But what puzzles Day about the imbroglio, now in its third week, is that it was Clear Channel's idea in the first place. A KTRA salesman, David Becker, approached him with the idea. It's not a good time for advertising in any medium, and Becker was apparently eager in a slow economy to develop new sources of paid programming. Never mind that any show with Day behind the microphone would push a pro-pot agenda.

Newly promoted to the Dallas office, Becker hit upon the idea of approaching Texas NORML. (The acronym stands for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.) Various other political organizations air their views on radio stations nationwide, so why not, he figured. Says Becker, who confirms the signed contract with Day, "Yes, I did approach him first." It was his understanding that Day would discuss responsible marijuana use by adults, Becker says, adding, "It's not tits and ass, it's not strippers."

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The arrangement, in which taxpayers' money was used to underwrite a covert anti-drug message shown to millions of schoolchildren in the guise of a supposedly objective news program, appeared to violate the ONDCP's publicly stated policy that news and editorial pieces would not be eligible for the ad credit program.

Documents obtained by Salon explaining why some news segments were accepted and others rejected last year shed light on the process by which a media company and a law enforcement branch of the U.S. government came to a mutually satisfactory understanding over the monetary value of news programs.

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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.

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Passing my confidante's apartment, I mentally apologized for doubting her. If she wanted to talk on the street, she was entitled to her idiosyncrasies. I pounded on Frazier's door, leaning over from the side as usual to avoid a shot coming through, calling, "Hello, Miss Frazier? I just want to talk to you a minute" in a pleasant voice unrelated to the door-shaking ruckus. After a few moments I was rewarded with a tentative "Who?"

The unseen woman and I scrabbled awkwardly around the ring for a couple of rounds. I asked for Frazier and heard Frazier was out. Dripping affability, I said: "Well, that may be, but I'm a social worker, and I really need you to just open the door a minute." (I lack a social worker's master's degree, but "caseworker" is too nebulous a word to force open a locked door.)

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Rochelle was brought to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, a large private hospital abutting the area, around 2 a.m. one Sunday in August by a woman described variously as a relative or family friend. She said Rochelle's crackhead mom, Vonetta Frazier, had left the girl with her several days before, and that the child had been oozing pus ever since. The "family friend" told Rochelle's mother that she was going to take the child in; I don't know whether the mom consented. Perhaps the middle of the night was the caretaker's only window of opportunity, or maybe her conscience pricked her just then because Rochelle's suffering became too acute.

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Even if it's being smoked by bald old ladies in wheelchairs.

Law enforcement officials, advocates and analysts disagree about the possible impact of the court's 8-0 decision that a federal law classifying marijuana as an illegal drug makes no exception for ill patients. And even some of those opposed to the ruling call it a legally justified, if narrow, ruling on the interpretion of federal drug law. But coming on top of the Clinton administration's unyielding opposition to medical marijuana, the refusal of Congress to consider removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I substances (the most serious classification) and President Bush's appointment of anti-marijuana hard-liner John Walters as drug czar, the court's ruling confirms that in the government's eyes, marijuana is still the front line of attack in the drug war. As the most widely used illegal drug, it remains central to the government's anti-drug strategy: Drug warriors clearly fear that any wide-scale medical use would point to its relative harmlessness and undercut decades of official pronouncements that it is a dangerous and addictive "gateway" drug.

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The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that three reliable sources, including one in the White House, told him on Thursday that Walters was likely to be chosen to head the drug office. The White House declined to comment on the report.

Walters is a self-proclaimed hawk on drug policy matters who has been strongly critical of the Clinton administration's execution of the drug war. At the ONDCP, he was responsible for developing enforcement policy and coordinating attempts to reduce the supply of banned drugs. The Bennett-Walters drug office was characterized by widespread use of the bully pulpit to issue harsh moral condemnations of users of illegal drugs, little distinction between marijuana and drugs like heroin and cocaine and an emphasis on punishment over rehabilitation.

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Alex Ashcroft, then 25, and his brother Adam, 19, were arrested and charged with production and possession of marijuana after police raided their home in January, 1992. A housemate, Kevin Sheely, then 24, was also arrested. Officials said approximately 60 marijuana plants were found growing in a basement crawl space, and a lighting, irrigation and security system was also discovered.

Although growing more than 50 plants often triggers federal prosecution, and results in jail time -- thanks to federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws Ashcroft fought to toughen as senator -- Alex Ashcroft was prosecuted on a state charge and received probation. His brother Adam did not live in the house and was never prosecuted.

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"New Mexico should begin immediately to decrease its reliance on supply-reduction strategies for combating drug and alcohol abuse and focus instead on demand-reduction strategies such as prevention and treatment," the report by Johnson's 10-member Drug Policy Advisory Group concludes. Gov. Johnson convened the group in May to propose an overhaul of the state's drug policies.

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McCaffrey quickly proposed that doctors who "recommend or prescribe" marijuana be stripped of their DEA registration -- that is, their ability to write prescriptions for controlled substances -- and be excluded from treating Medicare and Medicaid patients. But a group of California doctors and patient advocacy groups sued to enjoin those restrictions, and a federal judge agreed.

Now that same lawsuit provides evidence of a more ambitious, but less well-known, effort by McCaffrey's Office of National Drug Control Policy to stop the spread of state initiatives legalizing medical marijuana -- an effort that, among other achievements, helped inspire the ONDCP's controversial taxpayer-funded, anti-drug media crusade.

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist quotes numerous on-the-record combat veterans, both senior officers and enlisted men, describing the "systematic destruction" of a 5-mile-long column of Iraqi armor, vehicles and personnel making what was described as an orderly, U.S.-sanctioned retreat.

According to Hersh's report, McCaffrey ordered an all-out, four-hour assault based on two or fewer instances of fire from the Iraqis -- a move that galvanized the general's staff. The article quotes senior officers decrying the lack of discipline and proportionality in the McCaffrey-ordered attack. Even McCaffrey's operations officer at the time, Patrick Lamar, is quoted dismissing the battle as "a giant hoax."

The report also charges that McCaffrey, who is now a member of President Clinton's cabinet and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, maneuvered his troops miles beyond what was sanctioned by his commanders and failed to inform superiors of the exact location of his troops. As the attack commenced, a helicopter blew up an enemy ammunition truck, blocking access to a bridge and bottling up the doomed Iraqis.

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Those magazines whose articles have been
deemed by the drug czar's office as
"on-message" have qualified for the
credits, which are awarded in lieu of
advertising obligations. Those that
failed the test have not.

The drug-control office has made some of
the most lucrative ad buys from
magazines that maintain an anti-drug
editorial environment that it considers
hospitable to its messages.

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A Salon exclusive published Thursday described a hidden government campaign to insert anti-drug messages into TV programs. The arrangement was concocted by the office of the nation's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, and its ad buyer and was carried out by the six networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, the WB, Fox, and, this TV season, UPN.

As disclosed Thursday, the scheme began in fiscal year 1998, when Congress appropriated nearly $200 million a year over five years for paid anti-drug advertising. But there was a catch: Congress said the networks had to give the government a two-for-one deal on the ads. Instead, the networks and government officials decided that anti-drug themes and stories in prime-time TV shows could take the place of the free ads. Ultimately, promulgating government-approved propaganda afforded the networks the opportunity to earn buckets of extra cash.

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Few Americans, however, know of a hidden government effort to shoehorn anti-drug messages into the most pervasive and powerful billboard of all -- network television programming.

Two years ago, Congress inadvertently created an enormous financial incentive for TV programmers to push anti-drug messages in their plots -- as much as $25 million in the past year and a half, with the promise of even more to come in the future. Under the sway of the office of President Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, some of America's most popular shows -- including "ER," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Chicago Hope," "The Drew Carey Show" and "7th Heaven" -- have filled their episodes with anti-drug pitches to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy.

Here's how helping the government got to be so lucrative.

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But in the case of one episode, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) thought "Smart Guy's" moral instruction could be made even more explicit -- and, with the active cooperation of the show's producers, the government proceeded to do just that.

The original script of the episode, which eventually aired May 19, 1999, placed T.J. at a kids-only party, where he encounters two older boys he'd known before he skipped several grades in school. As first conceived, the two boys were the life of the party, their coolness evidenced among other things by their precocious ability to score some beer.

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