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Notes

[1] Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, in a 1991 interview on "America's Drug Forum" 

[2] Eric Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Complex," Atlantic Monthly -- pp. 51 to 77, Dec 1998 

"It is not a conspiracy, it is a confluence of special interests . . . [including] politicians, both liberal and conservative, who have used fear of crime to gain votes [and] private companies that regard the roughly $35 billion spent each year on corrections not as a burden on American taxpayers but as a lucrative market ... 

"The prison-industrial complex includes some of the nation's largest architectural and construction firms, Wall Street investment banks and companies that sell everything from security cameras to padded cells available in a 'vast color selection.' ... A directory called the Corrections Yellow Pages lists more than 1,000 vendors. 

"The enormous increase in America's inmate populations is the direct consequence of the sentences given to nonviolent offenders -- mostly drug offenders. Crimes that in other countries would lead to community service, fines or drug treatment (or would not be crimes at all) are punished here with increasingly long prison terms, the most expensive of all possible options. "

 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1113.a04.html (Part 1) http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1113.a05.html (Part 2) http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n1114.a01.html (Part 3) 

[3] News Report, June 28, 2001 

"Federal officials and private contractors grossly mismanaged a $384 million dollar anti-drug advertising contract, according to a report released Monday by the General Accounting Office (GAO). 

"The GAO reported Monday that timesheets for 28 Ogilvy & Mather employees had been altered to reflect more than 3,100 hours worth of work that may or may not have taken place. These hours were billed to the federal government. The GAO also revealed that: Ogilvy & Mather improperly billed full-time benefits to temporary employees; ... " 

[4] Washington Post, 12-27-00 

"Federal regulators have ruled that the major networks should have identified the White House as a sponsor of programs such as "The Practice," "The Drew Carey Show" and "America's Most Wanted" when their plots included anti-drug messages for which the government paid the networks millions of dollars. 

"R. Keith Stroup, executive director of NORML, said ... 'We have been told by these programmers that they have influenced the programs in order to please the government. That is not the kind of free press we have grown accustomed to.' 

"The relationship between the White House's anti-drug office and the networks dates to 1997, when Congress appropriated $1 billion to spend on anti-drug advertising over five years. The networks have benefited from most of the ad spending, but newspapers and magazines also have been paid to carry ads." 

[5] According to Public Citizen's report, "The Other Drug War 2003", The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America hired 112 lobbyists in 2002, including 26 former members of Congress. Since 1997, the industry has spent nearly $478 million lobbying the federal government. The top 25 pharmaceutical companies and trade groups gave $48.6 million to federal campaigns. Well over $100 million more went to paying for issue ads, hiring academics, funding nonprofits and other activities to promote the industry¹s agenda in Washington. 

[6] "[Governor] Davis signed legislation during the growing budget crisis to give prison guards a 34%, $1-billion pay raise by 2006. He also fulfilled their wish by proposing to close five private prisons. Weeks later, the guards union gave him $251,000 - on top of $411,000 they already had donated or raised for his campaign. In 1998, they spent $2.3 million on his election." 

- Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff July 24, 2002 cites: Los Angeles Times columnist, George Skelto

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