UNBELIEVABLE DRUG HYPE AND ITS MYTHIC LITTLE PIECES

Let me be honest: I haven't read A Million Little Pieces, the
best-selling memoir by James Frey. The book is supposed to illustrate
the darkest depths of drug depravity; it reportedly drips with bodily
fluids released during degrading, narcotic-and-alcohol-fueled
recklessness. Now, however, it appears when all that gory liquid is
mopped up, the book actually suffers from a factual drought.

Hailed as a new kind of addiction literature, A Million Little Pieces
came out to generally glowing reviews in 2003. There were some
dissenters. After I read a thoughtful review by Jules Siegel (
http://www.drugwar.com/siegelpieces.shtm ), I decided the book would
probably irritate me in a million little ways.

Now I kind of wish I had read it to see if it would have tripped my
BS detector. That's what happened to some readers, particularly the
folks over at The Smoking Gun. Some episodes from the book didn't
seem plausible, so The Smoking Gun found official documents and
sources which contradict key elements of the Frey's allegedly true
story Frey ( http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html ).

This probably wouldn't have been terribly big news, but it was on the
front page of some newspapers, primarily because one of the most
powerful media figures in the world has championed the book. Oprah
Winfrey made it one of her book club selections, accelerating sales
exponentially. The Smoking Gun titled its story "The Man Who Conned Oprah."

Winfrey, for her part, says she doesn't feel conned. She even called
in to Larry King earlier this week to defend Frey as he appeared on the show.

There's a lesson here, and it's not just that arrogant, self-absorbed
and deceptive drug users can continue to be arrogant, self-absorbed
and deceptive well into sobriety.

Whenever outrageous charges about drugs and drug users are made, some
people will believe the hype, no matter how ridiculous it is. Often,
people who make their living evaluating the reliability of
information get hoodwinked. In 1980, the Washington Post printed an
article about an 8-year-old named Jimmy who supposedly shot heroin.
The author not only fooled editors at the Post, she fooled staff from
other prestigious newspapers who voted to award her a Pulitzer Prize,
until the story was revealed as a hoax.

Just last year, Newsweek printed a cover story on methamphetamine
which relied more on grim anecdotes than hard facts. When it comes to
drugs, the most exaggerated claims seem plausible.

The normal person who flirts with drugs is supposed to be dragged
down as far as they'll let themselves go, until they hit bottom.
That's the current dominant mythology of drug abuse. Write some fable
that reiterates the mythology and it may take a while before people
start asking questions; indeed many still feel like the questions don't matter.

Winfrey didn't seem too bothered.

"And I feel about A Million Little Pieces that although some of the
facts have been questioned, and people have a right to question,
because we live in a country that lets you do that, that the
underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still
resonates with me," she said on King's show.

The myth is so powerful that an inverse phenomena occurs when someone
suggests a currently illegal drug may have positive qualities. The
same media that swallows an addiction horror story without stopping
to chew suddenly turns quite picky, subjecting such ideas to a sort
of Spanish Inquisition.

A Massachusetts newspaper recently started its editorial on a
proposed medical marijuana law this way:

"Though approving the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes has
become something of a fad among legislatures nationally, those on
Beacon Hill should approach the issue with great caution. "Law
enforcement professionals, including Essex County District Attorney
Jonathan Blodgett, are convinced that use of the drug is a gateway
that can lead to experimentation with more powerful narcotics."

Medical marijuana has been a reality in the United States for nearly
a decade, and none of the nightmare scenarios predicted by
prohibitionists have played out. And yet the mainstream press will
always cast a skeptical eye, insisting on "balanced" coverage for such issues.

But when some middle class white guy describes himself beating up
cops and priests as a consequence of his drug use, it doesn't really
matter if it's true because it sounds like it might possibly be
true. The fantasy is actually more important than reality; it
sustains the notion that addiction is several times worse than most
people can even imagine.

It's understandable, in a sense. The federal government has spent
billions producing propaganda for print, broadcast and net-based
media to reinforce the type of hyperbole that Frey serves up as fact
in his book. And the drug scare story is a staple of the mainstream
media; the scarier the better.

The drug war was founded on myths and it continues to chug along
through the creative use of myths. If James Frey made an attempt to
be honest, he might admit that regurgitating those myths in a
colorful way and presenting them as true life can be ethically
perilous, though enormously lucrative.