TRANSCRIPT: PBS NewsHour - AIR CAMPAIGN

August 2, 1999

Is the Clinton administration's media blitz effective in curbing drug use in
young people? Media correspondent Terence Smith talks with two experts on
the pros and cons of the on-air war on drugs.

The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

TERENCE SMITH: Just how effective is the administration's campaign against
drug use among the young? We'll get two perspectives on the media blitz, but
first, a look at four of the new ads unveiled today.

AD SPOKESPERSON: (song) Gotta have it cool -- I feel alive. If you don't
have it you're on the other side I'm automatic -- I'm automatic.

DISPATCHER: This is 911 operator 224. What's your emergency?

WOMAN: We need an ambulance. Somebody cut my boyfriend. I think he's going
to die.

DISPATCHER: Okay, please try to calm down.

WOMAN: He's unconscious. He's bleeding.

DISPATCHER: I need to get some information from you, okay?

WOMAN: Okay.

DISPATCHER: Okay. Where are you?

WOMAN: At the corner of 17th and Main.

DISPATCHER: An ambulance is on the way. Stay on the line. Tell me what
happened.

WOMAN: He just started freaking out, then he put his fist through a window,
and now he's bleeding.

DISPATCHER: Okay, was he using any drugs?

WOMAN: Yes.

DISPATCHER: Do you know what he took?

WOMAN: Oh, some speed, meth, I think.

DISPATCHER: Okay. How much did he take?

WOMAN: I'm not sure.

DISPATCHER: We got an ambulance going over there right now.

WOMAN: Please hurry!

(AD IN SPANISH)

WOMAN IN AD: When I was high on pot, I was flirting with this guy, and I
didn't even know who he was. I didn't know his name. And we ended up having
sex with each other, and I felt like, why am I doing this to myself, and
what's going on with me? I felt very ashamed, and I felt embarrassed, and I
felt dirty. Marijuana: It won't get you nowhere.

TERENCE SMITH: Now, reaction to this ad campaign, first from Jack Levin,
Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University. He's the
director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. Professor,
welcome. What do you think of these ads? How do they strike you?

JACK LEVIN: Well, you know, it's not that they're that bad. It's just that
they're not good. You know, teenagers might even like the challenge. They
certainly aren't going to think of the consequences. You know, the best
model is to look at what happened in our vast and pervasive anti-smoking
campaign over the last decade. Adults stopped smoking, but 4,000 new
teenagers take up cigarette smoking every day.

They're not convinced. In fact, they may even see it as cool, as a challenge
because their friends see it that way. You know, keep in mind that -- that
teenagers are not thinking about consequences, whether you're talking about
spending 30 years behind bars for committing a crime, or getting lung cancer
30 years from now. So they're going to continue to get high, unless we give
them a really persuasive argument. And none of these ads does that at all.

TERENCE SMITH: Do these strike you as in any way more sophisticated than
those ads that came before?

JACK LEVIN: Well, none of them said that -- that the kids' brains will turn
into egg beaters if that's what you mean. But I think they have the same
essential problem: They don't give our youngsters alternatives to drug
abuse. And what's missing here is some acknowledgment that our youngsters
actually benefit from drug abuse, or at least they think they gain-- you
know, they gain in terms of popularity with their friends, they gain a sense
of belonging, they feel important, they feel special. The dealers make
money, even serve an apprenticeship in a career on the streets. So if we
really want to tackle this problem in earnest, what we have to do is give
our kids healthy alternatives to drug abuse. And that means making it
possible for them to feel important, good about themselves, make some money,
have some hope for the future without getting high.

TERENCE SMITH: Professor, in your first answer you used the word
"challenge." You said -

JACK LEVIN: That's right.

TERENCE SMITH: -- that these ads might actually throw down some sort of
challenge to young people.

JACK LEVIN: Definitely.

TERENCE SMITH: Explain what you mean by that.

JACK LEVIN: Well, you know, let's look at what the ratings on motion
pictures have done. And now those same ratings are being used on television
programs: Forbidden fruit. There are many ten-year-old kids who will not go
to a motion picture that isn't R rated. Well, exactly the same thing is
happening in the arena of illicit drugs. And there are too many rebellious
teenagers who will take up the challenge.

You know, I remember years ago when -- when Mikey on the Life Cereal
commercials was said to have died when he mixed Pop Rocks with some kind of
carbonated beverage. Well, there were youngsters all over the country who
were bragging at that they did the same thing. And they would mix Pop Rocks
with some Coca-Cola or something in front of their friends. They became
instant Evil Knievels. We are doing the same thing with drugs. We are making
our teenagers take up a challenge that they might not have taken up
otherwise.

TERENCE SMITH: You noticed one of the ads actually depicted an adult addict
using drugs and having an effect on his family. Effective with you?

JACK LEVIN: Not at all. You know, I think you have to understand that --
that the drug -- the drug problem has increased over the period of the last
few years. I don't think it's a coincidence that the children of the baby
boomers are now in their teens and they're the drug offenders that we're
trying to reach. They know about their parents. They know that many of these
mommies and daddies grew up during the 60's and early 70's when we almost
legalized illicit drugs like marijuana because it became kind of middle
class and respectable. And what happened to their own parents? Well, you
know, most of them matured and mellowed out and they're not taking drugs
anymore. So we've got the wrong kind of role models here. We need to be a
little more realistic in reaching our children.

TERENCE SMITH: So is it your notion that you can't actually scare young
people away from drugs, that you have to take another approach?

JACK LEVIN: I think you can scare adults. In fact, I know you can scare
adults. This fear-arousing cigarette -- anti-cigarette smoking campaign
clearly worked. But with kids you have to take an entirely different
approach. You have to understand that what kids need is supervision,
guidance, encouragement, support from adults. We have to recognize that drug
abuse is a symptom. It is a problem in its own right, there's no question.
But it's also a symptom of alienation and disenfranchisement and that's
where we ought to be putting $1 billion, into the economic resources needed
in order to enhance the lives of our youngsters so they don't want to get
high all the time.

TERENCE SMITH: Professor, this is stage three of a very costly campaign. Do
you, as a student of this, see any evidence of attitudinal change among the
young in this country about drugs?

JACK LEVIN: Well, results of some studies show clearly that our youngsters
are paying attention to this advertising campaign. And they think that they
are experiencing some kind of change in their attitudes. But keep in mind
that this is a temporary change at best. You know, in the long run, drug
abuse will probably be reduced among our teenagers, just as we have made
some inroads into the problem of juvenile crime over the last few years.

But it's going to have nothing to do with this advertising campaign. It's
going to have everything to do with the possibility of bringing back adults,
putting them back into the lives of our youngsters, not asking our children
to raise themselves, giving them good role models, adult supervision,
after-school programs, community centers and some spiritual guidance. That
will do it.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay, thank you very much, Professor.

JACK LEVIN: Sure.

TERENCE SMITH: Now, to Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy. His office is administering the program as such.
General McCaffrey, thank you for joining us.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Good to be here.

TERENCE SMITH: What did you think of those comments and those criticisms of
the ads, as just presented?

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Well, I think I couldn't agree more that the heart and
soul of it -- you look at the cohort of young people age 12 to 17, 80
percent of them have never touched an illegal drug. The problem is when they
leave the sixth grade and the DARE program, they're essentially drug free,
they encounter it during their middle school years. By the time they're
seniors in high school, about one out of four are past-month drug users.
Now, how do you get them to stop using drugs? You change their attitudes and
their attitudes are primarily changed by their parents, pediatricians,
coaches, the home room teacher, religious leaders.

So, at the heart and soul of it, I do believe that it's not only a
school-based model but it's also what are they doing between 3 and 7 PM,
which is why we argue for the Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA. So, in that
sense, I think the professor is quite right. Now, look, what we're doing
with the ad campaign, with less than 1 percent of the federal counter drug
budget, we're going to talk to 90 percent of America's children and their
parents four times a week. We got out there and we tested it, and phase two
nationwide, we've got some pretty good numbers that indicate that this
program is seen, they are aware of it, it is compelling. What we did today,
the President released our fully integrated final campaign.

And what we're going to do, we're going to talk to children in 102 different
media markets. We're going to be using 11 languages. And we're going to have
a message that's gone through a behavioral science expert panel, that it's
scientifically based. We're going to evaluate it very carefully. We're going
to attempt to talk to adult mentors, parents, as well as adolescents. We
know it's going to have an impact. Partnership for Drug Free America has ten
years of pretty solid data. Children do listen. That's probably the one
place where I disagree with the professor. Kids want to hear people they
love and respect and trust who will give them a message based on their own
maturity.

TERENCE SMITH: What did you think of the professor's notion that some of
these ads could actually throw down a gauntlet of challenge to kids to rebel
against authority and adults by what they see?

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Well, you know, as a father of three former adolescents, I
couldn't agree more. Kids go through a rebellious period, adolescence is
their duty to be annoying for a few years. But, I mean, that line of logic
would argue them that we wouldn't tell them, don't drive drunk, don't
shoplift, don't engage in unprotected, premarital sex. I mean, there's a
whole series of things that, of course, we owe our students, our employees,
our family members, our friends, a mutual re-enforcement that getting
involved in pot, alcohol and inhalants, as well as met amphetamines, and
other drugs is simply devastating to your educational opportunities, to your
personal safety, to your risk of becoming pregnant.

You know, I see these kids all the time. Look, most of us don't use drugs in
America. Unfortunately, 6 percent of the country does. And the professor is
also correct, there are really only two dimensions of the problem we're
worried about; four million chronic addicts like the dad who is an addict,
he's my dad, he's my brother. The other problem was children. You got to
talk to children, if you can get them to stay off drugs until the time
they're around 18, they'll never have a drug abuse problem in their life.
And that's what the ad campaign is going to try and do.

TERENCE SMITH: I read the report that you released today. And it seems clear
that you're getting some notice, some attention --

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Sure.

TERENCE SMITH: -- among young people. How do you measure success, though, in
terms of affecting and ultimately changing attitude?

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Well, actually we were sort of surprised. The phase two
evaluation also showed that we affected attitudes rather than just simply
being aware of the message. We put together a rather elaborate series of
evaluation measures; National Institute of Drug Abuse Dr. Allen Leshner will
run an independent evaluation. We did it on phase two and had to revise some
of the messages. So I think we have to listen to our feedback loop, we have
to make sure they're scientifically credible. It is not based sheerly on
scare tactics. It's a very carefully calibrated approach to talk to adults
and their adolescent children about the realities of drug abuse.

TERENCE SMITH: You say it's not based on scare tactics and yet there is a
scare element in some of those ads.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Well, you have to actually -- you have to talk to young
people, for that matter adults, in terms of frame of reference that makes
sense to them. The professor is right. You don't try and persuade people to
not smoke marijuana by saying correctly you're at high risk from a
carcinogenic substance 30 years from now dying of lung cancer. You can say,
however, look, you may get killed in a car wreck, you may get pregnant,
you're vulnerable to assault and you'll look stupid to your friends. And
those messages, delivered by people like Andy McDonald, the skateboarding
champion, are pretty darn credible. We're confident. Look, young people
don't have problems, adults have problems. And what we owe them is a
consistent, coherent, anti-drug use message.

TERENCE SMITH: The challenge, I suppose, is to somehow make drug use seem
uncool.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Yes.

TERENCE SMITH: Among the young. In other words, effect the image, effect the
attitude.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Sure. I think we have to put this in historical context. I
like to listen to Professor David Musta up at Yale University, who is one of
our nationally ranked authorities on the history of drug abuse in America.
What happens is you look back at 1979, we had 14 percent of the country
using drugs on a past-month basis. It's dropped to 6 percent. If we continue
with a balanced strategy, which the President has allowed Janet Reno and
Donna Shalala, and Dick Riley and I and others to put together, if we stay
at it over time, we believe you can reduce drug abuse in America to below 3
percent. And you and I are going to be a lot happier in America when we do
that. Remember, this is 52,000 dead a year and $110 billion of damage. It
explains half the people behind bars have compulsive drug and alcohol
problems.

TERENCE SMITH: General, I wonder, you've been leading the so-called war on
drugs for some time now. I wonder if your attitudes have evolved, if you
have come to conclude that some things work and some things don't. And if
so, what they are.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Well, let me, if I may, start off with a metaphor you use.
Here I come 32 years in the armed forces dealing with young people, we've
argued to do away with a metaphor of the war on drugs. I think it's much
more useful to our conceptual organization to talk about the metaphor of
cancer. When you start talking about that, a cancer affecting American
communities, then you start getting the role of prevention, of education.
You understand that some people become addicted and require treatment. And
when they have a setback, a relapse, we don't write them off, we go back
again to try and keep their life employed, dignified and healthy.

We've tried to advance this notion, look, let's understand the biggest
investment we can make is not in the prison system, which costs us $36
billion a year, but to get on the front end of this problem and recognize
that every addicted teenager costs the country probably a couple of million
dollars over their lifetime in impact on the health care system, criminal
justice, et cetera. That's what we're doing with this ad.

One of the things, if you'll allow me to suggest it, the ads not only talk
to youth and their adult mentors about attitudes, they also try and compel
action. So an awful lot of these ads, three of the ones you showed were the
old ads. In September when we go into the final integrated phase, there will
be 1-800 numbers, there will be home page to type up so you can get
information or more importantly so can you get involved in a community
coalition. There's no national drug problem in America. There are only a
series of community drug epidemics.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. General McCaffrey, thank you very much.

BARRY MC CAFFREY: Good being with you, Terence.