White House Coerced TV Networks on Anti-Drug Message

February 7, 2003 D. H. McKee

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Advertisements urging parents to love their kids and keep them off drugs dot urban bus stops across America. Anti-drug commercials fill Channel One in the nation’s schools and the commercial breaks of network TV — most notably a comely, T-shirt-clad waif trashing her kitchen to demonstrate the dangers of heroin. We’ve come a long way from Nancy Reagan’s clenched-teeth “Just Say No.”

Few Americans, however, know of a hidden government effort to shoehorn anti-drug messages into the most pervasive and powerful billboard of all — network television programming.

Two years ago, Congress inadvertently created an enormous financial incentive for TV programmers to push anti-drug messages in their plots — as much as $25 million in the past year and a half, with the promise of even more to come in the future. Under the sway of the office of President Clinton’s drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, some of America’s most popular shows — including “ER,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Chicago Hope,” “The Drew Carey Show” and “7th Heaven” — have filled their episodes with anti-drug pitches to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/

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