning to speak openly about the harm prohibition is doing in their country and advocating that the U.S. end or at least modify its adherence to the prohibition model.

So far, coverage of the anti-prohibition movement is limited to the Internet, some “counter-culture” or “youth” publications, a few small-circulation “liberal” magazines. Thus marginalized by the mass corporate media, an important meeting attended by serious, responsible people becomes a “lifestyle” event. What a shame it would be if it were only a passive attitude on the part of the corporate media. Unfortunately, for you and me and a lot of other people in this world being victimized by the prohibition movement, the mass media go beyond passive, to positively active in demonizing drugs and those who question our government’s failed prohibition policies.

Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, ran a three part series a few years back, exposing the connections between the “Contra war” in Nicaragua in the ‘80s, the arms-for-drugs scam run by the CIA, John Poindexter (currently a high official in the Bush administration’s national security apparatus) and Ollie North (known as Iran-Contra), and the introduction and proliferation of crack cocaine in the black ghettos of south central Los Angeles. No major newspaper touched it. About a month after the articles were published, a spate of editorials appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine and other mass media outlets claiming that the stories were badly researched, badly written, and ought to be withdrawn. The evidence given for this was denial of any wrongdoing by the CIA officials cited in the articles, and the absurdity of Webb claiming that the CIA deliberately ran a scheme to poison the nation’s black youth — a claim he never made because he knew it to be untrue. Under pressure from the other media and the government, and probably from their parent company, Knight-Ridder, the editors publicly retracted the story. Webb had meanwhile found even more evidence to substantiate the story, and the paper refused to print it. Webb was forced to resign, and for years had difficulty getting anything published.

Al Giordano was a well-respected investigative reporter for the Boston Phoenix when he decided to go to Mexico and lend a hand to local indigenous peoples organizing autonomously governed areas in Chiapas state. On a trip to the Yucatan, he ran into Mario Menendez, whose daily Por Esto had just published an exposé of narcotics trafficking. Roberto Hernandez, a member of the board of directors of Banamex, the country’s largest bank, had bought a seat on the board with a billion dollar deposit, when a scant five years before he had been unable to pay his credit card debt. Pictures and documentation showed tons of cocaine were being landed every week on his private Caribbean beach for shipment north. For reprinting this information on his website, Narco News (www.narconews.com) and introducing don Mario to a forum at the New School in New York City, Giordano was sued by the Banamex board, represented by Aken Gump, one of the world’s largest law firms, and a perennial lobbyist for South and Central American dictatorships. The object of this suit (Giordano doesn’t own a house, a car or a credit card) was to shut Narco News down; tie him up in affidavits, writs and depositions; prevent him from reporting.

What was the media reaction to this attack on free speech? Silence. Even after the judge in that case threw it out for not meeting the necessary standards of proof—she decreed that Internet publication deserves the same first amendment protections as print media, an enormous decision affecting hundreds of thousands of internet sites—the major media barely mentioned it.

No wonder then that one of the major workshops at the Conference was “The War on Drugs is a War on Press Freedom”. Until the major media, who have been trading voluntary censorship for “access” since Ronald Reagan, begin to print the truth—all the truth, not just the part that’s safe, or entertaining, or profitable—that job will continue to be done in publications such as this one, and other neighborhood newspapers; neighborhood radio stations; and public access cable outlets. And of course, for the minority of us with computers and a telephone, on the Internet.

Meanwhile, think about this: Seventy million Americans—a majority of those between the ages of 18 and 45—have experimented with drugs. Just as thirty years ago you knew gay persons, but didn’t know who they were, today you know many drug users who are not “outing” themselves to anyone. They live responsible, normal lives. They don’t rob or steal or deal to feed their habit, which in any case they have under control. You only hear about the unfortunates, the poor and the less socialized drug users. Why is that? What role does TV and the newspapers and wire services play in keeping you hysterical? Who profits by that? What is the role of the media in prolonging prohibition, which is not working, anymore than it did against alcohol in the last century?

Next time a friend gets burgled, don’t say “Damn those drugs”. Say, “Damn that prohibition” DARE to think differently about the “War on Drugs”.

Stan Gotlieb lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, and maintains a website, http://www.realoaxaca.com His email address is stan@realoaxaca.com