ADS URGE PARENTS TO KEEP KIDS OFF MARIJUANA

TV Campaign Aims to Quash Message That Pot Is a Soft Drug Less Harmful Than
Others.

DETROIT -- A father who picks up his daughter after discovering she's not
where she said she'd be. A mother who schedules a movie with her daughter.
A mother who tells her son's friends that her son can't play because he
smoked pot.

These are a few television ads Metro Detroiters and the rest of the nation
will soon see as part of the White House's latest campaign against teen
drug use.

The campaign, called "Love. The Anti-Drug," targets African-American
parents, urging them to listen, watch and spend time with their children in
order to keep them away from marijuana, the most commonly used illegal drug
in the nation.

John Walters, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
helped unveil the print, radio and television ad blitz Tuesday in Detroit.
Despite the nation's decline in teen drug use between 2001 and 2003,
Walters said marijuana has developed a reputation of being a "soft drug,"
or one that's perceived as being less harmful.

"In that two-year period, 400,000 fewer kids were doing drugs," Walters
said. "Our goal is to accelerate that as rapidly as possible because of the
terrible consequences they have."

Dr. Winston Price, president of the National Medical Association, said
marijuana use has a disproportionately adverse affect on the
African-American community because it leads to other drug use, affects
education and contributes to crime.

Rather than allow parents to think it's OK for kids to experiment with
marijuana, Price said the campaign will help convey to parents that they
can keep their children drug free.