DrugAbuse

A beautiful woman stands up, mystical lights have caught her attention. She follows them up a flight of stairs and embraces their allure. A perfume-style bottle appears and the woman is delighted ... until she sees the text on the bottle: cervical cancer.

This commercial caught our attention -- and that of the millions of Academy Awards viewers -- and is one of the most shocking public service announcements we've seen in a while.

The spot for GlaxoSmithKline's Help Prevent Cervical Cancer campaign is just one of many public service announcements that really caught our attention.

Check out our spotlight on other memorable PSAs after the jump.

Drugs on TV have had a strange history. There have been after-school movies, very special sitcom episodes and even entire dramas based around illegal substances.

Sometimes, drug abuse on TV is used to teach the audience a lesson, while other times writers have characters develop an addiction as a way of making them more human in a flawed sense.

One of the most recent drug abusers comes to us in the form of Edie Falco's title character on 'Nurse Jackie.' The medical drama is back with a vengeance (Mon., March 22 10PM on Showtime), and to celebrate the return of our favorite no-nonsense RN, we're taking a look at TV's other famous pill-popping characters we've come to love (despite their issues) over the years.

We're not endorsing drug abuse of any kind, but it's a fact of life for some people, including these TV characters.

Find out who made our list after the jump.