Gates Outlines Strategy for War on Drugs

WASHINGTON — Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates spoke before President Bush’s Drug Advisory Council on Friday and urged more national unity in the war on drugs.

“There needs to be a national image, a national symbol, a national logo that everyone can look at like the American flag,” said Gates, founder of California’s Drug Use Is Life Abuse program.

Gates was invited to make a presentation before the council after its National Leadership Forum hailed his anti-drug program as one the country’s three best.

In his speech, Gates attributed the program’s success to a marketing approach modeled after anti-smoking campaigns that highlight changing attitudes about drugs. He also noted that beefed-up law enforcement has aided the county’s fight against illegal drugs.

The Drug Use Is Life Abuse program includes a booklet developed in cooperation with the Walt Disney Co. in which three animated animal characters, “Skippy, Spike and Wise Owl Mike,” preach against substance abuse through a rap song.

The booklets could be published for 10 cents each if the nation’s top 500 companies would donate a total of $3.2 million for mass production of 32 million copies, Gates said. The idea prompted council members to call on the nation’s 500 richest businesses to pay for anti-drug booklets for each of the nation’s 32 million grade-school children.

The council also suggested that all professional sports teams should wear anti-drug patches on their uniforms after Gates said the Los Angeles Rams sported anti-drug emblems on their uniform in 1989.