SPIDERMAN HITS THE BOOKS

WASHINGTON - Generations of American schoolchildren had their knuckles
rapped or were given detention for reading comic books in class, yet this
year millions will be assigned a special Spiderman comic to read and
discuss. The acrobatic superhero is part of the Clinton administration's
five-year, $1 billion ''surround communications strategy'' that will use
the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and school TV programs to bombard
adolescents with warnings about the dangers of tobacco, marijuana, cocaine,
heroin, and other drugs, including alcohol and household solvents.

''We need to reach our kids where they spend the majority of their waking
hours - in the classroom,'' said Barry R. McCaffrey, the director of the
White House Office of Drug Control Policy, at a news conference. This
year's effort to teach young Americans about illegal drugs is the
government's ''largest in-school advertising program ever,'' drug policy
officials said.

The Clinton administration spends $18 billion a year to fight the demand
for and supply of narcotics in the United States, up from $13.5 billion
four years ago, when he took office, McCaffrey said. ''Educating our
nation's youth to reject illegal drugs is the number one goal of our
national drug control strategy,'' he said.

Starting this autumn, schools across the United States will ask students to
read a four-installment, antidrug series featuring Spiderman, who will warn
students about how they can ''recognize and resist drug images in the
media,'' a a statement from McCaffrey's agency said. The comic books, which
will include antidrug guides for teachers, will be inserted into copies of
Boys Life, Girls Life, Muse, React, and Scholastic Classroom. The combined
circulation of 11 million will reach about 65 percent of the nation's
students between 9 and 14, the agency said. In addition, the agency will
work with Media One, America Online, Cable in the Classroom, The New York
Times, and other companies to launch a steady stream of advertisements and
news stories to encourage a further decline in US adolescent drug
consumption, McCaffrey said.

His agency says drug use by Americans between 12 and 17 has fallen 13
percent in the last 12 months.

It attributes that success in part to parents, teachers, adult youth
counselors, and coaches telling young Americans drug use is potentially
dangerous.

''We're starting to take a bite out of this problem,'' said McCaffrey.
''When parents talk, young people listen.''