SIGNS SOON TO OFFER ADDICTS CASH, CATCH

Controversial Group Targets Charlotte Area With Push To Sterilize

HARRISBURG - An RV painted with a picture of a crying baby sits on Main
Street in this small town, advertising an unusual offer for drug addicts:
Get sterilized and get $200.

It's one of the newest attention-grabbers Barbara Harris is using in her
crusade to end the plague of "crack babies."

For nearly a decade, her organization, Project Prevention, has gained
national attention by offering $200 to drug addicts who show proof they are
sterilized or use long-term birth control.

But two years after moving the group's national headquarters to Cabarrus
County, Harris is launching an advertising campaign to raise its profile in
the Charlotte area.

Project Prevention has obtained 25 billboard spots scheduled to go up in
Charlotte later this year. Harris said she plans to drive the RV the
organization acquired six months ago into troubled neighborhoods to reach
potential clients.

Since 1997 the group has paid 1,600 drug users across the United States,
but no one in North Carolina has taken the offer. The organization has paid
one person in South Carolina.

"We want to be like (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)," Harris said. "When
people see drug addicts, we want them to think of us."

But her message stirs controversy. Opponents tore down signs in Oakland,
Calif., advertising the organization's offer and women's groups, and
advocates for the homeless in other cities have protested against Harris.

Critics say she spreads the worst stereotypes about inner-city women and
promotes selective human reproduction. .

They point out public comments by Harris, who once said: "We don't allow
dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from
having unwanted puppies and yet these women are literally having litters of
children."

David Finby is on the board of directors for the Mecklenburg Drug Free
Coalition.

"It's disturbing," Finby said of Harris' plans for a campaign in Charlotte.
"The heart is in the right place, but I just don't think this is right."

National spotlight

Harris, 53, started Project Prevention in Orange County, Calif., after she
and her husband adopted four children born to a crack-cocaine user. The
group has paid people in 39 states and Washington, D.C.The effort has
thrust Harris into the national spotlight. She has appeared on "The Oprah
Winfrey Show" and numerous other television shows and has been featured in
Time and Newsweek magazines.

But there is little hint in Harrisburg that a nationally known figure works
and lives in the town of 5,000 people about 15 miles northeast of uptown
Charlotte. Harris and her husband moved there two years ago to be closer to
family.

The organization, which has a $250,000 annual budget from a variety of
contributors, is run entirely by Harris and her 23-year-old son, Rodney,
from a small nondescript office on the second floor of a strip mall.

Project Prevention's billboard campaign in the Charlotte area will emulate
what it has done in California, Rodney Harris said.

"We have 400 to 500 clients in California, and we want to create that kind
of base here," he said.

The clientele

Clients call Project Prevention via a toll-free number advertised on the
Internet, billboards and the RV, which Harris drives from city to city.
They mail in documents from doctors or other sources showing they have a
drug problem and have been sterilized or taken long-term birth control.

Harris said most of her clients do not want more children and the money is
a needed enticement to get them to obtain birth control.

She says the typical client has five pregnancies and two children in the
foster care system.

Harris said she saw firsthand the effects drugs taken during pregnancy have
on babies when she brought her second adopted child home from the hospital.

"He could not keep food down for months," she said. "He was scared of the
light. It was sad and frustrating."

Detractors contend she is spreading a stereotype.

"There is no science behind what she says," said Lynn Paltrow, executive
director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women in New York City. "The
stereotypes the program promotes are devastating."

Unintended pregnancy is a problem that cuts across all social and economic
lines, and scientific studies question the link between drug use during
pregnancy and incessant crying and other symptoms associated with "crack
babies." Drugs cannot be singled out from other factors, such as
malnutrition and inadequate prenatal care, studies say.

The controversy

Harris has angered civil rights groups, who say she disproportionately
seeks out poor minority women for sterilization.More than 30 percent of
people who have received cash from Project Prevention are African American,
the organization reports.

But blacks make up about 13 percent of the population in the country, and
studies show they do not use drugs at a greater rate than whites.

"It's like something out of Nazi Germany," said Mary Barr, an anti-drug
activist in New Jersey. "They are propagating myths."

Harris mocks suggestions that she is discriminating against blacks,
pointing out that her husband and the four children they adopted are black.

"They are just ignorant," she says of her critics. "My husband always says,
`If you were black, nobody would say anything.' "

She keeps a desk drawer filled with dozens of thank-you letters from former
clients and supporters who describe life with an addiction.

"This is what keeps me going," Harris said.

Supporters

Despite the controversy, Harris has support among the wealthy and famous,
including talk-radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

Houston venture capitalist Jim Woodhill said he has given about $250,000 to
Project Prevention since 1999 when he read about the program in a magazine.

He said he does not understand why some people consider Harris' idea
controversial.

"She's a moral force of nature," Woodhill said. "She's a hero."

States With Clients

Project Prevention has paid clients in 39 states, but none in North
Carolina so far. Here is a breakdown of the group's clients in neighboring
states.

South Carolina: 1

West Virginia: 1

Georgia: 2

Kentucky: 2

Tennessee: 3

Virginia: 30

Source: Project Prevention