DRUG WAR: ANOTHER BATTLE

President Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, outlined a plan this
week to members of Congress that involves "leveraging" the drug war into
movies. Apparently, the general has already successfully done that in the
TV industry.

It was disclosed earlier this year that McCaffrey's Office of National Drug
Control Policy had been quietly giving major TV networks millions of
dollars in financial credits for getting producers to include anti-drug
messages in popular, prime-time shows, among them "E.R." and "Beverly Hills
90210."

The idea, of course, is that such shows are popular with young Americans,
who are the highest risk group when it comes to using illegal drugs.
McCaffrey's office reasons that if producers and network officials
incorporate anti-drug messages, it could help reduce drug use among young
people. Now he wants to start a similar program within the movie industry.

We admire McCaffrey's dedication to his mission -- reducing drug use in
America -- but there are two distinct problems with his methods.

First, the messages being transmitted through prime-time TV shows don't
seem to be having any measurable effect. In fact, since the financial
credits program began, the number of illegal drug users 12 years and older
in America has remained about the same.

Second, we are uncomfortable with a situation in which the government is
directly influencing the media on the nature of its content. It's just a
little too close for comfort to George Orwell's vision of government's role
in society. And a bit too close to censorship.

Clinton administration's anti-drug efforts are being pointed in the wrong
direction. McCaffrey has authorization to spend about a billion dollars a
year on anti-drug messages in the media -- including the TV and possibly
now movie industry credits -- and that is money substance abuse experts say
could be put to better use in community education and treatment programs.
Anti-drug messages are good; direct-contact programs are better.

Paying off the media is not the most effective means of spreading the
anti-drug message. The News-Press editorial pages have carried the
anti-drug message for years because it is the right thing to do -- not
because a government agency is offering cash incentives for doing so.