ReconsiDer Tidbits

Bye-bye, Barry McCaffrey
Another drug czar leaves a failed tenure in office, declaring victory
with a mess of skewed statistics.
By Arianna Huffington    Oct. 20, 2000 |

 

Gen. Barry McCaffrey: He came. He failed. He quit.
But not without taking an unearned victory lap. What is it about the job
of drug czar that causes its occupants to heed Sen. George Aiken's advice
regarding the Vietnam War -- "Declare victory and withdraw"?
   
That's what McCaffrey did this week when he announced that he would
resign his post on Jan. 6. "I'm enormously proud of what we've done,"
crowed the general. "We had exploding rates of adolescent drug use, and
we've reduced it." This ludicrous assessment echoed Bill Bennett's upbeat
tenor as he ended his stint as drug czar in 1990, when he predicted that
drug use would be cut in half "in five years."

The truth is, in the decade since Bennett whistled past the drug war
graveyard, things have gone from bad to abysmal. Despite McCaffrey's
repeated claims that we are winning the fight, the use of illegal drugs
by junior high kids has increased by 300 percent, it's easier than ever
for high school students to get drugs, drug prices are at an all-time low
and drug purity is climbing.

This is an impressive litany of failures. But still more damning is
McCaffrey's unequivocal success in convincing both President Clinton and
Congress to approve $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia,
dragging the United States into a three-way civil war.

McCaffrey's "triumph" is already looking like a disaster. According to
the General Accounting Office, in a report to Congress last week, "the
Colombian government has not demonstrated it has the detailed plans,
management structure and funding necessary" to implement the U.S. aid.

McCaffrey's other major claim to shame during his tenure has been the
massive escalation of our government's billion-dollar anti-drug media
campaign. Despite the saturation of our airwaves with ads designed to
promote the horrors of illegal drug use, research indicates that a rising
number of young people see less harm in using drugs.

Yet President Clinton responded to McCaffrey's resignation by singling
out as a sign of the "significant progress" made under the drug czar the
fact that "we have dramatically increased our counter-drug spending and
launched a $1 billion public-private media campaign to educate young
people about the dangers of drug use." As if the mere act of throwing
good money after bad represents sound drug policy.

As Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, put it: "Gen.
McCaffrey clearly preferred funding TV commercials to investing in
America's youth. We are spending nearly twice as much on the ad campaign,
the glittering jewel in his drug-war crown, than the federal government
spends on after-school programs for kids -- even though research shows
alternative activity programs to be the most effective way to prevent
adolescent drug abuse." This is more like a war on common sense -- which
we're definitely winning.



Making misguided matters worse, McCaffrey was asleep at the wheel this
spring when fraud investigators uncovered evidence that Ogilvy & Mather,
the ad agency handling the anti-drug account, may have seriously
overbilled the government for its services -- pumping up its labor
charges and doctoring time sheets.

Instead of ordering an audit, the good general tried to cover his rear
flank, denying that he knew anything about the problem until
investigators produced a memo proving McCaffrey had, in fact, been told
of the irregularities. As McCaffrey moves on to the requisite book and
speaking tour, the matter remains under criminal investigation.

  
A fast-and-loose way with the truth has been a hallmark of the drug
czar's office -- with fraudulent claims and blatant manipulation of
statistics a standard operating procedure.

Take the statistical sleight of hand McCaffrey's office recently used to
turn an unambiguous failure into an apparent success: In 1996, the
general set a goal of having 80 percent of young people -- based on the
perception of 12th-graders -- consider drugs harmful. But despite his ad
blitz, the percent of 12th-graders who look unfavorably on drugs actually
dropped for three straight years, falling to 57.4 percent by 1999 -- a
far cry from the promised 80 percent.

But this year, the drug czar magically pulled a vastly improved 74
percent drug-disapproval rating out of his hat. How did he do it? Simple.
He just changed the rules.

He based his latest figures not on the perceptions of 12th-graders but on
the opinions of eighth-graders. I'm only surprised that McCaffrey didn't
make sure he hit his goal by switching to kindergartners. I have a
feeling that well over 80 percent of them would agree that drugs are
"icky."

And like all good illusionists, McCaffrey never revealed how the trick
was done -- the switch in criteria wasn't noted anywhere in the drug
office's published report. Not only is this misleading, it may also be
illegal, since Public Law No. 105-277 requires that when a government
agency changes its measuring standards, it must inform Congress.

In announcing his resignation, McCaffrey declared that the fight against
drugs "is not a war; it's a cancer affecting American communities."

After steering a billion dollars into the hands of the Colombian army and
spearheading the use of paramilitary tactics here at home -- with more
armed drug agents, drug raids and drug arrests -- has McCaffrey suddenly
seen the light, at long last realizing that drugs are actually a public
health issue? Or is he merely trying to rewrite his failed history before
anyone else gets to?


salon.com | Oct. 20, 2000

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About the writer
Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of
eight books. Her latest, "How to Overthrow the Government," was published
in February by Regan Books (HarperCollins).