People

By Guy D. Garcia

What better way to deglamorize drug use than by convening a public hearing featuring glamorous witnesses? That is what Delaware's Republican Senator William Roth, 63, did last week when he invited Gerald McRaney, 37, of CBS's Simon & Simon, and Susan Newman, 32, television producer, to testify before a Senate subcommittee about depictions of alcohol and drug abuse on TV. "We want to raise the consciousness of the media," said Newman, as her father Actor Paul Newman sat quietly in the audience. "Too often they show reckless behavior without its repercussions, and you wind up telling people this is acceptable, and it is not." Newman speaks from the heart. She is the director of special projects for the Scott Newman Center, named for her brother, who died from mixing drugs and alcohol 6 1/2 years ago.