Drugs in the Whitehouse

[yesthattom]

dpfesh said that it would take ballz to sell drugs to the president.

Actually, there's a well-documented case of wanting crack at the White House and having to go through a lot of problems to precure it.

On September 5, 1989, President Bush himself announced this plan for achieving "victory over drugs" in a major prime-time address to the nation, broadcast on all three national television networks. We want to focus on this incident as an example of way politicians and the media systematically misinformed and deceived the public in order to promote the War on Drugs. According to the New York Times (9/6/89, p. A1), Bush had returned to Washington early from summer vacation at his estate on the Maine coast to rehearse with his media advisers. He spoke to the TV cameras from the presidential desk in the Oval Office. During the address Bush used what the Times termed "a dramatic device" - holding up to the cameras a clear plastic bag of crack labeled "EVIDENCE. " He announced that it was "seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House" (Washington Post, 9/22//89, p. A1). It's contents, Bush said, were "turning our cities into battle zones and murdering our children." The President proclaimed that because of crack and other drugs he would "more than double Federal assistance to state and local law enforcement (New York Times, 916189, All). The next morning, the picture of the President holding a large bag of crack was on the front pages of newspapers across America.

On September 22, 1989, the Washington Post, and then National Public Radio and other newspapers, broke the story of how the President of the United States had obtained his bag of crack. According to White House and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials, "the idea of the President holding up crack was first included in some drafts" of his speech. Bush enthusiastically approved. A White House Aid told the Post that the President "liked the prop....It. drove the point home. " Bush and his advisors also decided that the crack should be seized in Lafayette Park across from the White House, or somewhere else nearby, so that the President could say that crack had become so pervasive that men were "selling drugs in front of the White House " (Isikoff, 1989, A1).

This decision set up a complex chain of events. White House communications director David Demarst asked Cabinet affairs secretary David Bates to instruct the Justice Department "to find some crack that fit the description in the speech. " Bates called Richard Weatherbee, a special assistant to Attorney General Dick Thornburghy. Weatherbee in turn called James Millford, the executive assistant to the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Finally, he phoned William McMullen, the special agent in charge of the DEA's Washington Office, and told him to arrange an undercover crack buy near the White House because "evidently, the President wants to show it could be bought anywhere" (Isikoff, 1989, A1).

Despite their best efforts, the top Federal drug agents were not been able to find anyone selling crack (or any other drug) either in Lafayette Park, or anywhere else in the vicinity of the White House. Therefore, in order to carry out their assignment, DEA agents had to entice someone to come to the Park to make the sale. Apparently, the only person the DEA could convince was Keith Jackson, an 18 year-old African-American high school senior. McMullan reported that it was difficult to do because Jackson "did not even know where the White House was." The DEA's secret tape recording of the conversation revealed that the teenager seemed baffled by the request: "Where the [expletive deleted] is the White House?" he asked. Therefore, McMullan told the Post, "we had to manipulate him to get him down there. It wasn't easy" (Isikoff, 1989, A1).

After it was reported that the U.S. government had lured someone to come to the White House to sell crack, National Public Radio's All Things Considered news show interviewed men from Washington D.C. then in prison on drug-selling charges. All agreed that, of course, nobody would sell crack in Layafette Park because, among other reasons, there would be no customers. The crack-using population was in Washington's impoverished neighborhoods some distance from the White House. Finally, The Washington Post and other papers reported that the undercover Drug Enforcement Agents had not, after all, actually seized the crack, as Bush had claimed in his speech. Rather, the DEA agents had purchased it from Jackson for $2,400 dollars and then had let him go.4

This entire incident is a perfect example of the way in which what we call a "drug scare" distorts and perverts public knowledge and policy. The idea of claiming that crack was threatening every neighborhood in America first appeared in the minds and speech drafts of Bush's advisers. Then, when they found that reality did not match the script, a series of high-level officials instructed federal drug agents to create a reality that would fit the script. Finally the President of the United States displayed the procured prop on national TV, announced its "seizure" as a victory, and suggested to the citizenry that the wholly manufactured event was typical and common. In the end, when all of this was revealed, none of it seem to cause politicians or the media to question either the President's policies or his claims about crack's persuasiveness.

http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/craig2.html

The truth is that the "war on crack" was intended to distract people from real problems, and let heroin really destroy a lot of communities.

Comments

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Thank you for sharing this.

[dpfesh.livejournal.com]

You are too cool!

Neat! (and u know..lame lame lame!! poor drug dealer guy!)

[onecrazymother.livejournal.com]

Follow, follow, follow...huh?

How do you get from that to the idea that the war on crack was intended to let heroin really destroy a lot of communities?

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

Playing both sides of an issue to get rich has been raised to an art form by the third generation of the Bush dynasty. We've come a long way since Prescott actually got CAUGHT funding the Nazi war machine.

Most of the heroin is currently coming out of Afghanistan. They're the "good Arabs" these days.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I parsed that as: "The truth is that the 'war on crack' was intended to distract people from real problems, and it let heroin really destroy a lot of communities.

[tactisle.livejournal.com]

I read that as: "...was intended to distract people from real problems, and [also resulted in] heroin really destroy[ing] a lot of communities."

In other words, the "crack epidemic" was manufactured to distract the public from the flagging economy, diplomatic failures, and boost GHW Bush's numbers on a law'n'order wave... but the targeted law-enforcement response (required to make the public take it seriously) meant moving more dangerous criminals (heroin dealers?) to the back burner in the meantime.

Not intentionally. Just an accidental side effect of co-opting law enforcement for political gain. But Tom will correct me, I'm sure, if I misread. :)

Personally, I don't buy the "smack does more damage to communities than coke/crack" angle, but I do think that these short-term drug-interdiction crusades tend to distract the cops from, say, effective anti-violence policing. And trash their credibility to boot.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

You got it. This was a distraction from many things. Oh, and one of them was heroin.

[onecrazymother.livejournal.com]

OK, sorry for not looking harder for what you meant.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Sorry for posting while busy! I need to proofread more.