DRUG-TRADE FILM HIT HOME WITH DOUGLAS

Abuse Problems In Family Helped Traffic Star Identify With Role Of Judge
With Addict Daughter

The subject is a painful one for Michael Douglas, but he doesn't flinch
from dealing with it.

From the moment he accepted the role in Traffic of an ultra-conservative
judge who is appointed the U.S. president's drug czar, he knew people would
draw parallels with his own family history.

And with the movie hitting screens Friday, he knows talk of those parallels
will grow - because of a crucial plot line involving the judge's discovery
his teenage daughter is a hopeless drug addict. So the 56-year-old actor is
asked the inevitable question: How did he tap into this subject matter?
There's no hesitation in Douglas's response.

"As a public figure, my personal life and my family's personal life have
been pretty well documented as far as drug abuse in my family is involved,"
he says soberly. "So I identify with it."

Douglas's son, Cameron, spent a year in a drug-rehabilitation centre in
1997, but has continued to have problems with narcotics. In October 1999,
he was arrested in the lobby of a luxury Manhattan apartment with more than
a gram of cocaine in his pocket. He avoided prosecution for criminal
possession of cocaine after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of
disorderly conduct and was sentenced to two days of community service.
Douglas's brother, Eric, has also had drug problems.

"I always knew it was going to be difficult to do this picture without
people trying to bring up my own son's ways," Douglas says now. He also
candidly suggests his own celebrity status makes it more difficult for
Cameron, now 20, to cope. "The unfortunate thing is that if it wasn't for
me, he would have the right, as every other young individual does, to work
his way through these issues. Unfortunately, he's been put out there
publicly. So certainly ... there are areas that are close to home."

Nevertheless, Douglas isn't sorry he did Traffic, which has been triggering
a buzz in Oscar circles for weeks because of the unique way it uses three
interrelating stories to examine the illegal drug trade. Douglas took a big
cut in salary to join an ensemble cast that includes Don Cheadle, Benicio
Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Amy Irving and Douglas's wife, Catherine
Zeta-Jones. For one thing, he thought the subject matter was important. For
another, he wanted to work with director Steven Soderbergh. Now that the
movie is out and generating rave reviews - in addition to five Golden Globe
nominations - he feels vindicated in taking the role.

"I think the screenwriter, Stephen Gaghan, made a concerted effort to pick
a father who is conservative and squeaky clean in a drug-free environment
in order to show that it's not only with dysfunctional parents and liberal
families that this disease can hit. I think my character personifies the
absolute furthest notion of someone's only child succumbing to this
disease, and I think that made a more interesting story than if I was
playing a liberal or part of some dysfunctional family."

The film, which moves from the criminal backwaters of Latin America to the
corridors of power in Washington, shows the insidious way in which illegal
drug trafficking spreads its tentacles. Douglas believes U.S. policy is far
too focused on incarceration and drug education and needs to be more
concerned with methods of rehabilitating convicted drug offenders. He
questions the harshness of some states in equating marijuana with heroin
and cocaine, but also says society should be more concerned with alcohol
and prescription-drug abuse. He hopes moviegoers will catch the irony of
the scene in which his character - a man appointed to lead Washington's war
on drugs - attends a cocktail party with Washington's movers and shakers.
"There was a concerted effort to emphasize that my character drank and I
don't think that irony will be lost on people."

Douglas has been attracted to issue-related stories ever since he starred
in and produced The China Syndrome, a thriller dealing with a nuclear
accident, more than two decades ago. "When you don't have special effects
or wild costumes, then you have to concentrate on the issues that are in
front of you today. But I don't want people to forget the fact that this is
also a pretty good thriller which beautifully integrates three stories,
each with its own dramatic arc. But you hope afterward that it will raise
some kind of discussion."

Traffic comes on the heels of Douglas's acclaimed performance in Wonder
Boys as a pot-smoking academic who discovers the error of his ways in the
course of one traumatic weekend.

"Both movies ... reconfirmed my choices and the chances I took."

On Traffic, he also loved simply being one member of a large ensemble.
"With Wonder Boys I was in every shot of the movie. So Traffic was a
picnic, a five-week shoot for my section."

- - Traffic opens Friday in Montreal.