Formatting API tickets

Hi,

I have looked at the various documentation for the API, but still seem to be having trouble getting the resulting ticket description to be formatted correctly. I apologize if I have missed something.

I am trying to use the API to create a ticket which needs to include various information from a database. Here is the relevant snippets of code based on the example api.php file:
-----
$message .= $title . '<br>';
$message .= '<p>' . $referrer . '</p><p>Hours:Min (' . $hrs . ':' . $min . ')</p>';

$data = array(
    'name'      =>      'Test Proctor',  // from name aka User/Client Name
    'email'     =>      $user,  // from email aka User/Client Email
    'dept'         =>        'NPI',  // phone number aka User/Client Phone Number
    'subject'   =>      'API Test: ' . $title,  // test subject, aka Issue Summary
    'message'   =>      "data:text/html;charset=utf-8,$message",  // test ticket body, aka Issue Details.
    'ip'        =>      $_SERVER['SERVER_ADDR'], // Should be IP address of the machine thats trying to open the ticket.
    'topicId'   =>      '1', // the help Topic that you want to use for the ticket
 
    'attachments' => array()
);
----

Where $title, $referrer, $hrs, and $min are variables pulled from the database.

Unfortunately, when I look at the ticket created, all the html tags are ignored. I'm thinking there is just something I'm missing or is set wrong.

Help?