NEW CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHTS EFFECTS OF U.S. DRUG USE

A lot of Americans think of drug use as a victimless crime. The people who
use cocaine or heroin hurt only themselves. Or so the argument goes.

Two ads aired during Sunday's Super Bowl should disabuse Americans of that
notion.

When you buy drugs, you're helping, for example, to keep a 40-year war in
Colombia going.

All of the factions in the Colombian conflict are financed by drug money,
mostly from cocaine but also from heroin and some marijuana. If you buy
drugs, you're helping to pay for kidnappings, attacks on towns and
destruction of national infrastructure, disproportionately harming
civilians. Colombian drug traffickers supply 90 percent of the cocaine that
reaches the United States and nearly all of the heroin.

Afghanistan, of course, is another example. Al-Qaeda members and their
Taliban sympathizers sell heroin to pay for their military, support
terrorist training camps and fund a terror network around the world.
Somebody's buying the stuff, keeping that network alive.

As money directly from countries has dried up, international terrorist
organizations and criminal gangs increasingly engage in drug trafficking.
They depend on American drug purchases to pay for their operations.

The two 30-second ads, produced for the Office of National Drug Control
Policy by "American History X'' film director Tony Kaye, are matter-of-fact
and don't overstate the case -- the flaw that kills most anti-drug ad
campaigns. They target the casual, college-age and 20s leisure user of drugs.

One ad is called "I Help.'' It shows various young people speaking directly
into the camera:

I helped murder families in Colombia.

It was just innocent fun.

I helped kidnap people's dads.

Hey, just some harmless fun.

I helped kids learn how to kill.

I was just having some fun ya know.

I helped put human beings into slavery.

I was just having fun.

I helped a bomber get a fake passport.

All the kids do it.

I helped kill a judge.

I helped blow up buildings.

My life, my body.

Then comes a line across the screen: Drug money supports terror. If you buy
drugs, you might too.

It ends with a voice-over: It's not like I was hurting anybody else.

The second ad is called "AK-47.''

You see a list of prices go across screen:

Fake IDs: $3,000

Computer: $1,200

Safehouse: $7,200

Boxcutters: $2

Plastic explosives: $1,200

Cell phone: $100

Rental cars: $300

AK-47: $250

Bullets: $400

Bribes: $3,000

Ski masks: $5

Wire transfer: $200

Gas: $22

Clothing: $800

Then comes the same line as in the other ad: Where do terrorists get their
money? If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you.

The reality is that the interrelated problems of terrorism and drug
trafficking cannot be solved by law enforcement or military solutions
alone. A common sense way to stem the flow of cocaine and heroin is to
reduce demand here in the United States.

The new ad campaign gives new meaning to the sentiment, "My life. My
body.'' Buying illegal drugs is not a victimless crime.