DRAFT

A STUDY OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE DRUG FREE AMERICA FOUNDATION. INC. (formerly Straight Foundation, Inc.) IN AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY

by Wesley M. Fager, the Oakton Institute (c) 2002

But there was a dark side to Straight. Straight abused kids. There has never been a Straight program (not one) that has not been accused of child abuse. Straight was also successful because there was collusion between Florida state officials where Straight was home-based and Straight officials.  Straight was so successful because it had ties to the highest levels of drug policy decision making in the country.  Former drug czar Robert DuPont was a Straight consultant.  He was an expert witness for Straight in many civil cases.  Donald Ian Macdonald, Straight's former national research director became the White House Drug Czar.  Drug Czar Carlton Turner endorses the cover of one of Miller Newton's books (Straight's former national clinical director Dr. Miller Newton recently settled with a former client in hi sown Straight legacy program for $4.5 million.)  George H. W. Bush made Bob Martinez his second Drug Czar. In 1992, Tampa's Channel 13 Eye Witness News handed Martinez the minutes from a Straight board of director's meeting which recorded that "John Martinez, former governor of Florida, will work with Straight on our licensing issues." When asked by Channel 13 News whether this was he, Martinez would make no comment. Bill Bennett was George Bush's first Drug Czar. In 1989 Bennett assembled together prominent Americans from all over to help him develop the President's drug budget. These esteemed individuals proposed to the President to increase the drug war purse by 94% to a whopping $7,900,000,000, including nearly a half billion increase in treatment, prevention, and research to $1,727,000,000. This collection of America's best recommending $500 million dollars more to drug treatment programs included Mel Sembler, Robert DuPont, Carlton Turner, Joyce Tobias, Mac Vines and a host of others who had positive relationships with Straight. During his term as president, Americans would spend more on the Drug War than on private health insurance: $120 billion. 

For years Straight was able to prevail upon drug policy thinkers the wisdom in using  draconian methods in order to save kids form the ravages of drug addiction.  But instead of saving them Straight has been trailed with a lot of dead people--former clients who have committed suicide. Many feel that the organizers of this Great American Holocaust should have been tried for criminal child abuse, but contrarily, many of them serve today at the highest levels of government.

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY.  The purpose of this study is to determine the exact influence that Straight, Inc., its alter ego Straight Foundation, Inc now calling itself the Drug Free America Foundation, Inc., Mel and Betty Sembler--Straight founders, Robert DuPont--Straight's consultant, and other related organizations and individuals have had on national and on international drug policy. This report will reveal associations and relationships between Straight entities and individuals, and establishment drug policy entities and individuals which can be used to educate the public and to educate the establishment to the influence of Straight on national and international drug policy. We hope to break those bonds or at least to weaken those partnerships by exposure through the printed and electronic media, through conferences and through organized protests and pickets. 

And then they created a brand new organization called Straight, Inc. which would provide for "juvenile addiction treatment." Straight Foundation kept all the money and property and gave grants to the new startup treatment program which leased property from the foundation. The new Straight, Inc. continued to build upon a reputation of criminal child abuse. State criminal investigations, threatening and losing civil suits, exposure from newspaper and magazine articles and negative television reports, plus organized resistance from groups such as Claire Martin's Families Against Destructive Drug Rehabs in Maryland and Richard Bradbury's Community Improvement Program in Tampa, Florida forced Straight, Inc. to finally close on July 1- 2, 1993. But did Straight really ever close? Through the years former Straight officials branched off and formed their own Straight-based programs. Some building successful chains. People like Reverend Doctor Miller Newton who settled out of court in 2000 with one former client for $4.5 million for abuses she sustained in his KIDS chain; and likes of Dr. George Ross who was acquitted in 1985 of criminal wrong doing in a jury trial in Louisville, KY.  One of his character witnesses had been a woman who herself has been publicly accused of child abuse.   On December 5, 1995 in a further effort to distance itself from the name Straight, Inc. which has forever  become synonymous with "organized child abuse", Straight Foundation, Inc. changed its name once again to its current name--the Drug Free America Foundation, Inc. (DFAF). 

1.  Robert DuPont is the former head of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) which funded Straight's predecessor--The Seed. After leaving federal service Dr. DuPont became a paid consultant for Straight. Today he is on the advisory board for DFAF. In 1995 Straight changed its name to DFAF. In 1996 Betty Sembler attended NIDA's National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention Research. In 1997 Betty was back in Washington. This time she was a special witness before the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources at a hearing on "Medical Marijuana, Federal Drug Law and the Constitution�s Supremacy Clause." A co-witness was Florida Congressman Bill McCollum, former Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime. Betty would be on McCollum's finance committee when he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2000. He would be on the short list for Drug Czar in 2001.

On October 21, 1988, Congress enacted the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 as part of the Omnibus Drug Initiative Act of 1988. This statute requires that all institutions receiving grants from any federal agency certify to that agency that they will maintain a drug-free workplace. The Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1998 authorizes the U. S. Small Business Administration to hand out grants to "qualified intermediaries" that can provide technical and financial assistance to small companies in setting up Drug-Free Workplaces by providing for drug testing, employee assistant programs (EAPs) and such. $4 million dollars was appropriated. Straight got one of those grants from the SBA. It was for $314,539. Randall S. Pawley's National Drug and Alcohol Testing, Inc, Straight's partner in Saint Petersburg which actually does the drug testing part, received $234,000. Calvina Fay, executive director of DFAF used to operate a drug testing company. Just before coming to DFAF she was the director of the Houston Drug-Free Business Initiative which had as a charter sponsor Drug Screens, Inc.--a drug testing company. Drug Free Business Houston got $170,000 of the SBA's grant money. Former White House Drug Czar and paid Straight consultant Robert DuPont has teamed up with Peter Bensinger, former director of the DEA, to form Bensinger and DuPont--another organization offering companies assistance in setting up EAPs--and in drug testing.

DFAF INFLUENCE ON US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS.  Mel Sembler once made a proposal that we should require all kids age 16 to submit to a drug test in order to get a driver's license. While this clear violation of the fourth amendment would certainly curtail illegal drug use, it would also provide a boom for Mel Sembler cronies and associates-by-proxy like Bob DuPont, Randall Pawley and H. Wayne Huizenga. As a rite of passage to age 16 the parent of every teenager in America would have had to pay homage of $100 to a drug tester. Mr. Sembler did not get that wish and had to settle for a lesser solution in the mean time--only high school age athletes would be drug tested without cause. When James Acton refused to pee in a jar as a condition to play high school football, he sued Vernonia School District in Oregon to protect his fourth amendment right against illegal search. While the suit was in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, the school called in as their expert witness former Straight consultant and former White House Drug Czar Robert DuPont. Dr. DuPont has defended Straight against many charges of abuse, and while he may sincerely believe that Straight does not abuse kids, he was paid handsomely for each defense. In other words, the more Straight was accused of abusing kids, the more money he made defending Straight. In the case of the Veronia School District, Dr. DuPont may have felt that it is appropriate to drug test high school athletics as a condition of playing sports, and while I am not sure when he became the chairman of the scientific advisory board for Psychemedics--the world's premier hair testing drug program--it is clear that the more athletes who are tested by Psychemedics, the more money he can potentially earn. 

The Veronica School District case did not get Mel Sembler's wish to make every kid in the country pay homage to the drug testers, but at least the testers would make money from every kid who wanted to play football. The Pottawatome County, Oklahoma school district ruling would extend the homage for singers in the chorus. On Sept. 14, 1998, the public school district in Tecumseh, Oklahoma adopted a student drug testing policy which required any student who participated in any school  activity to be randomly drug tested. The Oregon case had claimed a need to drug test athletes because they were at greater risk of being injured. But the Oklahoma rule required people in the chorus to be tested. On Aug. 18, 1999, Lindsay Earls, a member of Tecumseh�s show choir, the marching band and the academic team, and Daniel James, who sought to participate in the academic team, challenged the drug testing policy by filing suit in federal court against the school district and the school board. This case also made it to the Supreme Court in BOARD OF EDUC. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA Petitioner, v. EARLS Respondent. Graham Boyd, representing the ACLU, stated "The most effective way to keep students from using drugs is to engage them in after-school activities. The last thing you want to do is to put up barriers to these activities."  An Amicus Curiae (or friends of the court) brief was  filed with the Supreme Court. This brief was greatly greatly influenced by Straight/DFAF.   Signatures included:  Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.;  Institute on Global Drug Policy (a DFAF front);   Eric Voth, MD, Topeka, KS (but Dr. Voth is the director of Institute on Global Drug Policy);  Bensinger DuPont & Associates, Bethesda, MD;  Straight's former national research director turned White House Drug Czar Donald Ian Macdonald, M.D.; Julie Murdoch, Esq., Bensinger, DuPont & Associates; Legal Foundation Against Illicit Drugs, St. Petersburg, FL; Peter Bensinger, former Administrator U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration;   Robert L. Dupont, M.D., former Director National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) [and Straight consultant]; Stephanie Haynes, Save Our Society From Drugs TM (S.O.S.)--a Betty Sembler foundation.  

Drug Watch International and Calvina Fay.  Calvina Fay  is the executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation.  She was formerly the director of Drug Free Business Houston (another SBA Drug Free Workplace grant recipient).  She is  director the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse. She is also the director of Betty Sembler's Save Our Society from Drugs TM (SOS). Dr. Mark Gold is on the board of directors of SOS. Calvina Fay is current member and past president of Drug Watch International (DWI). Straight's former national executive director Bill Oliver is an Honorary Advisor for DWI (he also became director of parent training for P.R.I.D.E.) The International Drug Strategy Institute is a division of DWI and includes Straight's consultant Robert L. DuPont and his business partner Peter Bensinger, former drug czar and Straight's former national research director Donald Ian Macdonald, Straight's former national clinical director Miller Newton, Straight-Springfield's former research director Richard Schwartz, Mark Gold and former drug czar Lee Dogoloff who endorses the cover of one of Gold's books. Many members of the International Drug Strategy Institute signed the Amicus on behalf of BOARD OF EDUC. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY. 

On June 27,  2002, in a 5-4 decision,  the US Supreme Court decided in favor of the school district.  

In November 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, which permitted Californians to use marijuana for medical purposes. Several groups organized "medical cannabis dispensaries" to distribute crude marijuana. Similar legislation came before voters in Arizona. In January 1998 Betty Sembler met with the cabinet of the governor of Florida and got them to agree to take a stand to fight against any such initiatives happening in Florida.   In May 1998 DFAF and SOS joined with Florida's Department of Law Enforcement to sponsor the Marijuana Education Summit to disprove the efficacy of marijuana use for medical purposes. U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Orlando (Betty Sembler was to be his finance co-chairman) helped kick of this seminar for 400 police, school and youth officials in Orlando. 

California Proposition 215 and a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  The federal government enforced federal law against these California MJ dispensaries and the issue reached the Supreme Court. The Legal Foundation Against Illicit Drugs of Saint Petersburg worked with  the Drug Free America Foundation and two of its divisions, the Institute on Global Drug Policy and the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse to write an AMICI CURIAE brief in support of the US government's attempt to remove the proposition. The brief referenced two reports by Straight-Springfield's former research director Richard Schwartz and one by Dr. Mark Gold who is on the board of a another Betty Sembler drug awareness think tank called Save Our Society from Drugs TM (SOS). According to Our Drug Free Kids Dr. Eric Voth, Chairman of the Institute on Global Drug Policy, a DFAF division,  is a co-author of the Amicus brief.  After the government won its case Dr. Voth  stated, "The ballot initiative process is a scam which seeks to legalize marijuana by popular vote, rather than through scientific research."

Dr. Voth, working for a Straight-descendant think tank had said that Proposition 215 was not based "through scientific research."   So what about the Deficiency Correction Order dated March 15, 1990 by Bette McClure of the Executive Office of Human Services, Office of Children, Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Debra Dragton, Administrator Straight-Boston which has this to say, in part: 

In September 1986 USA TODAY ran an article headlined: DRUGS: Teen abusers start by age 12 which opened with: "Almost half of the USA's teen drug abusers got involved before age 12..."   The article was based on a study conducted by Straight, Inc.!

On October 27, 1989 a Straight-Springfield consulting psychiatrist wrote the following observation regarding a client named Nancy (not her real name) on her first year anniversary of treatment. 

Two weeks later an adult counselor and six old comers took Nancy into a timeout room where some spat on her, screamed obscenities at her, and bent her finger backwards until it touched her wrist--and broke! But they were unable to get her to admit she was a drug addict (because she wasn't) and so two and a half months later, after 16 months of evaluation, she was finally released. In 2001 Nancy mysteriously fell four floors from her apartment window killing her instantly. A tattoo on her wrist read DISCIPLINE. In 1989, the National Geographic (of all magazines!) reported that since 1984 the percentage of "Straight's clients admitting to cocaine use has risen from about 25 to more than 75 percent." 

Straight had reported to USA Today that almost half of teen drug users begin their usage before age 12 and then they treated a 12 year old kid for drug addiction for sniffing a magic marker! Straight broke Nancy's finger because she would not admit to drug usage, and then they told The National Geographic that Straight kids have admitted to an explosive increase in drug usage. And Dr. Voth is sitting on a Straight-descendant think tank and claiming somebody else uses un-scientific methods!

Put yourself in the shoes of a Supreme Court justice. He doesn't know any more about the medical effectiveness of smoking marijuana than he knows when a soul enters into an unborn baby. But he does know the value of a group of expert witnesses. If a group of distinguished doctors representing high sounding names file an Amicus with him, he'll listen to them over Graham Boyd any day.

Straight is a newage drug treatment facility that does not use medical doctors in its therapeutic process. Dr. Mark Gold is a world renowned psychiatrist who does use medical professionals in his treatment process.  Dr. Gold is on the board of SOS TM, a Betty Sembler organization.

In 1997 Alfred Hoffman, Jr., Jeb Bush's finance co-chairman, paid $32 million for a Coral Gables yacht club that he bought from one Armando Codina, a leader of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation. Armando Codina is an ex-business partner of Jeb Bush. According to Salon ezine, "American intelligence and law enforcement authorities firmly believed that [one Orlando] Bosch was responsible for . . . the 1976 explosion that brought down a Cuban airliner, killing all 76 civilians aboard, although Venezuelan prosecutors had failed to convict him of that terrible crime." In 1989 Bosch was in prison in America for entering the country illegally, but prominent Miami Republicans, including businessmen with the Cuban American National Foundation, pressured President Bush to pardon Mr. Bosch.  President Bush's son Jeb had made a fortune in real estate deals with some of these Cuban exile businessmen who had advocated  Bosch's release. George H. W. Bush pardoned Bosch and worked out a deal so he could stay in America despite the Justice Department's desire to have him deported because he had, "repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death."