WHITE HOUSE TAKES NEW TACK IN DRUG WAR

Super Bowl Spot Cautions Against Prescription-Drug Abuse by Teens

WASHINGTON -- The White House drug office will use its first Super
Bowl spot in four years to caution that the biggest teen drug danger
could be the legal medicines stored in parents' medicine chests.

The White House drug office's Super Bowl spot features a drug dealer
complaining that his business is down because teens are getting high
from abusing drugs in the medicine cabinet.

The spot is part of a 12-week multimedia campaign that for the first
time switches the focus from teens to their parents, and delivers a
loud warning that it's no longer just illegal drugs that put teens at risk.

The $14 million push, which will get $28 million in airtime, was
produced by Interpublic Group of Cos.' DraftFCB for the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America. Draft is the drug office's agency, but the
creative is produced by a number of agencies.

The Super Bowl spot, to air at the close of the first half, features
a drug dealer complaining that his business is down because teens are
getting high from abusing drugs in the medicine cabinet. It ends with
an announcer saying: "Teens don't need a drug dealer to get high,
safeguard your prescriptions. Safeguard you teens."

Fox has been asking up to $3 million for a Super Bowl spot. Drug
office officials declined to say what the government paid, but said
the spot was purchased well in advance at a good price. Under the
youth anti-drug program, media companies have to provide a free spot
of similar media weight for every spot the government buys. Those
free spots will occur in other Fox programming.

Newspaper ads and a second TV ad will follow, and the drug office is
also buying ads on bags used by pharmacists to dispense prescription drugs.

Spending on the drug ad program has been declining. Only $60 million
was authorized by Congress this year, less than half of the $130
million requested and less than a third of the spending in the
campaign's early days. The cuts led the drug office to suspend a
second campaign aimed at parents and influencers and to concentrate
on teens. National ads are about marijuana and other illegal drugs;
an anti-methamphetamine campaign also runs in some markets.

"Teen drug abuse has gone down sharply -- marijuana over 26% in the
last six years," said Thomas A. Riley, a drug office spokesman. "Teen
meth has gone down too. The only thing that hasn't gone down is
prescription drug abuse. These ads are intended to shock and surprise
parents and put this on their radar screen."

Partnership President-CEO Stephen J. Pasierb said household medicine
abuse is increasingly showing up. "We have done a ton of research and
prescription drug abuse is an entire new tier of substance abuse. One
of five kids potentially abused prescription drugs and one in 10
reported abusing over-the-counter cough medicine," he said. "What we
see in research is that kids and parents think the drugs safer than
street drugs. In fact, they are every bit as deadly."

Asked whether the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger, which may
possibly have been due to an overdose of legal prescription drugs,
caused the drug office to reconsider the timing of the campaign, a
drug-office spokesman said it did not.

Regarding the Super Bowl buy, Mr. Pasierb cited the telecast's
viewership and cachet. "It's a great opportunity to make a national
impact and particularly with the writers strike, we are losing some
of marquee events we had."

The latest effort is far tamer than some of the drug office's earlier
Super Bowl efforts. In one of the most controversial spots, which ran
five months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, an ad showed a
shopping list that includes an AK-47 rifle. "Where do terrorists get
their money?" asked the voice-over. "If you buy drugs, some of it
might come from you."