During the meeting, attendees viewed television commercials paid for during the elections by proponents of the medical marijuana initiatives. The notes summarize the remarks of Orange County Sheriff Gates as follows: "Money made the diff. on [California's] Prop 215. $2 million spent - advertising campaign - Drug Policy Foundation - Soros $." The last references are to a reform group and billionaire financier George Soros, a major financial backer of medical use initiatives.

A second participant, who requested anonymity, told Salon, "People were talking of Soros money at the meeting. That was a real topic, and that there was limited federal money that could be used. We were trying to counter the California and Arizona initiatives. But at that point there was no money." Eleven months later, a five-year, $2 billion (half public, half private) federal campaign was instituted to shape the views of Americans of all ages regarding illegal drugs.

Asked two weeks ago whether the intent was to limit further state initiatives to approve usage of medical marijuana, another participant who asked not to be identified said, "Yes. They wanted to influence public opinion. There was a lot of talk that this was the tip of the iceberg of a national campaign to legalize marijuana, period."

But White House deputy press secretary Jake Siewert says, "The switch to the paid media campaign was driven entirely by the decision to move to curtail drug use. In fact, ONDCP is specifically prohibited from using political messages in paid advertising." Confronted with Jellinek's statement about the "Feds going against the will of the people," Siewert said, "I don't understand it." But Siewert did caution that "The ONDCP is prohibited from involving itself in political causes in its advertising." When asked whether the meeting was intended to roll back the California and Arizona initiatives, Siewert stated, "Ask McCaffrey."

A public statement released by McCaffrey on December 30, 1996, refers to the meeting and states that the "coordinated administration strategy" was developed by the group "at the direction of the president."

When McCaffrey was deposed for the California doctors' lawsuit on May 23, 2000, he stated that the November 1996 meeting "was an organizational meeting to sort out what are we going to do about Proposition 215." In response to another deposition question, he replied, "It wasn't an open debate. It was what are we going to do about the proposition."

McCaffrey's role in fighting medical marijuana has been multifaceted. Until 1999, the federal government only permitted research on the health benefits of the drug using limited grants from the National Institutes of Health, which effectively put the lid on such proposals. But last year, the Clinton administration said it would sell limited quantities of government-grown pot to legitimate medical researchers, who could then secure financing from sources other than the NIH. The move came only after a report by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine confirmed some healthful benefits of marijuana -- a study McCaffrey tried to downplay.

But researchers seeking to study the medical merits of smoking marijuana still find themselves frozen out. Dr. Ethan B. Russo, a neurologist and clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, has been trying for years to gain approval to study the effectiveness of smoked marijuana as a treatment for chronic migraines. "After the Institute of Medicine report came out in 1999, they said they would streamline the process. But it hasn't happened; the process is every bit as difficult as before. It's smoke and mirrors." McCaffrey has even threatened legal action against California Attorney General Bill Lockyer if he promoted medical marijuana research on the state level.

Following the ONDCP-convened meeting, PDFA chairman James E. Burke moved to take action on his colleagues' sentiments, including their desire for federal money. Working closely with Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, he began a heavy lobbying campaign in Congress to transform his organization's model of donated ads into the current taxpayer funded program. Portman's former chief of staff, John Bridgeland, told this reporter last year, "Burke came to Portman, came up and wowed a lot of folks on the Hill."

Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee which funds the drug office, and the self-styled "chief appropriator" of the ONDCP media campaign, said last year, "We were convinced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America to spend tax dollars." Finally, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on February 3, 2000, ONDCP campaign media director Alan Levitt stated, "PDFA is a key campaign partner. Mr. Jim Burke, chairman of the Partnership, has been one of the strongest advocates for this public-private media campaign."

For its part, PDFA has said that the public campaign was necessary because privately donated advertising was drying up. But while PDFA's donated advertising declined in the early '90s, it didn't exactly evaporate. According to Competitive Media Reporting, a company that tracks advertising spending, the value of PDFA's anti-drug campaign was larger than the advertising budgets of many of the country's most established brands. With $278 million worth of donated advertising time and space in 1995 and $252 million in 1996 (down from 1991's peak of $367 million), PDFA was the fourth and fifth largest advertised "brand" in the country -- competing alongside companies like AT&T and Burger King for the public's attention.

It should be acknowledged that the media campaign has never directly tackled the issue of medical marijuana in its paid advertising. And yet fully half of the current ONDCP advertising budget for a campaign nominally geared toward curtailing youth drug use is actually directed at adults. According to a statement issued on Jan. 18, in response to a Salon article about its anti-drug script-doctoring relationship with television networks, the "pro bono [sic] match component" of the ad program has "generated over 100 million teen and tween [read: pubescent] impressions and 250 million adult impressions."

ONDCP's priorities would seem to lie at least as much with influencing adults -- who profoundly influence kids' attitudes and behaviors, but also vote -- as with steering children away from drugs.

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