STOP THE SECRET PROPAGANDIZING FOR WAR ON DRUGS

You can't quibble with the goal of White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey's
effort to influence network TV programing: He wants to cut down on illegal
drug use by depicting it, in prime-time TV shows, as uncool.

But what he has done amounts to using the media as a tool for secret
propagandizing, however benign his intent. The White House should have
known better, and so should the networks.

In response to criticism, the antidrug office has eliminated the most
obviously offensive feature of the scheme-advance review of TV scripts by
the White House. But that doesn't change its nature. The right solution is
to revise it in ways that take a more scrupulous approach to fighting
illegal drugs.

Under a 1997 federal law, Washington was authorized to buy TV spots for
antidrug ads, beyond those that networks may air free as a public
service-providing the networks sold the time for half price. Other media
were offered a similar deal. The TV networks weren't much interested, so
the White House added a twist: Put antidrug themes into the story lines of
TV shows instead, and the White House would give back some of the air time
it bought, so the networks could resell it to commercial advertisers. The
deal so far has brought the networks about $25 million.

There's enough emphasis on sex and violence on TV that any positive
influences normally would be welcome. But if Washington starts secretly
paying to have messages about drugs inserted in TV shows, what precedent
has it set? What other tricks will it come up with to promote what it
thinks good for you-or good for an incumbent president? And the TV
networks, which normally fuss loudly if they detect anyone trying to tamper
with their creative control of programing, seem happily to have compromised
their integrity when the bucks were big enough.

TV can play a role in the war on drugs, but Washington should go at it
directly and honestly. It should use its bully pulpit to persuade networks
voluntarily to use their influence constructively; after all, it costs no
more to include an antidrug message in a plot than not to. And government
should pay full freight to air its paid commercials, like everyone else.