WHEELS FALL OFF MEDIA STRATEGY

Heroin and methadone are not the only addictive substances organizers of
the NAOMI trial hope to control at Abbott and Hastings. There are also the
information about the program and access to the experts. Those can be as
enticing to a journalist as a junkie's fix.

But even before the doors have opened the attempt to control that
information has gone seriously off the rails.

NAOMI stands for North American Opiate Medication Initiative. It is nothing
if not controversial. For one year selected junkies will go to a government
supervised site and get either free heroin or free methadone. For the first
time in this hemisphere scientists will observe, among other things, what
impact this steady, reliable, free supply of drugs has on the individual
drug user's life.

Originally three American cities were going to join the project with
Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Not surprisingly, given the U.S.
administration's paranoia about drugs, the Americans dropped out early on.

Canadians are still players but between the federal funders being jumpy and
Health Canada being excessively cautious in issuing the permit to
distribute free heroin, the start date has been delayed repeatedly.

Just before Christmas, anticipating a date was near, the NAOMI people
offered a number of news outlets a controlled "exclusive" rollout of
information on the project.

This type of media strategy is not new. Sources frequently want to
manipulate the release of information through the media, whether it is the
details of the RAV line, or a new poll. Journalists thrive on information,
particularly if it is new and especially if they alone receive it.

Under former premier Glen Clark the NDP's preferred spot for making major
announcements was at the top of the BCTV supper hour news. The TV show
would get the cabinet minister and his breathless prose while other news
outlets would get faxed press releases moments before air time.

The cops are notorious for this tactic. The squad in charge of biker gangs
in B.C. wants to make a splash about its work, maybe in advance of a budget
request, so it dumps a truckload of files about the Hell's Angels on a
reporter's desk at the Vancouver Sun and offers exclusive interviews with
undercover cops. It works like a damn.

NAOMI spin doctor Jim Boothroyd said he "sought out media of authority" to
give his story to, promising selected journalists access to the site, the
members of the research team, community advisory groups and a handy dandy
video of the operation.

Deals were made with Saturday Night, the Economist, and the Globe and Mail,
which agreed to publish a piece inside its Focus section on the Saturday
before the site opened. The Vancouver Sun was also offered a deal which
allowed it to publish the same day as the Globe if its story was
substantially different.

But things came apart for Boothroyd when the Sun said it couldn't withhold
the story from its CanWest sister, the National Post, the Globe's direct
competitor. Boothroyd decided to stick with the Globe. That was last
Wednesday. The Sun went ahead without Boothroyd's help. In fact, he tried
to stop people from talking with the Sun, but the Sun moved too quickly for
him except for the medical leaders in the trial who, the Sun reported, in
its story Friday, "declined to be interviewed for this story because of a
dispute with the Vancouver Sun about publication conditions."

The Globe, realizing the Sun was about to publish, told Boothroyd the deal
was off and published a story Monday.

Health Canada has yet to finally approve the project.

But with luck NAOMI will eventually get going and work better than the
media strategy designed to welcome its birth.