There is growing evidence that there is a conspiracy in America to privatize our prison systems and to swell the prison population with drug offenders; to lock up our citizens in private drug rehabilitation programs; and to require our citizens to be drug tested without probable cause in violation of our Constitutional rights. A phony War on Drugs has been promoted by those who stand to gain financially by exploiting their fellow man. One of the more disgusting manifestations of this phony war is Charityforcharities.org Vegas in O'Town which will be held in Orlando on 9/11, thus attempting to solidify the mindset of calling the War on Terrorism and the War On Drugs the exact same war. While the Oakton Institute acknowledges that the Taliban is growing opium-producing poppy seeds in Afganastan to help finance its war on terror, the Institute feels equally that the War on Terror is true and many-faceted and opium is but a facet. Drug warriors are trying to capitalize on this.

Charityforcharities.org Vegas in O'Town is part of Florida's participation in the National Alcohol & Drug Addiction Recovery Month. Florida Governor Jeb Bush will be presenting; Substance Abuse Family Education, Inc. (SAFE) is on the program agenda. Click here, or see note 1. Jeb Bush is on the Advisory Board for DFAF. SAFE, Inc. was created the very day Straight - Orlando closed by Straight - Orlando's executive director. There have been serious allegations of abuse at SAFE; nevertheless SAFE is endorsed by Governor Bush. National Recovery Month is an initiative of the US Department of Health and Human Services' CSAT (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment) which is a division of SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). SAMHSA endorses several Straight-legacy programs besides SAFE, Inc. Among them are Pathways Family Centers in Indianapolis, Kids Helping Kids of Cincinnati, and Growing Together and Turn About--both in Florida.
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1. Mel Sembler, US Ambassador to Italy, and his wife Betty, Jeb Bush's campaign cochairman, are the founders and operators of Straight, Inc. which for 17 years was one of the largest and most destructive juvenile treatment chains in the world.

2. Sembler feels that his knowledge gained from operating Straight uniquely qualifies him to work to set national and international drug policy. Accordingly, Straight, now called DFAF, was behind the Amicus Curae Brief to the US Supreme Court which ruled in 2002 to allow for suspicionless drug testing of our kids. Though this may be a noble cause, many of the signatures to the brief are Sembler cronies who are tied to the drug testing industry thus having a conflict of interest.

3. In May 2002 the Sembler's hosted a drug policy summit with the Italians at his ambassador's residence. On May 23 of this year the US Embassy in Costa Rica issued a press release announcing that DFAF and the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas were cohosting a conference on drug policy leadership. Two days later the Costa Rican police and health authorities raided Dundee Ranch, a part of Utah-based WWASPS, arrested its director Narvin Litchfield and freed the American children being treated there. There have accusations of abuse at Dundee (and at some other WWASPS current or past programs) similar to the abuses kids endured at Straight. How can the US state department seriously evaluate complaints of parents when Mel Sembler is not only a state department ambassador, but one very actively involved in international drug policy?

For 17 years the Saint Petersburg Times covered the abuses of Straight as Straight was headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. Today there are many Straight-legacy programs still running though Straight, Inc. itself no longer treats kids. The Times will not report on the 40 former clients who have committed suicide; the $6.5 million settlement Straight's former national clinical director made with a client in June even though he still lives in St. Petersburg; or the gigantic web presence of Straight survivors. Instead the Times reports on the Sembler's trips, birthday parties, and wedding anniversaries. There is strong reason to suspect that Sembler has given the Times financial incentives not to report on his past. Furthermore, Andy Barnes, the Times CEO, serves with Mel Sembler on Florida's Shadow Government, Team 100--a pack of un-elected Republican businessmen who hold secret meetings to advise Governor Jeb Bush on how to run the state of Florida. One recommendation they made is to fire state workers and let private companies (like themselves?) get the sate tax money to perform services.

The council, which formerly included out-of-state, Enron's Ken Lay, includes the likes of Al Hoffman. Al Hoffman succeeded Mel Sembler as finance chairman of the Republican National Party. Betty Sembler and Al Hoffman were governor Jeb Bush's finance cochairmen.