Pubdate: Thu, 02 Aug 2012
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Copyright: 2012 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Morgan Cook

SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART HAD HAND IN DRUG CRACKDOWN HOAX

The San Diego Museum of Art said Thursday that it helped fund and 
facilitate an elaborate hoax by activist groups that earlier this 
week sent various media organizations fraudulent news releases that 
appeared to be from the U.S. attorney in San Diego.

Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group that is 
active in San Diego County, eventually claimed responsibility for the 
hoax, which involved an actor, a made-up government watchdog group, 
and two phony news releases purportedly from U.S. Attorney Laura 
Duffy. The first fake release announced that Duffy's office intended 
to close local pharmacies where there were high rates of prescription 
drug abuse.

At a Tuesday press conference, Duffy appeared unamused by the group's 
fake news releases. She said federal authorities were investigating 
whether the hoaxers committed a crime, such as impersonating a law 
enforcement officer.

Representatives of Americans for Safe Access said they worked with 
other national and local activist groups to produce the hoax, which 
it described as "satire."

They said the hoax was intended to draw attention to what the group 
called "the U.S. Attorney's harmful efforts to deny patients access 
to doctor-recommended medical cannabis."

"This was a satirical work of art that many people took part in," 
said Eugene Davidovich, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access.

Among those who helped make the "satire" possible was the San Diego 
Museum of Art, said Alexander Jarman, the manager of public programs 
for the museum.

The museum helped connect Americans for Safe Access and other local 
activist organizations with a New-York based nonprofit called The Yes 
Men, and also covered some of the relatively low cost of producing the hoax.

On its website, The Yes Men says that it uses "creative actions" to 
get media attention for "progressive" causes. Museum officials 
brought members of the group to San Diego as part of the museum's 
Summer Salon lecture and performance series at the end of July, 
according to a written statement Jarmin emailed Thursday to the North 
County Times.

The museum used Activist San Diego, an networking website, to make 
local nonprofits aware of the opportunity to work with The Yes Men 
while representatives were in town.

"The museum really helped us by organizing which groups should come 
in," said Mike Bonanno co-director of Yes Lab, the arm of The Yes Men 
that helps groups get media attention. "To our surprise and delight, 
they (the groups) were all willing to work with each other and they 
were really excited."

"One of the main groups that had presence there and was willing to 
act quickly was Americans for Safe Access," Bonanno said.

"Mike Bonanno" may, or may not, be an alias used by a former UC San 
Diego student called Igor Vamos, according to various Internet sources.

The museum helped fund the collaboration between activist 
organizations and Yes Lab by offering each group that participated up 
to $100 to cover the "hard costs" of developing projects, according 
to the statement from Jarman.

The museum did not participate in the planning of Tuesday's hoax, 
according to the statement.

Davidovich said Americans for Safe Access applied for the $100, and 
the museum approved the application.

Americans for Safe Access got the rest of the money for the project 
from private donations, Davidovich said. He said it was relatively 
inexpensive to produce the hoax.

"This thing did not cost hardly anything," Davidovich said. "Maybe a 
couple hundred bucks spent on domain names and phones, but the cost 
was minimal."

Videographers who were working with Yes Lab documented the planning, 
production and execution of the hoax, Bonanno said. The Yes Men may 
include the footage in a movie or on its website.

The museum's statement said the visual arts aspect of the Yes Labs 
projects were of interest to the museum, regardless of whether the 
projects could be classified as "performance art."

Also of interest to the museum was making sure people had access to 
different ideas about important issues, and fostering activism within 
communities, the statement said.

"While the Museum may not always agree with the specific tactics by 
which the Yes Men, or the groups they have collaborated with, 
approach activism, we are glad to see that their energizing spirit 
has inspired greater activism here in San Diego," the statement said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom