My eyes popped out of their sockets when I saw the name "Novartis" on the list of financial backers for the Partnership for a Fascist America, a.k.a the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The Partnership is the propaganda wing of the "War On Drugs." Describing itself as an organization of communications professionals dedicated to warning children and adults of the dangers of using "drugs," the Partnership is actually a pusher of drugs. The Partnership's chairman is Johnson & Johnson Chairman Emeritus Jim Burke. He recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and praise in a recent editorial by the right-wing nutcases on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Without irony, the Journal praised the Partnership's crusade against "drugs."

Last year I downloaded the Partnership's annual report for 1998 and found that it is funded in part by Ritalin manufacturer Novartis and other pharmaceuticals. The amphetamine Ritalin is the most popular prescription drug for children diagnosed with "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," one of the biggest scams foisted on the public by Shrinkdom during the '90s.

This is especially ironic as the Partnership's commercials exhort parents to keep their children off "drugs." While those same parents could end up in jail for years for the "crime" of lighting up a marijuana joint with other consenting adults, it is perfectly legal for them to drug their unruly pre-school children with Ritalin. (I put the term "drugs" in quotations marks as the term has lost any clear meaning due to the politics surrounding its use these days. The Partnership loves to trumpet news of a decline in the use of illegal "drugs" while its financial backers have been profiting from large increases in the use of prescription drugs during the past decade. See Rachel's Health and Environment Weekly, "Another Kind of Drug Problem," January 7, 1999, at www.rachel.org.)

What is interesting is that upon revisiting the Partnership's website this year (www.drugfreeamerica.org), its annual report is nowhere to be found. Perhaps they figured it was too much of an embarrassment to have people discovering that their organization is funded in part by the biggest pusher of drugs on children in the nation today.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit alleging "fraud" and "conspiracy" against Novartis, Children and Adults with Attention Defecit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), and the American Psychiatric Association was filed in a Texas court on May 1. The suit alleges that the defendants conspired to overdiagnose ADHD and overpromote Ritalin. Anti-drug psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin has been retained by the plaintiffs as a medical consultant in the suit. His website is www.breggin.com. It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds.