Ads Show Reality Of ‘Heroin Chic’ Campaign Combats Drug’s Trendy Image

The scene: A bleak public restroom. A 20-something guy with a cool tattoo is writhing shirtless on the filthy floor. The camera zooms in to show ugly needle marks on his arms, chest and back.

The soundtrack: A jaunty little jingle for heroin, “the coolest high” of “the beautiful people.”

“Everybody’s doing it, doing it,” singers croon as the guy convulses over a toilet. “Heroin! For the rest of your life.” The disturbing ad is part of a new campaign aimed at combating the comeback of a drug that most people thought was long gone from the American social scene.

Heroin, once considered the poisonous habit of pathetic junkies, is being reborn as the hip drug of choice among the trend-setters of Generation X.

“Heroin is back,” Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Monday at a news conference in Washington. “And it’s cheaper, more potent and deadlier than ever.”

Think Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana and a heroin addict whose 1994 suicide touched off a massive display of mourning among the grunge set.

Think of the pasty-faced, ultra-skinny models who roam fashion’s runways sporting a look The New York Times has dubbed “heroin chic.”

So far, heroin use is relatively rare among American teens. But it is showing every sign of becoming “the drug of the 1990s,” said Richard Bonnette, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which is sponsoring the ad campaign.

Experimentation with heroin has nearly doubled among eighth-graders, rising from 1.2 to 2.3 percent in 1994. And only half of children 12 to 17 believe there’s a “great risk” in trying heroin, compared with 86 percent of people over 35.

Meanwhile, emergency room admissions and deaths related to heroin are on the rise, McCaffrey said.

One of the reasons for the drug’s increasing popularity: New recruits no longer have to use needles. Smoking or snorting is trendy - and far more socially acceptable. And many people erroneously believe that it’s somehow safer and won’t lead to addiction.

Add the fact that “music, fashion, film - all the things our kids care about portray heroin as hip,” said Doria Steedman, director of creative development for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and heroin looks like a thermonuclear social disaster waiting to happen.

For this reason, the partnership, best known for its old “this is your brain on drugs” spot, is focusing on heroin. The frying egg was powerful. But the new ads blow it away.

The most similar in tone is a spot called “Thin Ice,” which shows a young man crashing through a pond and becoming trapped as it refreezes. As the man pounds frantically on the ice with his fist, a voice intones, “Welcome to heroin. Enjoy your stay.”