A coalition of major advertising and media corporations said yesterday that it will begin a $90 million anti-drug campaign targeting black Americans amid new survey data showing minority teenagers are "significantly" more likely to be heavy users of cocaine and crack than their white counterparts. Among the television advertisements scheduled to air this month is a dramatic and emotionally charged commercial showing black Africans being shackled and shipped to slavery in America. The message, which was prepared by a group of black-owned advertising companies, mentions the long struggle of black Americans for freedom and concludes: "Don't dishonor them by becoming a slave to heroin, cocaine and crack . . . . Drug abuse is the new slavery." James Burke, chairman of the Media Partnership for a Drug-Free America, showed that and other anti-drug commercials yesterday while unveiling a broader $365 million anti-drug campaign at a White House news conference. President Bush, who attended briefly, described the effort as "absolutely crucial" because "the federal government will never solve this {drug} problem by itself." Burke emphasized that the drug problem cuts across racial lines, citing government survey data showing that 82 percent of all Americans who had used illegal drugs in the past year were white. However, a nationwide survey conducted for the partnership by the research firm of Gordon S. Black Corp. showed that while most chronic marijuana users are white, cocaine and crack cocaine use has become dramatically higher among black teenagers. In the survey of 6,912 respondents at 100 shopping malls in urban, suburban and rural areas across the country, 19 percent of black teenagers reported using cocaine in the past year compared to less than 5 percent of whites. Twenty-two percent of black teenagers, or more than one of every five, said they planned to use cocaine in the next year, compared to less than 4 percent of white teenagers. Among crack users, the discrepancies were sharper. Black teenagers were eight times more likely than whites (17 percent compared to 2 percent) to report smoking crack in the past 30 days, the survey found. Aaron Black, a spokesman for the research firm, said the findings largely correlate with similar findings based on socioeconomic factors, such as income and education. Crack users were far more likely to be less educated and be paid lower incomes, he said. However, Black said the survey also found that while middle-class wage-earners have reduced their illegal drug use significantly, "people making under $15,000 a year are as likely to use marijuana and cocaine as people who make over $75,000 a year." Some of the anti-drug commercials aimed at general audiences and also shown by Burke yesterday have been on the airwaves for some time. But in an effort to target "at risk" audiences, the partnership created special task forces aimed at blacks and Hispanics. An "African-American campaign strategic plan," devised by a task force headed by Procter & Gamble vice president L. Ross Love, states that male black teenagers "seem to have a 'tough guy' syndrome" that makes them difficult to reach, but that ads should emphasize "the heroics of the black mother as she struggles to raise her children."
