Cocaine,
Kate and the media: Just who is the bad influence?
By Craig Morris
for DrugWar.com
posted at DrugWar.com
March 7, 2006
Apothecary Jar c. 1880.
Image from the Chicago Historical Society
(Archived at Erowid.org)
Once again, society is in the grip of another
media led, drug-related moral panic. This time (in the UK specifically)
the drug in question is cocaine.
However, similar waves of media hysteria can be seen historically
around drugs and young people-from reefer
madness myths around cannabis in the 1930s in the US to acid
house/rave and ecstasy in the late 1980s in the UK. The truth
is that especially in the tabloid press, social anxiety sells
and drug-related stories are among the best sellers.
Whilst some journalists and newspapers are
better than others in terms of factuality and understanding drug
issues, most will have problems simply because they do not make
recourse to expert knowledge on the subject (Coomber, Morris and
Dunn, 2000). Much of what they think is true about drugs and drug
users is often nonsense. Journalists are trained in finding and
producing stories, they are not experts in the field of substance
use. Entertaining stories they may often be, but factual insight
may not often be on top of the list of priorities. Much of the
media (especially in the tabloid press market) is far more interested
in a good story (i.e. one that will generate sales) than a factual/educational
one.
Whilst there has been an undercurrent of
concern in the British media about growing cocaine use by young
people for a few years now, the current wave of cocaine media
coverage seems to have begun with a front cover photo story of
the fashion supermodel Kate Moss and her alleged cocaine use in
The
Daily Mirror on September 15th, 2005. Whether or not Kate
Moss did or even still does use cocaine is not the focus of this
article. I am more interested in the consequences of the media
coverage and social anxieties which seem to coalesce around the
idea that Moss is a role-model for some young people.
Powder cocaine with coca leaves-
Image from Erowid.org
The ongoing
saga of Kate Moss and her alleged cocaine use has followed
a predictable morality tale type storyline, of which the tabloids
are so fond. Formerly something of a media favourite, Kate seemed
to be upheld almost as a role-model for young women in the consumer
age. She had the great job, was beautiful, was financially successful,
great social life, did it all seemingly on her own terms (despite
coming from a modest background) and managed to be a mother too.
In short, she had it all. Then she met Pete
Doherty.
With the British tabloid press being celebrity
couple obsessed, this pairing was initially a journalists dream.
David
and Victoria Beckham, Jude
Law and Sienna Miller (as they previously were) and now Kate
Moss and Pete Doherty-a new couple to commodify. Sociologically,
it can be argued that in late modern society, celebrity is a commodity
that can be sold via the media. Endless stories can be written
about celebrities and these translate to sales. However, people
get bored with the same product, so new celebrities and celebrity
couples are essential. Moss-Doherty looked especially promising.
But what tabloids really like is trouble in paradise (see coverage
of the Beckhams).
Pete Doherty, of the band the Libertines
and more recently Baby
shambles, is an emerging rock star who has consistently been
portrayed primarily in terms of his alleged drug use. It is widely
alleged in the media that he uses "crack" cocaine and
heroin at an "addictive" level (dependence is a less
moralised term to use). This alleged lifestyle made him perfect
for the purposes of the tabloids. The perfect princess of fashion
and the dark prince of indy-rock-a tale of corruption, consequences
and repentance.
In classic morality type stories we have
seen: corruption (allegations of Doherty leading Moss astray),
questions being asked about Kate's fitness to be a mother, fears
being voiced over her (now corrupted) influence over admiring
young women throughout the land. The media then told the public
how Moss had lost various lucrative modelling contracts (punishment)
and how she had ditched Doherty and sought help from a rehabilitation
institution (the seeking of forgiveness). Ironically, she currently
features in a TV advert in which she goes out all night and coming
home in the early hours of the morning applies a product to give
her an invigorating glow (this product being cosmetic in nature).
Interestingly though, whilst the Kate Moss
saga has led to a broader concern about cocaine use among young
Britons, the presumed inevitable rise in cocaine use is subject
to some question. In recent years, prevalence figures in the UK
have suggested a significant rise in cocaine use, typically among
the young. However, the British
Crime Survey for 2004-5 shows no rise among 16-24 year olds
(with prevalence estimated at 7% of 16-24 year olds having tried
cocaine at least once). This suggests that cocaine use among the
young may have reached a plateau in the UK and that whilst 7%
is not a negligible figure (although remember some will have used
once and not again) it is also far from a majority of the young.
An ITN
television news special on cocaine use in the UK recently
conducted its own "experiment" by testing toilet surfaces
in a sample of pubs, clubs and other venues in and around London.
Its results unsurprisingly found evidence of cocaine use. But
what this was taken as telling us was questionable. Whilst the
report claimed this as evidence of widespread cocaine use among
the young, it only takes one customer in a bar or pub to use the
toilets for ingesting cocaine for such traces to be left. This
is hardly evidence of an "epidemic" (as
the media are keen to portray it).
However, the media often can not resist exaggerating
and sensationalising the realities of illicit drug use. Ironically,
one piece of research (Boys et al, 2001) suggests that many
young illicit drug users now prefer cocaine to ecstasy partly
due to the exaggerated dangers of ecstasy use frequently portrayed
in the media. That is to say that the media's coverage actually
contributed to the growth of cocaine use a few years ago in the
UK!
Whilst the media is very good at highlighting
other people's bad influence on society it is also conveniently
good at ignoring its own. Kate Moss now seems to be roundly criticised
for being a bad influence on impressionable young women who might
feel that cocaine is fashionable and cool because she allegedly
uses it, with the fear being that they will now do so too. However,
if young people were to do just this (and this does require assuming
that many are more easily led than in reality they actually are)
whose fault would it be?
If it is Kate's fault, then how is this the
case? She had an interest in keeping her alleged drug use quiet!
Cocaine is a class "A" substance in the UK, illegal
and potentially accompanied by harsh penalties even for possession.
Probably the last thing she wanted was front page exposure. She
is a woman who has done well enough from the world of fashion
to know that exposure for drug use could damage her earning potential.
Kate Moss did not choose to make her alleged cocaine use public
and has not chosen to be an influential figure to millions of
young women.
The point of access into (a version of) Kate
Moss's private life and alleged drug use is the media. The media
profits from scandal and chooses to run such stories. If young
people did choose to use cocaine because Kate Moss allegedly does
too, then the responsibility for them knowing this is with the
tabloid media. Without their coverage, who would know? If you
do not know about something, you can not be influenced by it!
The tabloid media have traded for decades (and now more than ever)
on celebrity private lives and the alleged misdemeanours contained
therein. But for the media to talk critically of how this influences
society whilst not recognising its own role in this is a gross
hypocrisy. As Thomas
Szasz argued in his book Ceremonial
Chemistry, illicit drugs have been the number one topic of
social anxiety in the West for decades. The tabloid media not
only earns a living from this, but also fans the flames. If illicit
drug use is covered in a sheen of delinquent glamour then it is
primarily the tabloid media who applied it.
Tabloid editors may argue that even if much
of what they say about the risks of drug use is untrue, at least
they try to scare the young and impressionable from using drugs
and that this is in the interests of the public good. Meanwhile,
generations of young people read their newspapers for amusement,
but disregard messages of the dangers of drug use wholesale. Ironically,
as was argued above, these stories often encourage the use of
certain drugs at certain times.
In conclusion, I would suggest that it is
perhaps time that the tabloid media recognised its own role in
contributing to the exposure that young people get to ideas connected
to illicit drug use (such as glamorising cocaine use though association
with celebrities). I say I would suggest this, but that would
of course imply that I thought that the tabloids were not conscious
of this. In fact, I believe that they are, but that their hypocrisy
is just another thing well below sales on their list of priorities.
Coca-Cola ad marketing the energizing effects
of the drink. Image from The
Encyclopedia of Psychoactives: Cocaine
(Archived at Erowid.org)
References
Boys, A. et al (2001) "Blurred
Images: Young Cocaine Users' Perceptions of Cocaine,"
Drug Link, July / August, ISDD.
Coomber, R. Morris, C. and Dunn, L. (2000)
"How
the Media do Drugs: Quality Control and the Reporting of Drug
Issues in the UK Print Media," International Journal
of Drug Policy, 11, 217-225
Szasz, T. (1975) "Ceremonial
Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts and Pushers,"
London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
