ADS TARGET ABUSE OF MEDICINES, PARTY DRUGS

LAFAYETTE - "This will make you feel great!" read the
words printed next to the face of an attractive girl holding a small
pill. "(or kill you.)"

It was one of 11 anti-drug public service announcements unveiled
Tuesday at a news conference by a partnership of the Lafayette Parish
Medical Society and Lafayette General Medical Center.

The announcements - scheduled to begin running in local media this
month - take a different aim than antidrug messages of the past,
focusing on designer drugs and the misuse of prescription medicines
rather than marijuana and cocaine.

"The message is a little different than it has been before, but it's
time for a change," said Dr. Angela Mayeux Hebert, vice president and
marketing chair of the Lafayette Parish Medical Society.

Hebert said hospitals have been seeing more and more emergency room
visits brought on by the abuse of prescription drugs - OxyContin, a
potent painkiller, is one of the most common - and such designer drugs
as GHB and Ecstasy.

She also cited a 2001 Southern Illinois University study of students
at 179 colleges that found 22.8 percent of UL Lafayette students had
used a designer drug at least once. That compares with 5.6 percent of
the 93,679 students surveyed.

"These are party drugs, and they are not thought of as being illegal,"
Hebert said.

The public service campaign includes two television spots, two radio
spots and seven print spots. Some of the print spots are scheduled to
run in the UL Lafayette newspaper and local high school newspapers.
Three of the newspaper spots will double as posters.

"We're trying to have simple messages that talk about consequences,"
said Larry Sides of Sides & Associates, the Lafayette advertising and
public relations firm that developed the campaign.

One such message: "The lucky ones have a tube shoved down their
throats," referring to drug overdose victims admitted to emergency
rooms.

The campaign also includes the story of Dennis T. Davis, a 23-year-old
New Iberia man who died of an OxyContin overdose in December 2000. His
friend had given him an intravenous injection of the drug, which is
intended to ease the pain of cancer patients but has led to deaths
across the nation in recent years when used as a street drug.

Sides said Davis' family agreed to let his picture and name be used
for the campaign.

"They said, 'If it can help with one other child, it's worth it,' "
Sides said.