REVIEW & OUTLOOK

TV, the Anti-Drug

Proponents of legalization like to claim that drug use is an intractable
problem, so we might as well learn to live with it. That's always been a
flawed idea, and now there's more evidence to show just how wrong it really is.

Remember the love drug? That's the nickname of the synthetic drug also
known as ecstasy. It was hugely popular with young adults a few years ago,
especially at dance parties called raves. In 2001, 12% of teenagers
reported having tried it.

The love affair is now over. A survey out this week from the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America shows that teen ecstasy use has dropped 25% in the
past two years. The Partnership's findings jibe with those of the
University of Michigan's annual study on drug use, which also reports a
sharp drop in ecstasy's popularity.

The reason for the decline is simple: education. The medium: television.
More and more kids now know that ecstasy is dangerous thanks to a message
that is being hammered home on the tube. Armed with that knowledge, they're
saying no.

Danielle Heird, ecstasy's victim and now the subject of a TV ad.

The media campaign about the dangers of ecstasy has taken several tracks:
public-service ads, TV documentaries and anti-ecstasy messages woven into
the plots of regular TV shows. Fifty-two percent of teens report having
seen an anti-drug ad on TV, up from 32% in 1998.

Maybe you've seen the ads about Danielle Heird, a pretty 21-year-old woman
from Las Vegas, who died after taking two ecstasy pills one evening. One
spot shows the coroner reading from her autopsy report. Others show
Danielle's mother and father talking about their dead daughter.

"Sex and the City" did a pro-ecstasy show a couple of years ago. But since
then "The Sopranos," "Law & Order," "TheWest Wing," "ER" and "Dawson's
Creek" have all weighed in with plots deglamorizing the drug. "Oprah,"
"Sally Jessy Raphael," "20/20," "Dateline" and others have done programs on
the drug's dangers.

Drug use overall is also down among teens. That includes marijuana,
amphetamines and LSD (which made a comeback in the '90s). Heroin and
cocaine use is relatively low and stable. The misuse of prescription drugs
(OxyContin, psychotherapeutics, Ritalin) appears to be growing.

As for ecstasy, the problem isn't solved yet; 9% of teens still report
experimenting with it. But there are 770,000 fewer users today compared
with 2001. If the drug were legal, that number would be much higher -- as
would the number of potentially damaged lives.

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