The National Synthetic Drugs Action Plan (NSDAP) today announced a new* joint Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)/Department of Justice (DOJ) offensive against legal and illegal man-made drugs like meth, OxyContin, pseudoephedrine, and Ecstasy. The NSDAP also establishes the "Synthetic Drugs Interagency Working Group," a new interagency bureaucracy tasked with implementing the plan, according to a joint statement drug czar John Walters and Attorney General John Ashcroft released with the report. Besides ONDCP and DOJ, the massive new effort will involve the State Department at least thirteen other acronymed agencies, including NDIC, HHS, SAMSHA, DEA, FDA, EPA, NIJ, ICE, CPB, NIDA, DHS, USTR and CIA.

The drug czar's office is ambitiously billing the NSDAP as "the Nation's first comprehensive strategy for reducing the production, trafficking, and use of synthetic drugs and the diversion of pharmaceuticals" through the use of "a balanced approach focused on four core areas: prevention, treatment, regulation of chemicals and drugs, and law enforcement." Notable recommendations from [and comments on] the plan include:

• An early warning and response system to detect the emergence of new drugs and trends. [Also known as a hi-tech new bureaucracy.]
• New import controls on bulk ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, similar to post-importation processing of Schedule I and II controlled substances. ["Post-importation processing" is more commonly known as "incineration" -- in this case of legal drugs.]
• Enhanced, targeted enforcement against diversion of OxyContin and Vicodin. [Part of the administration's larger efforts against pain patients and their doctors and pharmacists.]
• Ensuring adequate funding resources for clandestine lab and dumpsite cleanups, so that cleanup costs are not a disincentive to investigations or takedowns. [The drug czar's play to Dirty Harry environmentalists. Trees are for hugging. People are meant to be taken down.]

Walters is set to outline the plan (also check out the press release & "fact" sheet) in Springield, Mo. today with DEA administrator Karen Tandy, Missouri Rep. (and House whip) Roy Blunt and others.

The announcement follows a lengthy period during which Walters and other administration anti-drug staffers have criss-crossed the nation to whip up hysteria against meth. Recently, the already well-traveled Walters has brought his anti-drug screed to swing and/or contested states, including New Mexico and Nevada. After the latter trip, Walters became embroiled in criticism of the Bush administration's alleged political motives behind frequent appointee travel.

The Press

While the NSDAP is blogworthy in its own right, press coverage of the plan is what's gotten me so riled up today. Guess how many articles appear in the press today on the topic? Fifteen? A dozen? Ten? How about one. One! (It's here.) And it's written by the increasingly interesting Donna Leinwand, who wrote the drugged-driving piece in Friday's USA Today. (I described that piece, in a Friday post, as "pretty good".)

Leinwand's article is disturbing for several reasons. First, it is built entirely on ONDCP claims and contains no dissenting point of view. (To be fair to Leinwand, in previous articles (and to varying degrees) -- including the Friday piece on drugged driving that features the Alliance's Bill Piper -- she sometimes quotes people critical of the "war on drugs". But sometimes isn't good enough.)

Second, Leinwand -- to the best of my knowledge -- does not disclose her own association with the drug czar's office. (Regardless of whether she has in the past, she clearly does not in this article.) Billed as "an expert on teens and drug use," Leinwand moderated a 2002 panel discussion on teens and drug treatment sponsored by ONDCP and its Media Campaign. Whether this is unethical or not is up to her editors, but Leinwand's appearance as a moderator at an ONDCP-sponsored event certainly doesn't give me much confidence in her impartiality.

Third, Leinwand's piece contains facts from the report, which was only released today, including mention of "a new Oklahoma law that allows only licensed pharmacists or pharmacy technicians to sell products containing non-prescription pseudoephedrine." This could have only come from a prior reading of the report -- or from having spoken with someone with intimate knowledge of the report.

Fourth, in the same vein, Leinwand's article contains at least one fact seemingly not contained anywhere within the report:

The plan calls for federal enforcement and treatment agencies to meet within 30 days to coordinate a strategy and then share it with the nation's governors, state legislators and 714 community anti-drug coalitions.

I could not find that information contained in the press release, fact sheet, or full report at the ONDCP website. (Readers: If I missed a reference, by all means please point it out.) I'm not claiming the information Leinwand provides is false. I am claiming that someone from ONDCP -- with which she has affiliated herself on at least on occasion -- likely fed her the exclusive.

What -- if anything -- I ask, has she done to earn this exclusive? Led an ONDCP panel discussion? Written kindly about the drug war? Truth be told, I'm not sure. The important fact in this case is that Leinwand seemingly learned about the announcement of this report well before it was released and that she (or her editors) was able to post her story at 12:04 a.m. today.

If that's not the case, then we would have to assume -- quite generously -- that ONDCP's press release went out at midnight, and that Leinwand skillfully culled her facts and wrote her piece in a lightning-fast four minutes. That seems unlikely. What seems more likely is that someone from ONDCP fed a story to a reporter who has been kind to them in the past. [Note the second story listed at ONDCP's front page today hypes Leinwand's Friday USA Today piece (see What's New).] A reporter who has led one of their panel discussions in the past. And the only reporter -- for whatever reason -- who scooped the drug czar's announcement.

*(According to footnote 116 in this disturbing report by the National Association of District Attorneys, the "National Synthetic Drugs Action Plan" has probably been kicking around for at least a year. Lesson: read your footnotes!)

Update: Moorlock of The Picket Line points out in comments the slight gaffe of having your plan share an acronym with a political party made famous by one A. Hitler. This might be a bigger oops than the whole crusade mess.