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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Over the last few years SDMA's Summer Salon Series has been one of the few institutions in San Diego to actively support and promote artists living and working in San Diego. If we want it to be a place where culture and arts are produced rather than just a place where we consume the ideas of LA and NYC, we need to support the creative people and institutions that are working hard to make San Diego a vibrant and interesting place to live.
Now that's investigative reporting! Congratulations on the exclusive report. Any word on the FBI's investigation?
And don't buy into the bizarro religiosity of the medical marijuana advocates. If we tax it at a meaningful level, it will just go to the black market. It also keeps you emotionally stunted, even more so than nicotine products. The stuff is trash. Stop sending people to jail for it, for the love of G-d, but we would be wise to keep it in a legal grey area like escort services and strip clubs, not legitimize it like that plague of plagues, alcohol.
There is no substance on Earth closer to a literal panacea. Look up "Storm Crow's List" if you have any doubt. To keep it illegal as a non-toxic alternative to tobacco and alcohol would be murderously stupid. To keep it from physician-certificated patients and in "Schedule I" is an atrocity that shall NOT stand. You can take that to the BANK.
I too hope their donors will agree, but with the scientific evidence, not your political beliefs about medical cannabis.