drug war propaganda theme 6 - demonize, war, epidemic

NIDA: Themes in Chemical Prohibition, William L. White, 1979 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/ticp.html 6. Both User and Supplier Are Defined as Fiends, Always in Search of New Victims; Usage of the Drug is Considered "Contagious" [epidemic, war] "the 'war'... victims are characterized as young children" (above: an example of the term "Drug War", here used in the movie Reefer Madness, circa 1936.) The prohibition propaganda which has surrounded the presently illicit drugs represents a blatant manipulation of the symbols of evil that would do credit to Jonathan Edwards. Nothing can so excite an adult population as can anything which appears to threaten their own children. Since the Harrison Act of 1914, the user and the seller of illicit drugs have both been characterized as evil, criminal, insane, and always in search of new victims, the victims are characterized as young children. Drug usage is characterized as "contagious;" its increase (real or imagined) is characterized as an "epidemic." Efforts to reduce drug usage are referred to as the "war" on or "battle" against drug abuse. Devil's Harvest - 1942 2, 3, 4 Persons who sell are called "pushers" in spite of increasing evidence that most persons get drugs, particularly their first drug, from friends and not some arch villain who seduced them on a street corner. contemporary anti-drug ad demonising African-American drug vendors as venomous snakes [download/view the 1.3M .mpg movie] In the morality play media often presents as "the drug war", the demon/devil drug pusher is so much an hackneyed and "stock" character that his cliched and stock image is even offered up by firms which produce "stock" images. (from IStockPhoto.com, 2008).

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Prohibition-era cartoons
Anti-prohibition political cartoons from Prohibition I.

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