From Craig Schroer
Austin, Texas
Recent reporting about research on laboratory rats corroborating the
marijuana “gateway” theory, that smoking cannabis leads to a desire for harder
drugs, was carried as a major story by nearly every newspaper and news programme
in the US (This Week, 5 July, p 4).
By contrast, another marijuana study, also funded by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse (NIDA), garnered practically zero media coverage when it was
published in this April’s issue of the American Journal of Public
Health. The unpublicised report, entitled “Marijuana use and mortality”,
studied a sample population of 65 171 people (the largest such study ever done)
and found “little, if any” link between marijuana use and premature death.
The difference in coverage given to these two studies can be explained by the
NIDA’s disinclination to publicise science which doesn’t serve its political
agenda. Unfortunately, the mainstream media seem mostly content to play the role
of government stooge, dutifully regurgitating information which they have been
spoon-fed by agencies such as the NIDA.
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The result is a media bias which deceives the public with lengthy stories
based on carefully manicured “lies by omission” while other viewpoints are
relegated to a few lines on the editorial page.
