The acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Edward Jurith, signed a directive May 31 killing the program, first revealed by Salon in January 2000.

Jurith's decision closes a controversial chapter in the government's efforts to combat drug abuse with a pricey advertising campaign. In 1997, Congress appropriated more than $1 billion for an anti-drug advertising effort; it included a "pro bono match" component in which networks agreed to sell their advertising for half-price. Soon, with ad rates going up thanks to the booming economy, networks were looking for creative ways to meet their government obligations, and they agreed to insert anti-drug messages in prime-time shows -- from "ER" to "Drew Carey" to "Smart Guy" -- in exchange for freeing up ad time they could then sell to higher-paying private clients.

The networks earned an estimated $25 million for placing anti-drug and anti-alcohol messages in prime-time programming. Salon's disclosure of the program and its extent sparked angry congressional hearings and negative coverage and editorials in newspapers nationwide.

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ONDCP spokeswoman Jennifer DeVallance told Salon that the media campaign staff "just decided we would no longer review programs for content, and we would discontinue the pro bono match."

DeVallance said the recommendation was made to acting director Jurith "after analysis of data collected over two years." She declined to describe the data, as did other ONDCP officials. The media campaign's director, Alan Levitt, refused to talk to Salon.

It is unclear whether the two Republican House subcommittee chairmen with direct funding oversight of the media campaign were aware of the ONDCP's decision. Spokespersons for both Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who chairs the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which authorized funding for the media campaign, and Rep. Ernest Istook Jr., R-Okla., who chairs the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government, which determined funding levels, declined repeated requests for comment on whether either representative knew the program had been terminated.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking Democrat on the drug policy subcommittee, said he felt blind-sided by the decision. Cummings said neither he nor his two top staffers were informed about it. "As the ranking member, for me not to know shows utter disregard for the Democratic Party and myself and my colleagues," he said. Despite the controversy surrounding the program, Cummings said he felt "pretty comfortable" with it. And he believes anti-drug messages in programming are more effective than those in ads. "That's why the change is so upsetting to me -- because I thought it was a creative way to send a clear message," he said. Cummings plans to call for a hearing to investigate why the program was canceled.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a member of the drug policy subcommittee who follows drug issues closely, was not informed of the ONDCP's decision by either the White House or the chairman of her subcommittee, according to spokesperson Nadeam Elshami, who said the silence was unusual.

The timing of such a move by acting director Jurith accomplishes several ends for the Bush administration. It is unusual, considering the widely publicized expectation that John Walters would soon be nominated as drug czar, for an acting director to take such a step, though Jurith is a respected career civil servant. But it allows Walters to avoid a potentially messy inaugural decision. The covert propaganda campaign had its champions on Capitol Hill, and Jurith's action saves Walters from having to make enemies early.

But Jurith probably would not have dared to act without Walters' tacit approval. "It's highly unlikely Jurith would have made such a decision without clearing it with the incoming director, " says Keith Stroup of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "It's possible that Walters asked Jurith to fall on his sword." Longtime drug policy observers say the program's cancellation is more likely the result of frank political calculation than of Bush administration scruples about keeping the media free of government propaganda.

There were questions about how well the program was working and whether it was being fairly administered. In fact, just last week, the Government Accounting Office issued a report on allegations that Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising agency that administered the campaign for the ONDCP, falsified billing records for the program after the contract failed to meet the agency's revenue projections in 1999. The GAO concluded that Ogilvy altered timesheets on 3,100 hours of questionable work billed to the government and also overcharged for contract employees, and that ONDCP failed to rectify obvious billing problems and contract irregularities.

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