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The message is simple: Youngsters can meet stars, perhaps become stars, by straight living. Says Evans: "I want to get to the young, kids, those nine to 13. If you start taking drugs at eleven, you become a total vegetable."
NBC'S goals are more diffuse. In addition to performing a public service, the third-place network wants to arouse interest in its new fall series among the young viewers who control the TV dial in many homes. For the celebrities it was an unpaid labor of dedication. Most were recruited by Evans' co-producer Cathy Lee Crosby, star of ABC'S stunt show, That's Incredible! All attested that they do not use drugs and promised further time to the Get High on Yourself Foundation, headed by Crosby. Says Bob Hope: "It is a problem that hits close to everyone's home." Adds Henry Winkler: "If you reach the babies before they get to the drug age, at least they will have some backbone. It starts with a sense of self."
Whether the program will have the hoped-for impact remains to be seen. Get High on Yourself begins with a belief that youths take drugs mostly out of boredom and peer pressure, that there is nothing particularly seductive or pleasurable about the drugs themselves. Through decades, doctors, social workers and legislators have learned that the drug problem is complex and deeply rooted. Even Judge Broderick sounded as much wistful as hopeful when he urged Evans to seek "a breakthrough where others have failed." —By William A. Henry III. Reported by Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles