PARENTS TAKE GRIEF PUBLIC IN DRUG AD

WASHINGTON -- Jim Heird's face fills the television screen. The dark
background highlights his pale skin, square jaw and dark bags under his eyes.

"I would have given anything for some warning signs," he says, almost
shouting. "I would have moved. I would have locked her up, I don't care, if
there were warning signs. I would have done whatever it took."

His voice cracks.

"I was never given that opportunity."

Then Heird, 61, sobs for all the world to see. His sniffles can still be
heard as white letters appear on a black screen: "Danielle Heird died after
taking two pills of Ecstasy."

Before, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America made ads using fried eggs
to symbolize brain damage and showing teen-agers thanking their parents for
being tough with them. Now it is going for the gut in exposing the raw
grief of Jim and Elsa Heird, a Nevada couple who lost their 21-year-old
daughter to Ecstasy.

Some say the ads overstate the substance's dangers, making the case against
its use less believable to teens. But the partnership, a coalition of
communications professionals, says the ads will encourage parents to talk
to children about drugs.

In coming months, millions of television viewers will get to know Danielle
through a series of ads. They will hear the coroner read from her autopsy
report. They will see her mother struggle to maintain her composure as she
talks about her beautiful and vivacious Danielle.

And they will watch Jim Heird weep.

"A parent's not supposed to survive their children," Heird says, dabbing
his eyes with a tissue, at the end of the ad. "It's not the scheme of things."

Under other circumstances, Heird says in a phone interview, he might have
felt uncomfortable crying on television. Not now.

"It may sound corny, but if I save one kid, if it saves one kid ..."

"I gotta hope it saves a lot more than one."

Until July 20, 2000, his family's story was unremarkable. They lived in
Henderson, Nev., just outside Las Vegas. The Heirds worked in a casino. He
handled food purchasing; she was a chef.

Danielle was their younger daughter. She graduated from a Roman Catholic
high school and lived at home while working as a casino hostess. She
planned to study radiology. She loved to Jet Ski, dance and go to lunch
with her parents.

On her last night, Danielle, her boyfriend and another friend went to a
nightclub to celebrate her boyfriend's birthday.

A Clark County coroner's report said she brought along six pills of
Ecstasy, a drug her parents later found out she had taken twice before.
Ecstasy, considered both hallucinogen and amphetamine, has become
increasingly popular in recent years.

She gave two pills to each man and took at least one herself, the report
says. At 3 a.m., she was groggy and feeling sick. The men took her to their
home. She lay down on a bed and told the men to go back to the club. When
they returned at 10:30 a.m., she was dead.

"It came to us as a total surprise," Heird said. "There was never any
evidence of any drug use. The school never called us and said, 'We need to
talk to you. We think there's a problem."'

Within months of Danielle's death, the Heirds began speaking at schools
about Ecstasy. The partnership approached them about doing ads.

The partnership says $20 million worth of airtime has been donated
nationwide. Typical viewers are likely to see the ads several times during
the next eight months, partnership spokesman Steve Dnistrian said.

Some drug policy analysts are uncomfortable using the story of Danielle.
Although repeated use of Ecstasy has been linked to brain damage and kidney
and heart problems, deaths like hers are relatively rare.

Marsha Rosenbaum, of the Drug Policy Alliance, said teen-agers don't take
anti-drug messages seriously because they know the risks often are
overstated. She said Ecstasy is unsafe, but "if you choose to do it anyway,
I'm going to be honest with you about how you can be safer."

Dnistrian said the ads are aimed more at parents, to warn those who believe
their children would never use drugs.

On the Net: Partnership for a Drug-Free America: www.drugfreeamerica.org

Heird video can also be seen at http://wire.ap.org after 9 a.m. EST.

Drug Policy Alliance: www.drugpolicyalliance.org