Magazine Journalism and Drugs of Abuse, 1945–1965: Similarly Hazardous Substances, Markedly Different Sources of Information

Abstract:This study examines sourcing patterns in magazine articles (N = 186) about drugs of abuse. It compares texts focusing on synthetic substances, such as amphetamines and barbiturates, with content about opiates, primarily heroin and morphine. During the period examined, the Food and Drug Administration regulated the former, while the Federal Bureau of Narcotics controlled the latter. Overall, law-enforcement sources appeared in one of every two articles about opiates, used and sold primarily in urban environments, and fewer than one in ten articles about synthetics, popular in middle-class, suburban America. Medical sources appeared in two of every three articles about synthetic substances and less than four in ten articles about opiates. Analyses also showed dramatic increases in user and/or seller sources near 1960, coinciding with more progressive approaches to drug control.