DRUG OFFICE SNEAKS MESSAGE INTO PRIME TIME

TROUBLED LOSER: ``Want to try some illegal drugs?''

SERIES REGULAR: ``I'd rather play sports and perform community service.

TROUBLED LOSER: ``Oh no! I've just flunked out of school, gone to jail,
lost my friends, hurt my family and wrecked my kitchen due to my illegal
drug use.''

SERIES REGULAR: ``I see that drug abuse has bad consequences. I'm going to
have a heart-to-heart talk with my parents.''

SERIES DAD: ``Your mother and I think that drugs are wrong.''

SERIES MOM: ``Your father and I think that drugs are dangerous too.''

SERIES REGULAR: ``Drugs are for troubled losers.''

THIS is your favorite TV show. This is your favorite show on anti-drug money.

This is ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' ``ER,'' ``Chicago Hope,'' ``The Drew Carey
Show,'' ``Seventh Heaven,'' ``The Practice,'' ``Home Improvement,''
``Sports Night,'' ``Promised Land,'' ``Cosby,'' ``Trinity,''
``Providence,'' ``Sabrina the Teenage Witch,'' ``Boy Meets World,''
``General Hospital'' and others.

But when the credits roll at the end of the show, something's missing:
White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey, the secret scriptwriter, won't be
listed.

After a six-month investigation, the online magazine Salon (www.salon.com)
has reported that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is
financially compensating networks for inserting its anti-drug message into
prime-time programming. It's payola for propaganda.

In late 1997, Congress funded a five-year, $1 billion anti-drug media
campaign, demanding that broadcasters provide one free ad for every ad paid
for by the government. Regular ad sales were slow, so the five major
networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and WB -- went along.

But the buy-one-get-one-free deal quickly soured when e-commerce exploded,
writes Daniel Forbes for Salon. Dot-com advertisers were willing to pay
full price for the time networks were giving away to community service ads.

In the spring of 1988, a payola deal was struck: The networks would turn
selected sitcoms and dramas into anti-drug commercials. In exchange, they'd
get back some of the ad time they owed the government and be able to resell
it.

Most networks have been sending a copy of anti-drug scripts to the drug
czar's office for approval or rewriting, according to Salon. In most cases,
writers and producers didn't know their network bosses had sold script
control.

The May 19 episode of ``Smart Guy,'' a WB sitcom about a 10-year-old genius
in high school, is an example, Forbes reported.

A WB executive requested a drugs or drinking script, so the producer
revived a previously rejected script in which the main character, T.J.,
drinks beer to impress two popular older boys at a party. It showed T.J.
getting drunk, acting stupidly, spilling soda on a girl he wanted to
impress, suffering a hangover and getting in trouble with Dad.

The drug czar's consultants insisted that the older boys couldn't be
portrayed as popular or cool. They were turned into clownish losers; T.J.
recalled one was in the ``slow reading class.''

Their beer drinking was moved from the main party to a utility room to
suggest shameful secrecy.

T.J. was required to take a dose of the ``anti-drug,'' a heart-to-heart
talk with his father.

By contrast, no deal was struck with ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' which
features a college freshman who battles adolescent angst and the ubiquitous
spawn of Satan.

The drug message wasn't ``on-strategy,'' according to a drug policy officer
who nixed the script. ``It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not
like real-life kids taking drugs.''

Buffy's struggle against the soullessness of her peers is very relevant to
the choices young people face. But subtlety is not the strong suit of the
anti-drug campaign.

While the drug czar's office claims to want realistic portrayals of
substance abuse, they really mean 100 percent negative portrayals, even if
those don't ring true.

In real life, drinkers are sometimes popular and cool, and don't hide in
the utility room at parties. Fast readers experiment with drugs out of
curiosity -- they've heard so much about it in drug ed -- and usually don't
become addicts.

The reasons people use drugs and alcohol are complex; the consequences vary
depending on the person and the drug. ``On strategy'' is off reality.

Prime-time TV isn't promoting drugs, according to a Mediascope study
released last week by the drug czar's office. Only a few episodes show
illicit drug use, and nearly all show negative consequences, the study
found. Underage smoking and drinking also is rare, though adult drinking is
often portrayed as -- horrors! -- ``a positive experience.''

I don't mind if TV writers and producers choose to send simple messages
through their shows: Say no to drugs. Talk to your children. Fasten your
seat belt. Love thy neighbor -- but use condoms.

It violates the movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn's advice: ``If you want to send
a message, try Western Union.'' But it's only TV after all.

What's alarming is when the government becomes the scriptwriter,
manipulating public opinion with the public's money. The secrecy makes it
more sinister: If it's OK to have the drug czar approving scripts, how come
nobody knew about it till Salon broke the story?

``Big Brother is watching you,'' George Orwell warned in ``1984.''

As it turns out: You're watching Big Brother.