IN MY VIEW: MEDIA NEEDS TO CHANGE THE WAY IT REPORTS DRUG BUSTS

By Alan Randell, a Victoria resident and regular NOW reader.

Re: "Grow ops put kids in ministry care," The NOW, June 25.

Our political leaders tell us drugs are banned because they're harmful,
which is clearly false because we do not ban two of our more harmful drugs,
alcohol and tobacco. No, the purpose of banning some supposedly harmful
recreational drugs and not others has nothing to do with protecting users
from harm. Drug prohibition remains as it always was: A cynical,
manipulative campaign to entertain and distract the majority by persecuting
an innocent minority.

Drug laws are about the use of something by a group of people who are
already perceived by a ruling elite as some type of threat. For example, it
wasn't alcohol that drove the move toward Prohibition; it was the behaviour
and morality of what the dominant, middle-class Protestants saw as the
"dangerous" class of urban, immigrant, working-class Catholics.

Scapegoating of drugs is a way of blaming a drug or its alleged effects on
its users for a variety of social ills which usually have nothing to do
with the user or the drugs. In short, drugs are highly useful, functional
and beneficial scapegoats. They provide a ruling class with fig leaves to
place over the unsightly social ills that are endemic to the social system
over which they preside and they give the general public a focus for blame,
in which a chemical bogeyman, or the "deviants" who ingest it, are the root
cause for a wide array of complex social problems.

Now, how should a conscientious newspaper editor report drug busts? Some
might protest, "What else can I do but report what happened?" But there's a
sinister side to reporting "just the news" when it comes to drug busts. The
steady drip-drip repetition of countless drug bust stories lulls the public
into complacency about these terrible events and they become less inclined
to voice any protest.

Reporting one drug bust as straight news may persuade the public to
question the law. A thousand drug bust stories tends to make people bored
with the whole issue.

After thinking this through, hopefully you will consider changing the way
you report drug busts that involve the government-ordered punishment of
innocent people. Here are my suggestions:

1. Include the comments of those, like me, who oppose these laws.

2. Include the comments of those arrested and their families and friends as
well as (with their permission) information on where they went to school,
who their parents are, etc., Personalize them.

3. Include the comments of the defending lawyer and not just the
prosecuting one.

4. Ask the drug cops if they expect to be punished for enforcing
prohibition after we come to our senses and end it (or the courts do it for
us.) The cops, of course, will bleat about having a duty to enforce the
law. Remind them about Adolph Eichmann who was hanged for doing exactly that.

5. Include a summary of your editorial position, if any, on these laws.

If the media continue to suppress the voices of the victims and otherwise
depersonalize them, I fear our evil drug prohibition laws will be with us
for a thousand years. It is time the media began to serve the public
instead of our venal drug cops and gutless politicians.