TV Reviews : Documenting Drug Therapies That Work

Game therapy, rap musical theater, after-school havens--what’s the best way to keep kids off drugs and alcohol?

Wilderness survival training, 24-hour monitoring, day treatment centers for young mothers--what’s the best way to help users recover?

The answer is: Whatever works. Tonight’s compelling two-hour special, “Over the Influence” (at 8 p.m. on KTLA Channel 5), looks at diverse drug prevention and recovery programs that are getting results.

From Arnold Shapiro Productions (“Raising Good Kids in Bad Times”), written and directed by Carol L. Fleisher, this is emotionally lacerating, real-life drama, but in a context of hope; something is being accomplished. The prevention and recovery programs are allowed to speak for themselves, without critical assessment; viewers are asked to decide which seem most workable.

Tom Selleck is host of the first hour. In one segment, street-wise schoolchildren in the Bronx visit crack-addicted infants in the hospital under PLAN (Pupils, Lawyers and Nurses Against Drugs). “It made me cry, ‘cause it’s not their fault,” says one boy. PLAN helps children see the legal and medical consequences of drug use.

During the second hour, Whitney Houston is host of a tour of recovery programs. All are tough; some seem harsh. Montana’s Wilderness Treatment Center combines Alcoholics Anonymous-type 12-Step techniques with tests of physical and emotional endurance. Habilitat in Hawaii, run by an ex-con and ex-addict, is an “emotional boot camp” where defenses are shredded; the goal is to replace them with self-knowledge.

The underlying message, however, is summed up by a sign on a drug counselor’s desk: “It is better to build a child than repair a man.”