What accounts for the media’s exaggeration of the danger and threat of certain drugs at certain times—in the case of the discussions in this chapter that focused on methamphetamine beginning in the late 1980s and continuing, though unevenly, into the twenty-first century?

DISCUSSION 7
A substantial number of authors of discussions of drug use regard PCP and MDMA (Ecstasy) as hallucinogens. Why? In contrast, the author of this chapter does not. Why not? Be specific and detailed.
EXERCISE 7
Assignment Prompt
Do you think that the federal government and most of the states are justified in classifying most of the drugs that are discussed in this book (specifically marijuana, LSD, and Ecstasy) as Schedule I drugs? Justify your answer.
DISCUSSION 8
What accounts for the media’s exaggeration of the danger and threat of certain drugs at certain times—in the case of the discussions in this chapter that focused on methamphetamine beginning in the late 1980s and continuing, though unevenly, into the twenty-first century? What was it about meth that made it the “scary drug of the year”? Were any of these media dangers based on objective evidence? Or were they all so exaggerated as to be nearly entirely a fantasy? More generally, are drug scares really as objectively threatening as the claims, or were they fantasy creations of the press?
EXERCISE 8
Assignment Prompt
Compare media attention paid to certain kinds of drug use over, say, the past century, and compare that paid to other drugs, then match the volume of each with respect to clear-cut harms—for instance, death by overdose. Consider that benzodiazepines (tranquilizers such as Valium) and antidepressants rank in the top five drugs that cause death by overdose, yet methamphetamine and amphetamine do not appear on this list at all (nor does marijuana). What do you think accounts for this discrepancy? Are all the reasons “constructionist” in nature—that is, not based on the objective harms of the drugs in question at all? Or are concrete, objectivistic reasons behind these discrepancies as well?
READ CHAPTERS 7 AND 8 BOOK DRUGS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 10TH EDITION

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