Hi, can anyone help me?

I am receiving this error:

Warning: odbc_exec(): supplied argument is not a valid ODBC-Link resource
inwebserver\webroot\test\thought.php on line 14. Error in SQL

As far as I understand, the query is correct and I have . Below is the code which I am using:

<?php
    $conn = new COM('ADODB.Connection');
    $db = 'webserver\morrislgn\database\firstchurch.mdb';
    $conn->Open("DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=$db");

    if (!$conn)
    {
        exit("Connection Failed: " . $conn);
    }
    $date = date("jm");
    $sql="SELECT * FROM thoughts where date = $date";
    $rs=odbc_exec($conn,$sql);

    if (!$rs)
    {
        exit( "Error in SQL" );
    }

    echo ( "<table>" );

    while (odbc_fetch_row($rs))
        {
        $date = odbc_result ( $rs, "Date" );
        $title = odbc_result ( $rs, "Title" );
        $ref = odbc_result ( $rs, "Reference" );
        $thought = odbc_result( $rs, "Thought" );
        $author = odbc_result( $rs, "Author" );

and the code goes on to write the info to the page through a series of echo commands

Any ideas, workarounds or suggestions for better ways to code this?

cheers,

Morris