CLINTON, GINGRICH PROMOTE NEW ANTI-DRUG AD CAMPAIGN

ATLANTA -- Updating "Just Say No" with images to "knock America upside the
head," President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced an
anti-drug campaign aimed at bombarding the nation with hard-hitting ads,

Starting Thursday night on network television, the government campaign
intends to reach parents and kids at least four times a week with graphic
images of drugs' destructiveness and children's vulnerability.

"These ads were designed to knock America upside the head and get America's
attention and empower all of you," Clinton told an audience of mostly
children.

Gingrich (R-Ga.) pledged to try to win congressional approval for expanding
the $195 million one-year campaign into a five-year, $1 billion effort.

The government will ask media outlets to match the federal money dollar for
dollar.

In a 1997 national survey, half of high school seniors and nearly one-third
of 8th-graders reported using drugs.

"I wanted to come here today to stand with the president to say that on a
bipartisan basis--Democrats and Republicans, the legislative branch and the
presidency-- we're all trying to reach out to every young American and say,
`Don't do it,' " Gingrich said.

The president recalled his younger brother, Roger, battling cocaine
addiction. "What kind of fool am I that I didn't know what was going on? .
. There's somebody like my brother back at your school who's a good kid,
just a little lost," Clinton said.

The campaign's first ads were in 75 Thursday newspapers. Though most of the
campaign will be televised, the ads, which were produced free by some of
Madison Avenue's premiere agencies, also will run on radio, billboards and
the Internet.

One spot walks viewers past school lockers into a classroom of small desks.
"It's true," the announcer exhorts parents, "The use of marijuana has
actually gone down . . . to the 5th grade. Talk to your kids now, before
someone else does."

Another is a spinoff of the fried egg "This is your brain on drugs" ad so
widely used during the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's 11-year
campaign, with its Reagan-era slogan "Just Say No." The updated version,
about heroin's destructiveness, shows a frying-pan-wielding young woman
smashing an egg and then tearing up her whole kitchen.

That ad has been running since January in 12 test cities where it generated
a 300 percent increase in calls to a national clearinghouse of information
on drug use, said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Clinton's drug policy
director.

At least $150 million of this year's appropriation will be spent directly
on air time targeting middle-schoolers. That, according to 1997 Advertising
Age figures, is more than Nike or Sprint spent to air single-brand ads.

Based on a study of the test campaign, McCaffrey acknowledged it could be
three years before anyone knows whether the ads are actually driving down
drug use. Some activists doubted the ads' effectiveness.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski