Meth Still Driving People Nuts

Newsweek, On the Media, and me

Nick Gillespie | October 26, 2005

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The Newsweek story was widely attacked for its hysterical tone and cliche-ridden content (for examples of critical coverage, see the work by my colleague Jacob Sullum and by Slate's Jack Shafer). So I can understand why Whitaker is a bit ragged out by yet one more dissing of his magazine.

But he goes too far in chiding On the Media for hosting a critical conversation about coverage of drug use in America. "If your mission," he writes, "is to monitor the accuracy of what is being reported in the media, shouldn't you take the time to do some reporting on what you allow people to say on your show?"

That's a question that Whitaker ought to be directing at himself and his staff. As I argued during my On the Media appearance, misinformation about drugs and their effects make it impossible to have serious, mature discussions about the best public policies related to prohibtion, treatment, law enforcement, and much more. The Newsweek cover story on meth sadly reminds us that most coverage of drug use has not really improved since the old tales of LSD-eating hippies staring into the sun until they went blind filled the nation's newspapers.

Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie is the editor of Choice: The Best of Reason.