AMERICA'S DRUG WAR: THE L.A. CONNECTION : TWO LOCAL CAMPAIGNS TO STEER KIDS CLEAR OF NARCOTICS HAVE UNPRECEDENTED NATIONAL - EVEN INTERNATIONAL - APPEAL. BUT THE APPROACHES HAVE THEIR LIMITS.

Byline: Paul M. Gordon

THE prosecution of America's War on Drugs is seen primarily as a creation of Washington politics.

Few realize, however, that the drug war's struggle for hearts and minds had its genesis in the vision of a pair of power players from Los Angeles.

In the early '80s, years before crack, the death of basketball player Len Bias and ``Just Say No,'' Los Angeles Police Department Chief Daryl Gates launched D.A.R.E., a police-taught anti-drug program for elementary school students.

Begun with 10 LAPD officers, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) has since spread to two-thirds of the nation's school districts and classrooms in 18 countries around the world.

But perhaps the most potent force in creating a ``psychological interdiction'' against illegal drugs was the brainchild of Phillip Joanou, then chairman and chief executive of Daily & Associates, one of Los Angeles' largest ad agencies.

In 1985, Joanou rose before an executive session of the American Association of Advertising Agencies with two frightening facts, and a single audacious idea.

The facts were these: In 1962, fewer than 4 million Americans had experimented with illegal drugs; by 1985, that figure had swelled to 75 million.

His idea? If the drug epidemic was the result of glamorized images of drugs and drug users in advertising and the media, then turning the system around to unsell the glamour of getting high would not only save a new generation from the scourge of drugs, but prove an indelible demonstration of the power of advertising as well.

What Joanou envisioned was ``the biggest public service ad campaign in the history of the world,'' a ``continuing and unrelenting'' assault, which placed at least one anti-drug advertisement per day in every household in the country for at least a decade.

Joanou's vision was realized in the establishment of the ``Partnership for a Drug-Free America,'' a collection of media and advertising experts with exceptional savvy and influence.

Since its creation, more than $2 billion worth of public service advertising air time and print space - almost $1 million a day - has been donated to the nonprofit advertising consortium's 10-year campaign against illegal drugs.

With more than 225 agencies creating work for them pro bono, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America enjoys, according to Forbes magazine, a ``single-brand'' advertising clout second only to McDonald's.

From its famous ``Fried Egg'' TV spot, to lurid posters of crack babies and marijuana joints sliding into the chambers of a revolver, the Partnership's public service announcements came to define the public shock tactics of the drug war.

Much of the images involved scare tactics directed toward young people with little or no drug experience. There was little emphasis on treatment or intervention.

In its increasing role as ``expert'' on drug issues, the influence of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America ranged far beyond the traditional role of advertising.

In a colloquium convened at the Harvard School of Public Health, physicians were urged by the Partnership to ``join the struggle'' against illegal drugs by developing guidelines to identify and refer drug-abusing patients to treatment.

Employers were encouraged to increase drug testing in the workplace (currently running at 98 percent among Fortune 200 companies) by providing workers with ``a choice between getting high and getting paid.''

In television episodes involving drug issues - from ``Gabriel's Fire'' to the soap opera ``All My Children'' to ``Beverly Hills 90210'' - Partnership executives confabbed with writers to guide the storyline.

Given the Partnership's interweavings with the media, it was inevitable that the New York-based advertising consortium would eventually establish a beachhead on the West Coast.

And, last September, a campaign titled ``Partnership for a Drug-Free Southern California'' was begun, with city buses toting anti-marijuana billboards and local media outlets broadcasting from the Partnership's inventory of over 500 anti-drug advertisements.

The goal in Los Angeles is the same as the campaign nationwide.

It will take at least one message a day, piped into every household in the city, Partnership sources estimate, to turn the tide against illegal drugs.

Can the lure of drugs be ``unsold'' in the same manner toothpaste and chewing gum are sold?

In 1993, a Partnership-funded study found that, after a single year of increased exposure to their messages, children in New York City demonstrated dramatic changes in their anti-drug attitudes.

Perceived awareness of risk, decreases in benefits, de-glamorized images of drug users - the numbers were up across the board.

So up, in fact, that the equivocal statistics of traditional drug research paled beside the Partnership's shining figures.

For this is social science according to the gospels of advertising; no muss, no fuss - just fast, effective pain relief.

More objective surveys told a different story.

Results of a study released last December by the University of Michigan's ``Monitoring the Future'' (a study funded by the federal government) indicated illegal drug use by American youth up sharply for the fourth year in a row.

To this news, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America has responded with the timeless refrain of sales and marketing analysis: What's needed is more resolve, more media donations, more . . . advertising.

In this, Phillip Joanou's Partnership for a Drug-Free America campaign has come to share the fate of Daryl Gates' D.A.R.E. In the drug war's battle for hearts and minds, the legacy of Los Angeles' power brokers has been an ever-widening gap between the popularity of anti-drug programs that scare rather than inform, stigmatize rather than treat.

Drug use, particularly among young people, continues to rise. And the effect of ``the largest public service campaign in the history of the world,'' once created to demonstrate the power of advertising, appears to prove, instead, its limitations.

MEMO: Paul M. Gordon is a Los Angeles writer.