Is media coverage of drugs irresponsible?

The media, particularly newspapers, are addicted to fomenting moral panics over drug-taking. Sure that everyone is either against drugs or unwilling to defend their use in public, they often suspend all sense of proportion when dealing with the topic. One particular media habit (pun intended) is the hyperbolic "discovery" of new drug epidemics. A challenging web article about the media's coverage of methamphetamine by Jack Shafer makes the point perfectly. He identifies the misinformation, and often gross distortion, of articles, such as a Newsweek piece last summer that overstated the effects of meth and its usage. In fact, as a newly-published report by the Soros-funded Sentencing Project, shows, meth is among the least commonly used drugs; its rate of use has not grown since 1999; and treatment has been effective. I agree with Shafer, having argued the same case in March this year. Newspaper editors have a knee-jerk response to drugs and hinder, rather than help, the development of policies to deal with the problem. Oh yes, and they also tend to glamourise drug-taking while attacking it. Anyone dare to say otherwise?