NEW PITCH IN ANTI-DRUG ADS: ANTI-TERRORISM

The ads by the President's Office of National Drug Control Policy
aired during last night's Super Bowl marked an escalation in the
selling of the administration's war on drugs -- for the first time,
the illegal narcotics trade is linked to terrorism.

Previously, government anti-drug messages focused on how users harm
themselves. The two Super Bowl ads, which cost nearly $3.5 million to
place during the widely watched Fox television broadcast, claim that
money to purchase drugs likely ends up in the hands of terrorists and
narco-criminals.

"Where do terrorists get their money?" asks one of the ads, which
portrays a terrorist buying explosives, weapons and fake passports.
"If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you."

About half of the 28 organizations identified as terrorist by the
State Department are funded by sales of illegal drugs, according to
the drug office.

The ads are targeted at teens and aim to tap the same sense of
international awareness seen in young protesters of globalization and
the lending practices of the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund. "Young people are interested in and motivated by larger concerns
in society, such as environmentalism" and the World Trade
Organization, said John Walters, director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy. "They're looking for ways to make the world
better and against things that make the world worse."

The two 30-second ads (which aired a total of three times before and
during the game) were funded by the drug office's $180 million
advertising budget, the largest of any government agency. They were
created by New York advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather. By law, Ogilvy
receives expense reimbursement from the government for making the ads,
but they are "essentially pro bono work," said Chris Wall, Ogilvy
executive creative director.

In addition to the paid Super Bowl ads, Fox is required to provide the
drug office with three additional free prime-time airings of the
commercials.

The ads kick off a four-to-six-week nationwide campaign, which also
includes ads on radio and in 293 newspapers (including The Washington
Post), an augmented Web site (www.theantidrug.com) and teaching
materials to be distributed to middle and high school students.
Walters estimated the campaign's cost at $10 million.

"Considering that Americans spend over $60 billion on [illegal] drugs
a year, this is a pretty well-leveraged investment," said Walters, who
was the drug office's chief of staff under William J. Bennett.

Even before they aired, the ads drew criticism from groups that favor
drug decriminalization and treatment programs instead of harsh
criminal penalties. "There is something very disturbing about the fact
the federal government is spending almost $3.5 million to blame
nonviolent Americans for funding terrorism when . . . people who need
drug treatment can't get it," said Matthew Briggs, an assistant
director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates changes in drug
laws.

"We're not blaming Americans for terrorism, we're blaming terrorists
for terrorism," Walters said. "We're telling Americans that if they
use drugs, they should be aware that some of that money is being used
to support terrorism in many cases."

The drug office spent about $50,000 to make its Web site hacker-proof,
said Alan Levitt, chief of the drug office's education division. The
office also bought about two dozen Internet addresses with names
similar to the official site, in an attempt to prevent parodies.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the drug office contacted Ogilvy,
an agency it had worked with before, asking for ideas on how to link
the war on drugs to terrorism in an ad campaign. The drug office knew
that the Taliban was partially funded by sales of opium, which can be
refined into heroin.

What followed, said British film and commercial director Tony Kaye,
who produced the ads, was "unprecedented" fact-checking between the
drug office and government agencies, including the FBI, DEA, CIA, and
the departments of Defense and State. Details down to the price of
AK-47 assault rifles, featured in one of the ads, were debated. "The
FBI said, 'Is the price retail or black market?' " Levitt said.

Each line of dialogue in the ads is explained by a story on the
agency's Web page. For instance, in one of the ads, a teen actor says:
"I helped kill a judge." On the Web page, that line is linked to a
drug-related killing in South America.

Before airing, the ads were shown to teens in focus groups. The
teenagers showed "a strong decline in intention to use" drugs after
seeing the ads, Levitt said. And, he said, parents called them a
"powerful way to initiate conversations" with their children.