Gates Outlines Strategy for War on Drugs

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.