HIGH HOPES: HOLLYWOOD IS WAGING ITS OWN WAR ON DRUGS

LOS ANGELES -- If Hollywood had a message in the last year, it could be
found in the 1970s-era rock 'n' roll movie "Almost Famous."

"Don't take drugs!" pleads Frances McDormand as a nervous mother who drops
off her 15-year-old son at a Black Sabbath concert.

"Don't take drugs! Don't take drugs!" mocks a chorus of concertgoers.

From gritty dramas like "Traffic" and "Requiem for a Dream" to thoughtful
comedies like "Wonder Boys" and "Almost Famous," some of the better films
of 2000 touched on lives and careers ruined by addiction. All of those
films received Golden Globe nominations and could fare equally well at the
Academy Awards.

Many filmmakers say Hollywood has begun escalating its own war on drugs.
What's seen on screen, however, can sometimes seems at odds with a
subculture traditionally know for bacchanalian excess.

Federal drug-enforcement officials note that Hollywood has a checkered
history in depicting drugs' consequences.

"But it looks to us like they're trying hard to do a better job showing an
accurate portrayal of the damage drug abuse does," said Bob Weiner,
spokesman for the White House office of National Drug Control Policy.

"There were some positive messages about the need for family involvement
and positive work of drug enforcement agents," he added. "There's less
ambiguity now. With movies like 'Trainspotting,' I had trouble telling
whether the message was pro or con."

Film-industry analysts say substance abuse is no longer considered glamorous.

"It's kind of out of style, and that makes it time to capitalize on the
anti-drug message," said Robert Bucksbaum of Reel Source Inc., a firm that
tracks the box office.

No one making a movie wants to be preachy, but many say they have weathered
too much damage from drug abuse to stay silent.

"I don't know a single person who hasn't smoked pot or tried some sort of
drug," said Stephen Gaghan, the "Traffic" screenwriter. "At some point, it
becomes hypocritical not to address it."

Gaghan said he initially named a character after a friend as an inside joke
but then changed it when he found out the friend had died of a heroin overdose.

"There's a lot of personal experience in this one," Gaghan said. "I hope it
seems truthful."

Benicio Del Toro, who plays a Mexican drug officer who finds he has
unwittingly aided a cartel in "Traffic," said he wanted to create "a
conversation piece" about how the U.S. war on drugs doesn't solve the
problem of addiction.

"People (in Hollywood) are starting to know the power they have in cutting
(drug use) down somewhat," he said. "We can show the bigger picture of the
problem."

The balance between entertaining and lecturing, however, can be precarious.
"Requiem for a Dream," for example, presented such an unrelentingly grim
portrait of four junkies that it was hard for mainstream audiences to endure.

"It's a difficult movie, and my only worry is that not enough people will
get to see it," said "Requiem" star Ellen Burstyn, who plays an aging
housewife destroyed by a diet-pill addiction.

"People will go to great lengths to avoid reality, and over the years our
addictions have changed and become much more lethal," Burstyn said. "I
think that if movies like this encourage people to stay in their reality,
we will have done a service."

Such cautionary tales frequently have come from Hollywood -- including
gritty dramas like "Lost Weekend" (alcoholism), "The Man with the Golden
Arm" (heroin) and "Less Than Zero" (cocaine), and sometimes silly
propaganda like "Reefer Madness."

Those movies typically show drug users coming to no good. "Blow," scheduled
for April release and based on a true story, ends with Johnny Depp's
character doing hard time after flying high for years as the top coke
smuggler for Colombia's Medellin cartel -- a one-man, $35-billion-a-year
conduit.

Even comedies like "Arthur" and the "Cheech & Chong" movies depict their
alcohol- and marijuana-dependent protagonists as hopeless bumblers who
can't function in regular life -- even though they're having fun (or think
they are).

The high-caliber of filmmaking dedicated to recent movies dealing with
addiction illustrates how important anti-drug messages have become in the
entertainment industry. ("Traffic" was even able to persuade real-life
politicians, Sens. Orrin Hatch and Barbara Boxer, to appear in cameo roles.)

Filmmakers say the star power and big budgets allocated to such movies is a
sign that Hollywood is taking its ability to fight drugs more seriously
than ever.

"Drugs are a big problem in any society, including Hollywood, and the
presence of the problem is not to be denied," said "Wonder Boys" director
Curtis Hanson.

"Wonder Boys" plays like a farce, with Michael Douglas as a dope-smoking
professor whose professional and personal lives spin out of control over
the course of a weekend.

"His character avoids dealing with very important issues, and
self-medication that he indulges in allows him to not come to grips with
it," Hanson said. "When he comes to realize that, he can make some hard
choices and is better for it."

The message is especially poignant, he said, considering the movie co-stars
Robert Downey Jr., whose career has been sidetracked yet again by a drug
arrest.

Downey, also a Golden Globe nominee for a series of guest spots on the Fox
comedy "Ally McBeal," is someone many people can relate to, Hanson said.

"The reality is that a lot of people, even outside the entertainment
industry, have family members suffering from addiction," he said.

Television, too, has tried to show the ravages of drug abuse. "The West
Wing," which won a record-setting nine Emmys in September, has tackled the
subject of substance abuse with the character of White House Chief of Staff
Leo McGarry, who has battled pills and alcohol.

"It's finally coming out of the closet as a health problem, not a criminal
problem," said the show's creator, Aaron Sorkin. "I think that as people
become more aware of that about addiction, they find there are interesting
ways to tell stories about it."