The fast-and-loose spending drug czar’s office has been rapped on the knuckles again, this time by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the independent congressional body that monitors federal expenditures. A GAO report issued this week concludes the drug czar’s office illegally spent $155,000 to produce and distribute a series of propaganda segments to local TV news stations around the country in the days preceding last year’s Super Bowl.

In several short, ready-for-prime-time propaganda segments – known as video news releases (VNR) – a “reporter” concludes a VNR with a claim to be “reporting” – the telltale signoff of a news reporter. Because of the GAO investigation, ONDCP was forced to admit that those claiming to be “reporting” were in fact "independent voice-over specialists" hired by ONDCP to read a script prepared for them by the drug czar’s office.

“By its own records,” the GAO report states, ”ONDCP's prepackaged news stories reached more than 22 million households, without disclosing to any of those viewers -- the real audience -- that the products they were watching, which ‘reported’ on the activities of a government agency, were actually prepared by that government agency, not by a seemingly independent third party.”

“ONDCP’s prepackaged news stories constituted covert propaganda in violation of publicity or propaganda prohibitions,” concludes the GAO report.

“The anti-drug media campaign is one of the government’s most scandal-ridden programs,” says Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Five government studies have concluded it’s a waste of taxpayer money. It’s time to shut the program down.”

Federal law requires ONDCP to respond in writing with regard to its violations.

To read the GAO report, click here.