ELVIS' WIDOW SPEAKS IN STATE ABOUT DRUG USE

Priscilla Presley, who intimately endured the public drug addictions
of her husband and daughter, says parents need to wake up to the
reality that children are using drugs as young as elementary school.
"I have a 16-year-old son so I'm around teenagers a lot, and I see
what they're going through," Presley said in an interview Saturday
before speaking in McAlester.

Presley said the drug culture has changed considerably since the
1960s.

"I never heard about that in my earlier years," she said. "Drinking
beer was about it for me."

Presley, 58, said that 30 or 40 years ago, people didn't understand
the dangers of prescribed drugs in particular.

"I feel they were and have been given in excess," she said. "We're
seeing repercussions of that today."

Besides Elvis, who died of drug abuse and heart disease Aug. 16, 1977,
and her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, who dabbled in drugs as a
teenager, Presley said she has several friends who've had cocaine and
heroin habits.

She said she recently took in a 17-year-old girl who was homeless
because her mother was an addict. Presley cared for the teen and
helped her mother into a rehabilitation program.

The teen now has a four-year scholarship to Stanford University,
Presley said.

In Oklahoma, she was celebrating the second anniversary of Narconon
Arrowhead, the largest private residential drug rehabilitation center
in the state. The resort overlooks Lake Eufaula in Arrowhead State
Park.

Narconon, which has more than 120 centers in 36 countries, has
graduated tens of thousands of addicts -- including 2,800 in Oklahoma
- -- since its creation in 1996. The program is designed to help addicts
kick the habit without the usual withdrawal symptoms.