WORD ON THE STREET

Will A $2 Million Anti-Drug Campaign - On TV Screens And Billboards Near
You - Persuade People To Believe In The City Enough To Keep Baltimore Clean?

Reefer Madness. Just Say No. This is Your Brain on Drugs. Take a Bite Out
of Crime. Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk. D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off
Drugs. M.A.D.D. Ecstasy: Where's the Love?

Baltimore Believe.

Get the messages? Or just remember the slogans and acronyms?

For decades, government agencies and community groups have spent billions
on anti-drug advertising - Congress alone has allocated $1 billion over the
next five years for such an effort. But do anti-drug, anti-crime,
anti-anything campaigns change unhealthy and illegal behavior after the
stark billboards come down and the scary public service announcements stop
airing? What's the return on the investment? Results are hard to measure in
any campaign aimed at changing human behavior.

On April 5, Baltimore began its 13-week "Baltimore Believe" campaign -
possibly the city's most expensive and ambitious anti-drug and anti-crime
media effort. Billboards, a four-minute movie told from a 10-year-old boy's
point of view, a toll-free hot line (866-235-4383) beginning Monday, a
"Declaration of Independence From Drugs" that can be downloaded from the
Internet and town hall meetings are all part of the $2 million effort.

The goals are to get people to report drug activity, get addicts into
treatment, attract police recruits and encourage community volunteerism in
mentoring and after-school programs. As with any campaign, public hopes
initially run high.

"My dream result would be a substantial number of people are so moved by a
sense of outrage and need to preserve the lives of people that they see
that people get treatment," says businessman Michael Cryor, co-chairman of
the Baltimore Believe Leadership Committee, a "who's who" of area
political, religious and business figures. "You got to get idealistic to
attack a problem this large."

Tackling the situation

The problem, as spelled out in campaign literature and played out every day
in Baltimore, is that an estimated 60,000 city residents are drug addicts.
City officials estimate that at least another 60,000 addicts live in the
surrounding four counties and come into the city to buy drugs. Baltimore
has been dubbed the heroin capital of the United States and is ranked fifth
among U.S. cities in cocaine use. The majority of crime here is drug-related.

This isn't breaking news. And it's not a problem that can be fixed by just
saying no, says City Health Commissioner Dr. Peter L. Beilenson.

"Unless people believe in the city, it's not going to get much better,"
says Beilenson, a veteran of anti-drug campaigns. "This isn't just a 'Just
Say No' campaign. It's much bigger. I don't want to sound corny, but we
want people to buy into the city."

Former first lady Nancy Reagan launched the "Just Say No" campaign in the
1980s during the crack cocaine epidemic. The slogan was everywhere.
According to one survey at the time, drug use among high school seniors
dropped appreciably, which led some to believe the anti-drug campaign worked.

But political administrations and times change, and in the 1990s drug use
among young people climbed again. The "Just Say No" slogan became a sort of
joke and, worse, the campaign became irrelevant.

In 1998, the $1 billion National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign was
launched and, with it, a companion research effort by a Maryland research
company and University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for
Communication. Its purpose is to measure the media campaign's
effectiveness. The researchers interview children and parents about their
drug habits and exposure to anti-drug ads. More research and reports are
planned, but the latest report from October 2001 was not encouraging.

"The essential result is that we are not seeing much effect on kids," says
leading researcher Robert Hornik, a professor at the Annenberg School.

While children are seeing an anti-drug ad an average of 2.7 times a week,
there's been no real change so far in their drug-use behavior, he says. "It
might just take longer for the kids to be affected." On a positive note, he
says, the research shows that ads targeting parents often do encourage them
to talk with their children about drugs.

One point to remember is that behaviors such as drug use are cyclical; a
short-term anti-drug campaign cannot realistically maintain its message
about a long-term problem, researchers say. Campaigns end; addictive
behaviors have a habit of returning. The message, in some form or another,
must be sustained. As Hornik says, "Coca-Cola never stops advertising."

In advertising parlance, the messaging from Baltimore Believe is in full
swing. The four-minute movie/commercial - funded by the Baltimore Police
Foundation - has been playing on local TV stations and causing a buzz among
neighbors and folks at grocery stores. "Too real," one caller told the
campaign's public relations company. Sixty-second versions of the movie
will air beginning next week.

As of yesterday, more than 580 people had signed the online "Declaration of
Independence From Drugs" from www.baltimorebelieve.com. The battle, in this
sense, has gone electronic.

Work behind the ads

In the old-fashioned trenches of a treatment center, the campaign against
drug abuse is unheralded, piecemeal work. Sister Augusta Reilly is head of
the Marian House, a Baltimore treatment center for homeless women with
substance abuse problems. Reilly also serves on the campaign's Leadership
Committee. She's not convinced media campaigns work but has given Baltimore
Believe her support and blessing.

"Billboards might do something really positive to create a culture of maybe
optimism or faith. I'm not totally jaundiced about them," Reilly says. "But
people have to get into the spirit of doing the work on a serious basis, or
the ad campaign will come and go."

The serious work, she says, is the daily struggling and working with
addicts. Once they get the support and commit to working at recovery, "they
have incredible potential, real brilliance, and their power for good is
almost stunning," Reilly says. "I see that every day."

Look no further, Reilly says, than Gail Chapman Robinson's story.

Now an addiction counselor at the Harambee Treatment Center in Park
Heights, the 44-year-old Robinson spent 17 years as a heroin and cocaine
addict. Often homeless, Robinson would buy heroin at any number of drug
corners in the city. The veins in her arms eventually became useless, so
she began injecting heroin into her neck. If you passed her on the street
in the 1980s and '90s, you would have seen a jittery, sick, 80-pound woman
with track marks covering her arms and neck.

"Today," Robinson says, "I'm not ashamed to wear short sleeves."

Last month, Sister Augusta recommended that the campaign's producers
interview Robinson for one of the project's public service announcements.
After a long wait at the filming site, it was decided there wasn't enough
time to include Robinson's story. But she doesn't need a TV spot to remind
her she's a success story. Seven years in recovery, Robinson married this
year and is working toward a master's degree at Coppin State.

During her years of addiction, Robinson remembers "fleeting moments of
desperation" when she would notice a TV ad for some anti-drug campaign. She
vaguely remembers Greater Baltimore Medical Center running a spot about
drug use years ago. Robinson even jotted down the number of the treatment
center. She did more than that. She entered the program, one of many
treatment episodes in her life.

That time, recovery didn't stick. But Robinson says she got the message.
She eventually entered Marian House and stayed for eight months in 1996.

"Campaigns do serve a purpose," she says. "But it's so, so very much work
that needs to be done."