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Crack in Context: Politics and Media in the Making of a Drug Scare

NCJ Number
124593
Journal
Contemporary Drug Problems Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1989) Pages: 535-577
Author(s)
C Reinarman; H G Levine
Date Published
1990
Length
43 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the history of anti-drug crusades in the United States and of the current focus on crack cocaine concludes that the media attention and political responses involved in these drug scares may increase drug use by attracting people to it and that they divert attention and resources from basic social and structural problems related to drug use.
Abstract
Drug scares have occurred periodically during the history of the United States. During these periods many kinds of social problems are blamed on chemicals. However, the media coverage and political rhetoric usually overlooks the social and economic problems, such as poverty, unemployment, and the prospects of life in the permanent underclass, that underlie drug abuse. Thus, politicians and the media tend to talk of an epidemic, using medical terminology, while recommending criminal justice solutions. As a result funding has focused on law enforcement rather than on programs to deal with economic and social problems or to provide drug prevention and treatment. In addition, the media attention to crack may have functioned as a massive advertising campaign. Crack is clearly a harmful substance, but attention should focus on why 96 percent of youth do not use crack rather than on why 4 percent do. Notes and 56 references.

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