By Mallory Culbert
t th e he Me e M
a a iidd
ii n
Drugs
It’s May of 1977. Newsweek reports on a new, cosmopolitan social trend: “a little cocaine, like Dom Perignon and Beluga caviar, is now de rigueur at dinners... the user experiences a feeling of potency, of confidence, of energy.” Before, cocaine was “scary” to young, white americans. As of 1977, cocaine is sexy.
White girls do cocaine. Black girls do heroin. At least, that was what we were taught. Big whoop, people use drugs! But by teaching citizens to associate
Mexican
immigrants
and
“the
hippies
with
marijuana
and
blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
communities
news.”
Boy,
did
… it
and
vilify
work.
them
night
Mainstream
after
news
night
on
almost
the
evening
always
bases
conversations about drugs on crime [7]. The Nixon Administration used the evening news to fire up a moral panic that depended on hysterical “societal
reactions
against
certain
drugs
and
drug
users”
[5].
Sensationalist media preys on our culture’s values, hopes, and fears to pull in the largest audience possible.
American mass media is made to entertain, not to inform. It’s news, not legal evidence. The news thrives on exaggerated scandals and drama to maximize
profits.
Forms
of
mass
communication
like
radio
and
TV
programs, newspapers, ad campaigns, and even streaming services like Netflix release information to the public all at once. With such a wide reach, whoever controls the media controls the culture.
Crime and drug media (like TV shows and news stories) are told from law enforcement’s
perspective.
We
are
taught
that
morally
good,
clean
people don’t use drugs. We are told scary stories about dealers in “The Ghetto”, told to “just say no.” We are shown scary photos of faceless “addicts.” We treat drug use as a crime because of a political agenda. Instead
of
recognizing
real
harm,
the
news
industry
and
government
interests work together to represent drug use as a “social problem” to be exterminated.
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