Outside the outsiders: Media representations of drug use
Abstract
This article is intended to highlight some key themes within the news media's reporting of drugs, drug users and drug-related crime.1 Its aim is to focus on how the news media represent illegal drugs and drug users and their causal links with further criminal behaviour. The article proposes that news media and governmental beliefs mirror each other and have both adopted a stance that serious or `problematic' drug use is dangerous and causes further criminality. It also asserts that both media coverage and policy direction are disproportionately aimed at specific stereotypes of drug users and drug-using offenders, to the point whereby simplistic notions have developed at the expense of a much wider and more complex discussion to the detriment of a holistic drugs discourse. The ramifications of such representations are that users of heroin and crack cocaine are thought of as risk-bearing `outsiders' and are actively excluded from society. The article will draw on a plethora of studies from across the globe through the belief that even in an era of media diversity and culturally diverse drug use, there are common globally identifiable themes within the news media's reporting of drugs and crime.
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1.
1 For the purposes of this article, `drug-related crime' will focus primarily on drug users who supposedly fund their addictions by committing property crime for monetary gain. It will, quite predictably, focus on heroin, crack and cocaine using offenders. The article will briefly comment on drug dealing, yet will largely ignore media representations of drug possession (which is a minor category within the media anyway), and the larger scale macro level issues of drug trafficking and cultivation. Also, whilst its main focus is the news media it will, where necessary and appropriate, consider other media accounts.
2.
2 Perhaps ketamine is the only `new' drug to have fully gone through the cycle, whilst steroids and other prescription drugs are yet to receive the attention that they perhaps warrant. The only real exception to this rule (and perhaps in contrast to what Young said almost four decades ago) could be that cannabis, in a climate of ambiguity in the face of its reclassification (and subsequent questioning of this), has witnessed some `supportive' reporting in the news media; however, this has been outweighed by negative accounts. The case of Patricia Tabran, the `cannabis granny', The Times, 19 September 2005 epitomizes this. For the negative side of cannabis use, however, see the Independent on Sunday's apology for their late 1990s campaign for cannabis legalization (`Were We Out of Our Minds?', 18 March 2007) as well as the introduction of skunk as a `new' problem and its exacerbating effects upon mental health problems.
3.
3 This is in the face of the fact that a large number of those convicted for dealing offences have relatively small amounts of drugs on their person. There is actually a blurring between `users' and `dealers' and the distinctions between the two can be unclear at best. Ironically in crime `fiction' drug dealers may actually be portrayed, however, in a relatively positive light or as `folk heroes' (see Carter, 2007).
4.
4 Admittedly the introduction of FRANK has seen a welcome move away from stereotyped educational representations recently and perhaps symbolizes a move towards more realistic and pragmatic harm reduction-based approaches.
5.
5 Similar trends have also been evident in the USA. Orcutt and Turner (1993: 192) have highlighted how stories relating to `a cheerleader's rise and fall due to crack' and the death of superstar basketballer-to-be Len Bias has created similar media coverage.
6.
6 This content analysis was achieved through a search of the LexisNexis database of UK newspapers.
7.
7 Heath Ledger died but this was followed by breaking news of how original Prozac research had only been half publicized, i.e. a half-formed image of Prozac — that which would make it marketable, followed by household pills being mentioned in Drugs: Protecting Families and Communities.
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