AD CAMPAIGNS ALONE CAN'T STOP DRUG USE

WE can just see the public-service announcement now.

A politician wearing a rumpled pinstripe suit, shot in grainy black and
white, flings files and papers all over his office, pushes over a few filing
cabinets, topples a book-case or two, all the while screaming his head off.
Finally, exhausted, his office a into a mess, he stops and stares soulfully
into the camera, lamenting that feel-good political solutions and wasteful
spending have "trashed" common sense when it comes to the nation's drug policy.

Then, he makes a plea to the nation's policy makers to "just say no" to
using meaningless, expensive ad campaigns as a means of getting kids to do
the same with drugs.

Alas, it will never happen. At least not if the government's latest weapon
in the war on drugs is any indication.

This month, the federal government launched a splashy $195 million, one-year
anti-drug ad campaign they hope to turn into a splashy $2 billion, five-year
anti-drug ad campaign. Speaker Newt Gingrich has vowed to get Congress to
cough up $800 million of that total; the rest it is hoped, will come from
matching funds from media outlets.

Gingrich was on hand to announce the campaign with Bill Clinton at a
bipartisan event attended mainly by children. It was a warm and fuzzy
moment: two political adversaries putting aside their differences to affirm
their support for a campaign that will include television, print, radio,
billboard - and even Internet - advertisements.

The first of the TV ads, which has gotten a lot of attention, shows a
fetching young woman in a tight little tank top using a frying pan to smash
not only an egg, but her entire kitchen in an illustration of what heroin
will do to your life. It's a hipster version of the '80s "this is your brain
on drugs" campaign.

The ad campaign is intended to reach the average American family about four
times a week, telling children that drugs are more dangerous than they
think, and warning parents that their kids are more likely to try them than
they might think. A 1997 government survey showed that one-third of all
eighth-graders and half of all high school seniors reported using illegal
drugs at least once.

Clinton, under fire from Republicans who charge that he's soft on drugs,
explained the ad campaign's goal is to "knock America upside the head."
While knocking America upside the head is certainly a unique policy goal,
and one that makes a terrific sound bite at that, we're not sure it's the
most sensible way to go about battling drug use among teens. Not that
there's anything wrong with ads that discourage drug use - but $1 billion?

That's quite a few taxpayer dollars, especially when one considers that the
jury is definitely out on the effectiveness of such campaigns. Critics of
the new ads have pointed out that kids have been bombarded with anti-drug
messages for years, both in the media and through school-based programs such
as DARE.

Meanwhile, teen drug use has continued to rise, and even Barry McCaffery,
head of Clinton's anti-drug programs, has said it could be three years
before we know if these latest ads are effective.

The $1 billion intended for this campaign would be more sensibly spent on
things that have proven effective in battling drug use, such as after-school
pro-grams and treatment centers. Unfortunately, it seems as if common sense
is the last thing motivating the government's latest anti-drug effort.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett