magic_quotes_gpc set to zero in .htaccess, but not being picked up?

Hi folks. I recently implimented drupal on my personal site (http://www.blakjak.net). However on installation I had the error displaying at the top of every page:

"Note that the value of PHP's configuration option magic_quotes_gpc is incorrect. It should be set to '0' for Drupal to work properly. Either configure your webserver to support .htaccess files so Drupal's .htaccess file can set it to the proper value, or edit your php.ini file directly. This message will automatically dissapear when the problem has been fixed."

Now I had left everything pretty much as default, but I *did* make sure that .htaccess was permitted in the publish directory.... At the time as a short term fix I turned off magic_quotes_gpc in the php.ini file which resolved the problem. Unfortunately turning this off had an impact on other systems hosted on the same server, so I come back to the fact that although the variable is indeed set to zero in ~drupalwebdir/.htaccess, this is apparently being ignored.

I run php in an suexec manner (blame my coadmin, heh) - so the php4 binary is called from another directory. I tried putting an .htaccess file in that directory as well and configured it to work via apache, no go.

I have it disabled systemwide at the moment but need to find a way around this. Any suggestions?