U.S. drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey’s operating tactics came into question again this week in two new articles. Insight published a story that alleges McCaffrey lied to Congress by manipulating data on a drug use study, while Newsweek reported that McCaffrey has been secretly taping phone conversations with journalists.
The ONDCP manipulated data without reporting changes in it’s “Performance Measures of Effectiveness: 2000 Report,” a violation of federal law which requires the ONDCP to point out any changes it makes to the reporting system. One of the goals listed by the ONDCP is to “increase the percentage of youth who perceive drug use as harmful” to 80 percent by 2002. The ONDCP claimed they were on target, but in 1996-1999 the percentage of 12th-graders who believed that drugs were harmful dropped from 59.9 percent to 57.4 percent. Insight indicated that this goal should not have been considered “on target.” The ONDCP changed the base year from 1996 to 1998, thus making the downward trend seem less severe. Perhaps more significantly, the ONDCP then changed the target group from seniors in high school to 8th-graders, where 73 percent view drug use as dangerous, thus bringing the ONDCP within seven percentage points to their 80 percent goal.
Insight reported that ONDCP did point out other changes it made in its reporting system. A spokesperson for the ONDCP said “We weren’t trying to pull anything sneaky here,”
Newsweek learned that the ONDCP head has been secretly taping phone conversations with reporters after over two dozen audiocassettes were turned over in response to a 1997 demand for evidence in a lawsuit.
One reporter, drug war proponent A.M. Rosenthal, who was discussing with McCaffrey how to attack medical marijuana financier George Soros, said, “I don’t recall anybody telling me they were going to record this.” Anita Manning, a USA Today reporter who found out she was caught on tape by McCaffrey said, “This is just creepy.”
Although it is legal in Washington, DC to tape phone conversations without prior consent, ONDCP spokesperson Bob Weiner said the drug office “may have screwed up” in this incident.
“Maybe they ‘screwed up’ appears to be the ONDCP’s mantra this year,” said Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director. “Let’s recall that earlier this year that the ONDCP also ‘screwed up’ by embedding secret government-approved anti-drug themes into popular network television programming. Also, the ONDCP admitted that it was ‘wrong’ to secretly track visitors to the ONDCP’s web of internet sites. Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and the rest of the Congressional black caucus is spot on with their public demand that Gen. McCaffrey should immediately resign.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director at (202) 483-8751.
