ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that conventional debunking approach to some sections of the media’s coverage of drugs. The intense media reaction about ecstasy at this time — with its elements of dramatisation, exaggeration and a general sense of excitability — provoked a counter-reaction from some who sought to present an alternative view of the drug in the media. Increased drug use by young people is presented as a symptom of this decline, or as a contributory or principal cause of social decay. Paradigms of morality imbue debates about drugs, whether those views come from the most ardent ‘warriors’ or the most ardent libertarians. The contradictory and messily fragmented patterns of real life are complications that both approaches prefer not to deal with. The ‘one dimensional’ picture presented in media reaction which Cohen drew attention to, is replaced by an alternative, but equally one dimensional, view in counter-reaction.
