Today, the front page headline on the Metro newspaper read “The tragic proof that cannabis can kill”. Perhaps this splash might lead to some family conversations about drugs. If so, it would be useful now to consider what the sad case of one young mother who died after smoking cannabis can tell us about the dangers of cannabis. I think the answer is nothing. If this upsetting story does at least prod parents into talking to their kids about drugs I hope they might discuss just how to sceptically evaluate and make use of the information we read in the papers.
With scant formal drugs education and negligible public information, our national conversation about drugs is built around the telling of tragic stories like that of Gemma Moss, Leah Betts and Amy Winehouse. Although the facts may be at least part true, these stereotyped stories subtract from rather than adding to the public understanding of drugs. They erode rather than bolster the potential of individuals and the State to rationally recognise and minimise the real harm drugs can cause. These stories misinform even when the facts are ostensibly ‘true’, because the real names, places and dates are slotted into misleading old fairytales about the essential moral evil of drugs, (which are made animate by the stories), and the essential vulnerability and innocence of those (particularly attractive young women) who passively fall prey to them. The types of drugs, people and harm in these stories are not representative of the real burden drugs cause in society.
