FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN UNDER FIRE

Lawmakers Worry TV Deal May Violate Free Speech

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers expressed concern yesterday about a government
deal to insert anti-drug messages into prime-time television programs,
and a White House official denied that the arrangement was an attempt
to restrict free speech.

After the deal was disclosed last month, there have been "unfair
allegations of attacks on the First Amendment, Big Brother. Nothing
could be further from the truth," said Alan Levitt, director of the
anti-drug media campaign for the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

"We have not done this in secret. We are doing it because it is the
way you change behavior," Levitt told the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on the Treasury and General Government.

Lawmakers said the deal raised questions despite its good
intentions.

"We have no problem with all of the ads you mentioned," said the
subcommittee chairman, Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of
Colorado. "The question is how we go about doing it."

Democratic Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota said, "I think it does
raise real serious questions about the government's role."

Republican Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin of Louisiana, chairman of the
House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer
Protection, has said he wants to hold hearings on the matter.

Under the deal, the government gave financial credits to TV networks
that included anti-drug messages in their shows. In some cases, the
White House drug policy office reviewed the scripts before the
programs aired.

Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy, put new rules into practice last month and said
the government would not review episodes in advance.

The office also plans to keep separate its process for granting
financial credits from its role in advising networks and producers on
how to portray situations involving drugs.

The arrangement stemmed from Congress' 1997 approval to spend $1
billion over five years on anti-drug ads.

Newspapers, magazines and other media outlets were asked to match each
commercial spot bought by the government with a free one.

Since the program started, the government has agreed to give up some
of its ad time on television if the networks demonstrated that some
programs conveyed anti-drug messages.