Drugs and the media (or Polly and I)

God, that's fucking horrible, Anna, especially finding out so long afterwards. Regardless of whether you expect them, you have my hugs and sympathy.

This is awful Anna, much sympathy - especially for her sister. I think you'll find that even if you had never written such an article, never been a journalist and indeed told her constantly not to take drugs that you would still feel guilty. When seemingly needless deaths occur it's a very natural human response.

Your line on "if people are going to do it - its better to be informed" I don't think can be argued with. You are not sure in yourself if that is the truth behind why said articles are in the magazines you write for. (Dance) music has always been wrapped up in drug culture - you know that - and dance music magazines sell you people who also buy drugs. I would be surprised if that many people have ever read one of your drug death stories and stopped using. There would certainly be that pause for thought and feeling bad, but human nature is somewhat insidious and in the back of our mind it is alright because we didn't know them, and they help tip the statistics in your favour (incorrect arg - see Mark S for more details).

The sad thing is that you could now write an article about this, and it would be one that would mean an awful lot more to you because of the personal attachment. But whether it would actually be a more forceful article is unlikely, the personal attachment is just with you after all. And you are a professional writer so those previous articles will have been as polished and sincere as they needed to be. Is it in the interest of - say - Mixmag to run such articles anyway, possibly not. The tougher question is how much does such a magazine tacitly support and promote drug culture?

I think all drugs coverage is glorification yes - a lot of it is also informational, though, and sometimes sensation and information have to go hand in hand. I also think that people would take drugs without the glorification.

If journalists are writing about a scene which isn't particularly druggy, and are playing up the drug aspect, then that's irresponsible. But I think dance music coverage is less guilty of that because it's a scene where drug-taking is as much a listener thing as a musician thing - endless stories about drug-taking in rock and roll, where most of the listeners are standing sipping cheap lager, have more to answer for if anything does.

So, OK, that's what I think. And also, obviously, hugs and sympathy. I hope this thread does help you work out what you feel, and I don't think you should feel guilty about writing (or writing from whatever conclusions you come to). You're a good writer, Anna - in a couple of little details up there you evoked your friend sharply enough a lump to my resolutely cynical throat. Sorry this has happened.

anna, if you want to mail or call, im here. i dont think you should feel guilty, and i think you were right in what you thought all along. that is what i have always thought, and after mick died last year, and then another person used to know also died, i still believed it. i believe it more.

magzines/literature/music/films ALL promote drug use. yes they inform, but they also promote, but i dont lay the blame at their door. it is glorification, and m*xmag is most definitely not exempt by ANY means, but they are not the cause, they are the symptom, i am pro-legalization/decriminalization, even of the things i would never touch in a million years, even of what killed mick.

I'm so sorry to here that.

I have for a long time been interested in attitudes to drugs far to many people put drugs on some kind of pedestal. The amazingness of the drugs experience, sometimes to a quasi religious level of elevation. Drugs change how we experience the world for a short time. They don't change the world they never will. At the end of the day some people sometimes want that escape, or that sensation and people will provide. Wether its right or wrong I don't know.

No drug is entirely benign, if they were then why would anyone take them. Sure there are steps you can take to protect yourself from harm but nothing is foolproof and you put yourself in the hand of some backstreet chemist and a chain of people.

One thing I have noticed among my circle of friends is a kind of drug creep, from pills, to powders, to ketamine and GHB, and a move away from single drug use to combinations and cocktails. I have also seen an awareness of the risks fall. One friend of a friend has been turned into a gaunt shadow of his former self by a consistant ketamine abuse. Very few people seem to have limits anymore, no more self imposed rules about what to take and when.

How does the media fit in. At the core. Could any of these magazines talk about these music scenes and not talk about drugs? Of course not, but I do think the commentary needs to be put in a certain way and that must be the hardest thing in the world to judge. There seems to be a lot less drugs education directed at the club scene nowadays from the authorities. If you look back at the early to mid 90s there was a hell of a lot of literature directed at clubbers attempting to inform, now that seems to have gone, the thrust is to try and contain crack and Heroin abuse.

People need to realise that although these drugs are seen non-addictive, (although I would not count ketamine as non addictive), and are seen as something that can been taken or left. Socially there is an addiction. You're not part of the scene if you're not on one. Now I know that's not entirely true, but going to certain clubs not on drugs is a strange experience and you do feel outside the shared experience and that shared experience is a very strong if fleeting one. People want to capture that fleeting euphoria and perpetuate it and I think that is where the a lot of the scene press comes from. they want to share this 'wonderful thing' with everyone else out there so its very easy to evangelise from the pages of a magazine trying to draw more people into the euphoric whorl.

What is often forgotten, especially by those who haven't had a bad experience, or by those whose good experiences far outweigh the bad, is that there is nothing benign about altering one's mind and body chemistry in this way. Every time you pop a pill or whatever it's a risk, and it ought to be a calculated one but very often it isn't.

The flip side is that people don't want to hear about the dark side to all this and the media isn't there to do what people don't want.

I don't think this ramble has helped clarify my feelings, I don't know if it'll be of any help, but I'll put it out there all the same.

(I was going to call you about going out tonight but I guess not, if you want to talk to me or suzy about this just give us a call, hugs and love)

(Also take some solace from the fact that my applling spelling and I do not grace the pages of any magazine)

That's terrible, I'm really sorry to hear that Anna.

I think it's difficult to talk about dance music without drugs being involved. It's interesting you mention this because I wrote the GHB thing which was in Mixmag while I was there and now thinking about how easily I put together a neutral piece on it it feels a bit scary too. In fact now I think about that article I really think it was quite cynical to want to put it in, the motivation behind it seemingly being "this is the new thing people are doing, read all about it". It was balanced off with a story about some guy going under but he was alive to tell his story.

Ed's post is interesting, I agree for the most part. I know the sense that you mean drugs won't change the world, ie make it better if you're disgusted with it or whatever, but I do think the real dangers or the really bad things about something like E or whatever are the social ones, it does change your individual world, drastically I think. I've not experienced the bad side to any great extent but I can see what it is like. That's without even talking about other drugs.

I have loads of positive opinions about drugs aswell but as Ed implies, these have been explored so often.

i sometimes want to think that the glorification of drugs by the dance press is in direct response to the demonization of drugs by the govt and authorities, but i think thats more true of 'people on the ground'

sometimes it feels documentary-esque, as when covering E, other tiems it feels like its leading things, the lurid accounts of GHB and PCP seem not to be covering what is happening, but introducing it to a wider ranger of people.

and, apologies for my ignorance, but what is liquid E?

liquid E = GHB

See also Ronan's excellent blog post on ecstacy's other dangers (search for Man Got No Soul).

ok, yes id assumed liquid e to be ghb. it is something ive never come across though

I also feel a bit guilty thinking that I don't think I'd ever go near GHB in my life and yet I did the piece.

I lost a friend to a drug-related death a few years ago. I was stricken, for obvious reasons but also, as the chap had basically introduced me to a number of substances that enhanced my social life at the time. His death made me re-evaluate what I was doing to myself (and others by example) and made me far less flippant. I didn't touch a drug for over a year after his death and gave up alcohol for six months. I was terrified that I was dependent and that I could slip just as easily as he had.

In a sense I was lucky that I didn't have the added complication of having been involved in promoting the scene in a commercial sense. I did still feel guilty for what involvement I did have and for encouraging others to take part if they expressed a curiosity.

Anna, you are bound to feel some degree of guilt, just as I did. I would rather have drug coverage than not. Just as I would rather a friend experiment with me rather than some random stranger who could be giving them anything.

I don’t know how far a commercial body can go in terms of promoting safety without distancing itself from its audience. I guess I hope by promoting awareness on any level, people will be more likely to discuss these things and that may lead to a reduction in drug-related deaths. We all know it’s a risky business, just as we know smoking will eventually kill us. The reality doesn’t seem to stop us acting though.

This is a horrible, horrible day for you. I know that you have people you can call and I hope there’s someone nearby to hug you. I don’t think you should feel more guilty as a journalist but I can see why you do. Polly knew what she was doing and I doubt a different media perspective would have discouraged her use.

Take care of yourself.

Anna, this is a horrible thing to happen.

my feeling is that if people didn't like taking drugs the dance press wouldn't write about them.

Liquid E seems to be one of those herbal highs: http://www.sirius.nl/en/products?Ecstasies=Liquid-E

Anna, I'm so sorry to hear this.

I had lost friends to drugs before I ever wrote articles about those drugs. At work, articles on drugs happen because editorially we realise that a drug is making a (usually negative) impact, as when my peers' music scene went bad on a tide of smack (two different scenes - home and London). They are A BITCH AND A HALF to research and write. In that situation, the idea is to talk to people from rehab groups, patients, doctors, pharmacologists and the like. Another of our writers active on the free party scene filed reports about the drugs he was into, but lows and highs both came into it, and that exposition is what makes him a good writer.

I'm not sure how many more copies of the magazine were sold because of my drugs articles - but the factual stuff is there to give credibility and balance to some of the fluffiness inherent in fashion coverage. I think subcultures to some extent foster drug cultures, and there's nothing at all wrong with writing about those links.

I'm reminded of the fine print at the botttom of any investment information telling you that shares can go down as well as up. We all know there's a small chance bad things could happen when we take class A's; every article I've ever read or written about the subject says this. I think it massively unfair to blame the media; if 'no coverage' was a proscribed solution, we'd be (self-)censored.

Thank you all for being lovely. I'm okay. I'm still going out tonight/ talking about Cornwall on ILE/ drinking tea and reading Elle.

I do wish I could have gone to the funeral. Because I hadn't seen her in a long time everything has a faint air of unreality. I'm not sure what to think.

Oh Anna, I second the hugs and feelings and all of that.

I've been lucky with drugs I think. I've never got heavily into anything serious on any regular basis, and never moved with heavy users, but I've done my share and tried a fair variety and never had any really bad effects, and never known anyone really hurt by them. I'm still willing to try almost anything that doesn't involve injections (a phobia nothing to do with drugs).

But I think I'm pretty knowledgeable on the dangers (with the exception of some of these new things you young with it people have now, I expect) - I've read lots and even go to lectures occasionally on the subject at my university. I know the risks when I take a pill or snort a line, same as when I get on a train or cross the road. We weigh the risks against the pleasures. And that's where decent info comes in. I've always thought that persistent and deliberate misinformation of the scare kind, of the sort I saw a lot of in the past, was worse than useless, because everyone eventually realises it's largely lies, so they won't believe any of it. Honesty, even with the nasty bits, but in a balanced way, is what is needed.

Obviously I know what mag you work for, and you know it's one I've bought many times. It had lots on drugs (this is mostly before we met, so I didn't register how much was by you), and it seemed well judged to me, informative without being either scare-mongering or simple-mindedly glamourising drugs. I found a lot of it dull and familiar, but it's hardly aimed at people my age (the mag or these pieces). It also seemed to get a fair amount of reaction. I thought the flip side, which I liked best, was certain features (the word 'Mongo' regularly features in these) which flippantly celebrate being out of your head, but my main objection to this was that it was tedious drivel rather than its celebrating drugs. To be honest, I've celebrated them too often myself to take a high handed attitude about this.

Anna, I really sympathise with your loss, but I really don't believe that you should feel guilty, and I doubt that you should adjust your attitude to how you write about drugs either.

Americans: you know those marijuana PSAs they got now?
I despise them, but if weed was legal I think I'd support them