The Libertarian Party contacted me last week and asked if I had a photo of U.S. "drug czar" John Walters. They wanted to license the image for a newspaper ad critical of the War on (Some) Drugs and -- imagine this! -- the White House refused to provide them with a publicity shot. I didn't have a photo of Walters, and the LP managed to find one elsewhere.
The ad runs tomorrow (Feb. 26) in USA Today and the Washington Times. It's pretty powerful: http://www.lp.org/action/files/!drugwar.pdf By way of background, the LP is responding to the saccharine-sweet ads that Walters' Office of National Drug Control Policy ran earlier this month in hundreds of newspapers: http://www.mediacampaign.org/mg/print.html One ad shows a young woman's face. The text reads: "Last week, I washed my car, hung out with a few friends, and helped murder a family in Colombia." The bottom of the ad says: "Drug money helps support terror. Buy drugs and you could be supporting it too." The LP believes the ad ignores how the War on Drugs -- and the black markets it spawns -- drives up the price of illegal drugs by as much as 17,000 percent. Naturally *their* ad features Walters' not-so-pretty mug and says: "This week, I had lunch with the President, testified before Congress, and helped funnel $40 million in illegal drug money to groups like the Taliban." The LP asked me to forward Politech members a link to their online donation page for funding of other such ads. It's here: http://www.lp.org/contribute?prog=drugwarad&fund=2002-0037 -Declan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
