Addicted to getting drugs wrong

Abstract

Jon Silverman, Professor of Media and Criminal Justice at the University of Bedfordshire, looks at the relationship between certain newspapers and government drug policy. He finds that it negates the efforts of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to bring a sense of proportion to a controversial subject.

The haunting spectacle of crystal meth: A media-created mythology?

“…Beyond uniting the press in pejorative reporting, drug use is also one of the most clear-cut examples of the symbiotic relationship between media and policy-makers. BBC Home Affairs correspondent turned academic, Jon Silverman, goes as far as to state that ‘over the past decade, a small number of newspaper editors have acted as a policy “satnav”, which ministers have followed almost slavishly in their desire to send “messages”, with the outcome that drug classification has become ludicrously detached from drug harm’ (Silverman, 2010: 31). In addition, drugs are frequently presented homogeneously with very little balanced, informed or nuanced reporting of the distinctions and dissimilarities between different substances.…”

“…Silverman (2010: 36) poses the question ‘Why have some newspapers had such a strong impact on drugs policy?’ and answers it by quoting former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police, Tom Lloyd: ‘Unlike transport, health or education, drugs have attained the status of being about morality. You are immoral not only if you take drugs but also if you argue against the drugs laws.…”

“…But while such arguments have been well rehearsed in relation to the British media, they usually concern drug problems that are visible and tangible, even if the reporting is overblown. What is striking about the coverage of crystal meth, or ‘ice’ as it is commonly known, is that the media’s predicted epidemic in the UK (see, for example, Independent on Sunday , 2004; Mail on Sunday , 2010) has proved to be an exaggeration of mythic proportions, and serves as an example of how alarmist media representations have initiated spontaneous, ill-advised policy reactions, with inevitable but detrimental consequences (Wilson, 2008; Silverman, 2010). Quite simply, indicators measuring drug use in the UK suggest its use is almost non-existent.…”

New perspectives on anti-doping policy: from moral panic to moral regulation

“…Twenty seven deaths were attributed to mephedrone by the media but independent research established that the drug was present in only 11 cases and defined as a contributory factor by coroners in just two. Three separate studies of media and especially press coverage (Davey et al 2010, Lancaster et al 2010, Silverman 2010 concluded that it was wildly inaccurate, largely sensationalist, totally irresponsible and -a crucial term for moral panic analysis -utterly disproportionate. Such studies conceded that Britain's two liberal upmarket national newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent, consistently showed more considered judgment in their reporting than the rest of the press.…”

Virtually a drug scare: Mephedrone and the impact of the Internet on drug news transmission

“…The alleged death of a 14 year-old schoolgirl from the drug fitted the Leah Betts or Anna Wood model (Dillon et al, 1996;Manning 2006) of ‗mainstream over marginality' (Taylor, 2008). Her death took place in a town (Brighton) where the recent highprofile death of another female student, involving the drug gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL), had led to that substance being banned at that time (enforced 23/12/09), though unlike that substance, the media reported mephedrone with a catchy nickname --meow‖ (Measham et al, 2010;Silverman, 2010). Also, the mephedrone ‗Brighton death' happened three weeks after the UK government had controversially sacked its leading drug advisor, from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), in a dispute over the classification of ecstasy (Dyer, 2009;Dixon, 2009).…”