“Cocaine-Related” Deaths: Media Coverage in the War on Drugs

Abstract

A 1989 newspaper story describing twenty-nine cocaine-related deaths in British Columbia is used to illustrate the lands of unwarranted inferences that are propagated by the news media during the current War on Drugs. The newspaper story conveys the impression that most of the deaths involved well-integrated, moderate drug users, that all twenty-nine deaths were caused by cocaine, and that these deaths provided evidence of an epidemic of dangerous cocaine use sweeping the province. However, the coroner's files on which the story was based, and related research, provide strong evidence that all three frightening inferences are wrong. A more careful analysis of these deaths as a consequence of chronic deterioration in a fringe population can contribute to the development of realistic drug policy.