TV VERY WARY ON DRUG ABUSE

Mtv Pushes `Because I Got High' Video To Wee Hours. Film Scenes Cut, Shows
Tread Carefully

It doesn't take much effort to find tales of substance abuse on television.

Just yesterday morning, you could hop around channels and find: MTV
reporting on Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean's return to performing after a
stint in rehab; ESPN Classic discussing tennis star Jennifer Capriati's
rebound from personal problems that included reports of drug use; and a
replay of the TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, where a group of
high-schoolers pass a couple of joints during a classroom break.

The casual drug use in Plastic Bubble is a clear sign of how long ago the
movie was made -- in 1976. These days, many TV programmers approach such
matters with considerable fear.

The most publicized example of that lately has been MTV's dealings with
Because I Got High, a hit song and video by Afroman.

The song -- which details all the things Afroman didn't do ``because I got
high'' -- will air only in the late-night hours and will not be part of
Total Request Live, MTV's daily teen magnet.

The Associated Press also reported that Because I Got High's video had all
on-camera use of marijuana edited out, at MTV's request.

But that's far from the only place that television treads carefully around
drugs, especially when dealing with older productions.

Trading Places, a 1983 big-screen comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie
Murphy, aired on TNT over the weekend without a scene in which Murphy
prepares to enjoy a joint in a toilet stall.

Fox sitcom That '70s Show has been coy about its characters' toking,
showing them reacting to the marijuana they've obviously smoked -- but not
showing the smoking itself.

Maybe kids are supposed to think That '70s Show's teens are just naturally
giddy.

Still, That '70s Show knows the rules it must play by. And neither Afroman
nor his record company had any public complaints about changing the Because
I Got High video. Although the song is already a hit, play on MTV could
make it an even bigger one.

And it's good to know that some programmers are moving cautiously where
drug and alcohol use is concerned.

Celebrity excess and its results have become so common, one magazine
recently printed a rundown on clinics being used by the stars.

Still, tampering with older works of art to avoid offending modern
sensibilities is a more difficult issue.

Drug use, after all, is not the only issue on which attitudes have changed.
Matters of race and gender also get reconsidered.

The TNT-cut version of Trading Places also deletes the n-word, when one use
of it is meant to provide a shocking glimpse inside one of the characters.