The NORML Foundation today released a report which seeks to identify those private companies, foundations and individuals who donate large amounts of money to perpetuate the failed war on marijuana smokers. The report examines private donations to so-called “anti-drug” groups, ranging from DARE to the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) to the Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse (CASA).
The report was inspired by Drug Czar General McCaffrey’s constant, four-year refrain that drug law reform groups (principally NORML, The Lindesmith Center and the Drug Policy Foundation) are awash in funding and are greatly outspending prohibitionists. This obvious exaggeration by McCaffrey, oft repeated by anti-drug groups, is easily refuted by a basic financial review of the organizations’ Internal Revenue Service returns.
For the last 15 years, so-called anti-drug organizations have received funding far greater than that received by reform organizations. More importantly, many of the prohibitionist donors have an economic interest in upholding the status quo.
Further, ONDCP’s Gen. McCaffrey and other prohibitionists consistently ask and receive more and more annual funding from Congress — the ONDCP’s FY 2001 budget exceeds $20 billion. However, as the new report indicates, an increase in spending does not translate into a reduction of drug use in government surveys.
Drug use charts, organizational spending data, pro-drug war donor chart and more are found in the ‘What’s New’ section of www.norml.org.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director at 202-483-8751 or foundation@norml.org
