DRUGS IN FILM: LIGHTS, CAMERA, SNORT

While parents and politicians fret about drug use, Hollywood has made
a slew of movies in which stars use drugs.

In a scene from the new Hollywood hit "There's Something About Mary",
the characters played by Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller sit on a car
hood one pleasant Florida evening looking out at the beach.

Stiller takes a drag from a cigarette then passes it to Diaz. It's a
joint they're smoking.

In "Permanent Midnight", soon to be released in the US, there's
Stiller again, playing a TV writer hopelessly addicted to heroin. In
one scene, he's parked in a questionable neighborhood in the middle of
the night. He's just scored drugs and hr's eager to inject them. While
he jabs the hypodermic needle into his jugular, the camera pans to the
car seat next to him - occupied by his sleeping infant daughter.

"There was a period, in the '80s especlally when movies didn't show
drug use or they showed it in a negative light," says Dr David F.
Musto, a professor of child psychiatry and the history of medicine at
Yale Medical School.

"Now, the rise in drug use in movies comes at a time when teenagers
are more accepting of drugs. There's a parallel there."

American society seems split on the drug issue - judges hand down
harsh jail terms for pot possession, while California voters approve
the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes - and Hollywood is taking
advantage of that tension.

Planting drugs in their movies allows film makers to tweak the ambivalent
culture and appear hip doing it. That may peeve parents, but kids - who are
the target of most of Hollywood's marketing machinery - are more receptive.

"If there's a primary cultural message, it's 'practise safe sex, just
say no to drugs, take care of your body, be prudent'," says David
Veloz, the director of "Permanent Midnight".

"The secondary cultural message is the opposite - 'break the rules,
disobey'. The secondary message is being heard louder now because
people are tired of the primary message."

Nostalgia for the '60s and '70s is a hot topic in the culture at large
and movies have capitalised on the increased interest in that time.

The disco period, especially, has been re-examined by youngsters who
weren't around the first time bell-bottoms and Donna Summer were cool.
Cocaine use was prevalent in that era. In "The Last Days of Disco", a
nightclub employee, played by Chris Eigeman, assuages his feelings of
inadequacy by lining up the cocaine and sucking it down.

Another disco movie, "54", stars Mike Myers and Neve Campbell. It
would be historically inaccurate to tackle the subject of a disco such
as Studio 54 without showing cocaine use.

While nostalgia for disco rages, a film such as "Fear and Loathing in
Las Vegas" tried to cash in on the notoriety of Hunter S. Thompson,
who wrote the book on which the film is based and whose heyday was the
early 70s.

In the film, Thompson, played by Johnny Depp, and his sidekick, Dr
Gonzo, played by Benicio Del Toro, consume a list of drugs too long
for this article.

There are also films depicting past eras that aren't necessarily
nostalgic. In "Whatever", set in 1981, two high school seniors assert
their independence from fragile families. In the meantime, they party
like mad shortly before graduation. In a number of scenes, young
people, drink, smoke pot and snort cocaine.

Director Susan Skoog says she was aiming for an honest, uncompromising
look at her own life growing up in New Jersey. "That's what high
school was like back then," Skoog claims,"That's why I did it -
because I thought my experiences, and people that I knew and the world
that I saw, were never put on film before."

Meanwhile, heroin is making a comeback, according to statistics
provided by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration. The drug has gained popularity with movie-makers and
other culture creators, too. "Trainspotting", in which the
misadventures of a crew of Scottish junkies are chronicled, was a
runaway success.

In the final analysis, drugs are a part of society and drug use is
rampant in the film industry. It's no surprise the film makers make
movies about what they know.

"There's a lot of drugs here," director Veloz says of Los
Angeles.

"But everybody's looking to anaesthetise themselves. We talk about
coke, and heroin, but how many housewives are out there in the
heartland popping Prozac like candy?"

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady