FACE UP TO THE UGLY PICTURE

IN 1970, The Sun News-Pictorial declared "war on 1034", the state road toll.

The weapon the newspaper used was public opinion. The toll decreased slowly
until the TAC and Grey Advertising astonished us with their internationally
awarded "bloody idiot" ads.

The reality of road carnage came into our living rooms, and we realised
road safety was up to us.

Now it is heroin that is killing Victorians at an ever-increasing rate.
Unless we act, the heroin toll will overtake the road toll before the year
is out and 400 or so young people will have died needlessly.

To alert Victorians to this carnage of our young, Open Family has produced
a series of commercials that show the reality of heroin use for one young
woman.

Filmmaker Mark Campbell has worked with me for more than a year gathering
footage for a documentary. Through his production company Tribal, and with
the support of Grey Advertising, we have produced commercials from that
footage that speak to potential heroin users about the likely consequences.

The series of three ads begins with 16-year-old Danielle pleading for help
to kick her addiction. The second ad outlines the plan for dealing with the
pain of withdrawal. The third ad shows a happy, attractive teener free of
drugs just 10 days later.

But there is no happy ending. Unfortunately, Danlelle went back to heroin
us, and even now continues to fight for her life against her addiction.

IT IS also unfortunate that Danlelle's story, and others like it are not
what the public wants to hear. At least that seems to be the message from
the TV networks.

Mark Campbell and I have been filming heroin users and their plight since
late 1998, and we have submitted footage to all the networks. The networks
expressed concern about the uncompromising nature of the footage, and
declined to run it without major modification. The ABC was just not
interested.

Channel Seven has expressed keen interest in running one of the 80-second
commercials and a 15-second cut version of it, which were submitted as
community service announcements to be run free.

This is still being negotiated, and is subject to approval from the
Federation of Commercial Television Stations, which approves all ads seen
on TV.

It is sad when an issue like the heroin problem can be deemed unpalatable
for public consumption. Had the TAC and Grey Advertising been convinced
that road trauma was too much for the public, we would not have had the
successful road campaign.

The Australian public is more mature now than we were in the '50s and '60s.
It is this era that seems to inform our Prime Minister and those who advise
him on the drug problem, notably the Salvation Army's Brian Watters.

It is time that they and others who shape policy in this crucial area, took
their heads out of the sand and realised that Melbourne is the heroin death
capital of the world, and that it is our young driving up the horrible toil.

Sadly, Danielle is typical of the children I see daily who are caught in
the trap of poverty, unemployment ad exclusion from society. They try
heroin because it promises momentary freedom from the cruelty of their lives.

HEROIN is not hip or cool. It is deadly. It is a loser's drug. And the
losers are young people like Danielle. We should be cherishing and
protecting them, not demonising them for youthful mistakes.

I do not back away from the brutality of the commercials we want to air.
They are an accurate reflection of the reality of heroin use.

They have one message, summarised in their tag line: "If you play, you pay".