Bush Urges TV War on Drugs : Praises O.C. Anti-Abuse Campaign

President Bush took his anti-drug campaign to Los Angeles and Santa Ana today, urging television producers to fight drug abuse through their programs and praising Orange County for its “Drug Use Is Life Abuse” campaign.

While addressing members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Century City, Bush was heckled briefly by two people, one of them shouting: “Why don’t you ever talk about AIDS? Why don’t you lead the country on AIDS?” Bush smiled and waited while hotel security officers hustled the two out of the ballroom.

But in Santa Ana, where about 16,000 people jammed the municipal stadium, Bush’s reception was uniformly adoring. The crowd, mostly schoolchildren and their teachers, were shouting and cheering even before Bush appeared at 12:20 p.m.

“Anyone who thinks America lacks the will to win the drug war better take a look at the spirit we have here today in Orange County,” Bush said in prepared remarks. “I know we’ll win the war on drugs, because you have what a longtime resident of Orange County, John Wayne, had: true grit.”

Speaking earlier over breakfast in the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, Bush told TV producers that glorifying drug use is “fading fast” and called on them to be “a force for positive change.”

“I’m not asking you to compromise your art” by portraying “a fantasy world where drugs don’t exist,” he said. Instead, “show in the real world how drugs destroy.”

He lauded an upcoming cartoon program called “Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue,” a collaboration of several cartoon producers telling of a boy who turns away from drugs.

Later, Bush was flown to the Marine Corps Air Station at Tustin, then driven to the stadium, which had been full for nearly two hours.

The audience was boisterous after more than an hour of pep rally, including Marine Corps and high school marching bands, cheerleaders and speeches from national and local celebrities, including actor Chuck Norris, who plugged his next film, and TV preacher Robert Schuller.

In prepared remarks, Bush singled out Orange County’s “Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse” campaign for praise.

“Just two nights ago, right in Orange County, two cars were pulled over carrying nearly 900 pounds of cocaine. Thanks to your courageous anti-narcotics effort, 4 million doses with a street value of $30 million won’t poison our kids. That’s desire. That’s determination.”

Bush was referring to a seizure Thursday morning in the Anaheim area by Orange County Sheriff’s Department narcotics investigators. About 900 pounds of cocaine was taken from three vehicles.

Bush named two Orange County residents as heroes in the war against drugs: Henry Cousin, a Santa Ana police officer severely wounded three years ago in a drug raid, who as a federal officer was involved in the biggest drug raid in Orange County history, and Rosa Perez, a Santa Ana woman who has campaigned for six years to rid her Santa Ana neighborhood of drug trafficking.

Times staff writers Wendy Paulson and Bob Schwartz in Orange County and James Gerstenzang and Cathleen Decker in Los Angeles contributed to this story