ANTI-DRUG COMMERCIALS MUST GET REAL -- BUT SO MUST POLITICIANS

A child's death devastates parents. The child can be 6 or 26, die of
an incurable disease or by his own reckless misbehavior. Doesn't
matter. The parents' pain, their frustrations about their inability to
change what happened persist.

In that context, two Central Florida mothers whose sons died of drug
overdoses went to Washington last week to make their case for a more
realistic public-relations approach to drug-fighting. They make a good
point. The federal government puts out too many too-soft,
too-gimmicky anti-drug public-service announcements to make a difference.

Will a gal smashing a kitchen with a frying pan to illustrate what
drugs can do to a person's brain really help stop a young person from
taking another hit of heroin or designer drugs, such as Ecstasy? Will
it save another mother from the heartache of losing her child to a
drug overdose?

During the 1980s, I wondered if the television ad showing an egg in a
frying pan -- "This is your brain on drugs" -- wasted our time. Did
Nancy Reagan's "just say no" campaign actually help kids fight the
peer pressure to experiment with drugs?

Republicans said it did. And drug-use statistics that showed a spike
upward in drug use by the mid 1990s -- once the egg campaign had
disappeared -- seemed to validate the "just say no" cause.

But politics being politics, now we have Rep. John Mica suggesting
that the White House may be wasting money on an anti-drug campaign
that appears too bureaucratic and "untested."

Mica was questioning President Clinton's drug-policy adviser, Barry
McCaffrey, during a congressional hearing last week. The tough,
retired general is caught in the middle of partisan bickering.

Even so-called drug-abuse experts disagree about the best way to
prevent young people from experimenting with drugs. No one answer
suffices. What works for some young people proves totally worthless to
others.

A couple of years ago, when it became clear that Orlando was fast
becoming a heroin haven for teenagers, I asked several Central Florida
drug-abuse experts why they hadn't included young, recovering addicts
- -- those who had turned around their lives -- in the local drug-abuse
education campaign in the schools.

Oh, that sends a mixed message to the students, one expert told me.
The others all nodded their heads. The consensus: High-school students
would look at the former addict and say, "See, even if you hit bottom,
you can always come back and fix your life. So why not try it?"

Yet now young people speak out at schools about their past addictions,
and they help make a difference. Apparently, local drug experts have
since realized that peer pressure works both ways. Druggies can get
some people to believe that snorting, sniffing or puffing do no harm.
But former drug users can put a face on "the rest of the story."

From New York to Orlando, in certain circles, heroin has become the
"chic" drug of choice for those who mistakenly believe that snorting
the powder -- instead of cooking it and shooting it up a vein - -
won't lead to addiction, broken lives and, for some, death.

Meanwhile, many parents continue to believe that having one talk with
a child about the dangers of drugs suffices and that their kid
wouldn't be that stupid. Yet national surveys continue to show that
the message doesn't sink in unless parents take every opportunity
available -- a news item about a busted sports star, a movie that
might portray drug use as fashionable -- to talk with their son or
daughter about the reality of drug abuse.

If the talk isn't a conversation -- but rather a parent's sermon --
that won't work either.

Nor will politicians' partisan grandstanding create a drug-fighting
policy worth pursuing.