GOVERNMENT SET TO SPEND UP TO $1 BILLION ON ANTI-DRUG ADS

Is it deja vu all over again with the long-running, oft-declared "War
on Drugs"?

Seems like it. You remember the most famous anti-drug ad from the
just-say-no era, right? Shot of an egg ("This is your brain"). Shot of
a fried egg in the pan ("This is your brain on drugs"). Know-it-all
tag ("Any questions?").

Now, a hip-looking teenage girl in jeans and bare midriff is shown
madly swinging the frying pan around the kitchen in a new TV and print
ad meant to dramatize the horrors of heroin.

That's the kickoff ad in a new, federally funded anti-drug drive that
could cost tax-payers $1 billion over five years. And, yes, there are
questions - given that previous anti-drug drives have had no lasting
effect in our martini-, ciggie-, cigar-, Prozac-, Viagra-, caffeine-
and beer-saturated culture.

But first, a few fast facts:

President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich unveiled the
bipartisan campaign July 9, with Clinton proclaiming, "These ads are
designed to knock America upside the head."

Up to $1 billion worth of print space and air time could be donated by
media outlets, matching the potential outlay of taxpayer dollars,
according to news reports of Clinton's announcement.

Still, for the first time, the feds - through the White House Office
of National Drug Policy, working with Partner-ship for a Drug-Free
America - are buying anti-drug ads. Washington will spend $195 million
in the first year, with four more years and another $800 million very
possible. The campaign is aimed chiefly at teenagers and "at-risk"
youth.

For all the persuasive talk coming from Madison Avenue and
Pennsylvania Avenue, the folks on Main Street may take some additional
convincing - especially if they counsel addicts, help shape public
health policy or work in public interest advertising. Herb Chao
Gunther, president and CEO of Public Media Center, a San Francisco
non-profit advertising agency, says he got a phone call last year from
Clinton's drug "czar," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, inviting him
to Washington for a media planning session.

Gunther recalls: "I told him, 'To be credible, you're going to have
to talk about tobacco and alcohol, the universal gateway drugs.'" Told
the campaign's emphasis would be on illegal drugs - your heroin,
your crack cocaine, your marijuana - Gunther opted out.

PMC, which has crafted ads for the California Public Utilities
Commission, Planned Parenthood, Amnesty International and many others,
would seem to be a perfect fit for this kind of public-interest campaign.

One expert who did answer the White House's call, attending a February
1997 pre-launch skull session, is Professor Lawrence Wallack. Wallack,
who teaches in the UC-Berkeley School of Public Health and specializes
in the study of mass media in public health policy, says he, too,
raised the issue of alcohol and tobacco.

Wallack observes that "The most serious short-term threat to
teenagers is alcohol, from car crashes and violence. In the long-term,
it's tobacco."

Alcohol and tobacco, Wallack explains, don't cause drug abuse per se,
but they lower the threshold for experimentation - thanks in part to
peer pressure and the fact that alcohol and tobacco are legal
substances (for adults).

If the campaign doesn't give full weight to booze and smokes, Wallack
warns, "My hunch is there is going to be a serious credibility issue."

Underage drinking and teenagers' access to cigarettes are targeted in
public service announcements. But critics fear they'll drown in a
flood of shock ads targeting illegal drugs.

John DeDonenico, clinic supervisor at the detox clinic of the

Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, says he's concerned that the ads on
illegal drugs will work all too well -and that people seeking help
won't be able to get it from the nation's underfunded, understaffed
substance abuse programs.

"I wish we would have got the money those ad campaigns got,"
DeDonenico sighs. "We could serve people. In the Nancy Reagan
campaign, we saw more money. We had 14 counselors; now we have seven.
We have not had a raise in three or four years. Most of us are working
two or three jobs just to stay here."

The ad biz is gearing up, with the nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based
American Advertising Federation coordinating local PSAs in 100
markets. The New York non-profit Advertising Council is the traffic
cop for national PSAs. Ads are planned for four major TV broadcast
networks, 75 daily newspapers, radio, billboards, magazines and the
Internet. Amid the blitz, ad industry people emphasize the public
spiritedness of the campaign, and acknowledge its limits.

Advertising Council senior vice-president Donna Feiner says the Ad
Council has picked 15 beneficiaries of the first wave of PSAs. Among
them is an underage drinking prevention program from the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

"Advertising alone is never going to solve the problem," stresses AAF
spokeswoman Maijorie Valin. "Advertising is a piece of the puzzle, not
the end-all and be-all."

Will the campaign drive down drug use - or will the ad with the girl
swinging the frying pan become the unintentionally funny "Reefer
Madness" of the 1990s? As it is, the spot looks like a scene from an
independent film about a guy, a girl, a gun, a bad but glamorous habit
and a fast car.

No one knows the outcome of the latest battle in the drug war. But
critics are riled that the ad industry, which routinely pockets
billions for persuading people to smoke and drink, is paid
simulta-neously to tell them to stop.

PMC's Gunther fumes, "This money is going to an industry that should
be put on the rack until their spines snap. Instead, they're getting a
billion-dollar valentine."

FOOTNOTE: Drug czar McCaffrey, in Sweden last week, declared that the
Netherlands has a homicide rate double that of the United States.
"That's drugs," the ex-general said of the murderous Dutch, who are
internationally known for their liberal soft-drug laws. Infuriated
Dutch officials rebutted MeCaifrey with stats showing America's murder
rate to be nearly five times higher than Holland's.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"