BE UP FRONT WITH ANTI-DRUG MESSAGES

The message of the government's anti-drug campaign should not be that
television programs are likely to be laced with propaganda.

DRUGS KILL, yes. They kill motivation, they kill dreams, they kill
character. And sometimes they kill outright those foolish enough to risk
death for a transitory high.

A government trying to combat illegal drugs as the drain they are on a
healthy and prosperous society has not just the right but the duty to
educate the public about a genuine threat to its safety and well-being.

In its zeal to get its message out, though, the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy overstepped its proper role in a free society
by reviewing the scripts of network television shows for the content of
drug-related messages.

Oh, the intent is innocent enough. The government buys public-service ads
and negotiates a deal - we buy one, you give us one free. Then demand for
ad time goes up, freebies become more dear, and the deal changes.

So the government swaps some ad time for anti-drug messages woven into the
story lines of programs - not unlike the "ads" for commercial products
intertwined in movies in which the kids drink from a bottle of brand-name
pop instead of using some nondescript prop.

Except this pitch is not for Pepsi or Coke, but for the public's heart and
mind.

The government does not rewrite content or even suggest script changes, an
official explained. No, but when passing advance judgment either helps or
hurts television networks financially, the White House drug office is in a
position to change content. And this has happened, according to one unnamed
source.

Witnesses to the dogma-driven political "art" of the world's totalitarian
regimes should recognize the danger in having the government directing
messages to the masses by, essentially, putting the mass media to work as a
propaganda machine.

Television shows should not glamorize drug use - not because the government
tells them not to, but because of the truth of the message: Drugs kill.

If any form of communication is to have credibility, it must be presented
with an integrity that springs from an honesty of vision: This may not be
the whole picture, it may be a very flawed picture, but this is what the
writer, the director, the artist sees. It is not "truth" filtered through
the lens of a government apparatchik with an agenda, no matter how
well-intentioned.

One thing drugs must not kill among a free people is freedom of independent
thought.