The following article was excerpted from the May 13, 1970 issue of the New York Times

Odyssey Addicts to Assist TV Program on Narcotics
by Fred Ferretti

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A daytime serial on the American Broadcasting Company will become the first regularly scheduled program to heed a White House request, made last month, to use commercial entertainment to carry a warning on narcotics use to viewers.

"One Life To Live," broadcast over ABC's network daily at 2:30 PM eastern time, will begin taping actual group therapy sessions of teen-age addicts at Odyssey House in New York. These will be edited and integrated into the regular programs, about mid- June.

.... Initially, an actress will sit in on the sessions, then will take part in them," Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber said:

"Our residents know she is an actress. There are no games, no tricks. For them it will be another way of facing reality, knowing they'll be on television."

The idea of using real addicts in a television program belongs to Mrs. Agnes Nixon, creater of "One Life To Live" and other daytime serials. She said in Philadelphia yesterday that "it was a natural outgrowth of our program."

A character named Cathy Craig, she said, is a girl "whose father is a doctor, and the girl has experimented with pills. Last January, she stole her father's prescription blanks to get speed. She has a bad trip and her father persuades her to go to Odyssey House." ...

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