WATCHDOG ATTACKS COCAINE ADVERT AS 'THE FINAL STRAW'

A new British men's magazine is to be censured this week for launching
a drugs-related advertising campaign which has been attacked for
encouraging people to experiment with illegal substances.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the national watchdog, is
to single out for criticism a poster campaign by the new magazine
Later, aimed at men in their late twenties and early thirties.

The first poster in a six-part campaign features the words 'Get Some
Coke for Jamie's Party' above two tick-boxes offering a choice: '1
Gram' or '2 Litres'.

The ASA condemned the campaign as 'the final straw'. It is to act
after receiving a stream of complaints within hours of the posters
being displayed in Scotland and the North of England on Tuesday.

'We have never seen anything as in-your-face as this one,' said ASA
spokesman Chris Reed, who condemned the publisher, IPC, for its 'lack
of responsibility'.

The ASA is angry about the growing trend to use references to illegal
drugs, in breach of its guidelines.

'Just because a target group of consumers understands the advertiser's
message does not mean it is acceptable to the rest of the public,'
said Reed. But Phil Hilton, the editor of Later, criticised the
'patronising' response and said he regretted that the poster would
have to be withdrawn.

He said: 'It seems that even though drugs are used, you can't joke
about that kind of thing. It seems that it is OK to talk to young
people about drugs in a patronising way, but nothing else - no other
mention of such a common social trend - is allowable.'

A Scottish MP, John McAllion, was one of the first to register his
'outrage' after the poster went up in front of a secondary school in
his Dundee constituency. 'Nobody should attempt to profit on the back
of other people's misery, and drugs cause misery for many people,' he
said.

Andrew Brown, chairman of the industry's Committee of Advertising
Practice, said: 'Anything that appears to condone illegal behaviour is
inappropriate.'

A formal ASA investigation will begin tomorrow. Sources say there is
little doubt that complaints will be upheld.

Other complaints were recently upheld against the News of the World -
which featured a footballer snorting a white line on a football pitch,
a year before Robbie Fowler did the same - and perfume adverts from
Elida Faberge using the slogan: 'The only thing worth sniffing in a
club'.