Media Dustup Pits Bloggers and Wired Against NYTimes

destinyland writes "Wired magazine ran a table listing the scientific effects of prescription drugs (and one illegal drug) — leading to an accusation from the NYTimes that they were 'promoting' drug use. But this routine controversy led to a fierce pushback online from bloggers and from Wired's reporter, who discussed his past drug use on his own blog and called for an honest discussion of scientific evidence and straight talk about medical effects."

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Wired magazine should change it's name

[Dr.Who]

to stewed, or blasted, or ...

when haven't we promoted drugs?

[saiha]

I flip on the TV and I see people promoting drug use all the time /shrug. And some of the side affects of those make me sick just to hear it.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Xyrus]

Reminds of the "story" not too long ago that screamed "SMOKING POT SHRINKS YOUR BRAINS!!! OH N0ESSS!!11!"

Of course, if you had actually dug into the details you would have found out that it was a small study that really wasn't best run, and that these people had smoked a minimum of 5 joints a day for 10 years.

I could probably run a similar study on people who took 5 multivitamins a day over 10 years and showed that all of them either died or ended up with some pretty bad complications. Then I could write a story that says "MULTIVITAMINS WILL KILL YOU!!!!".

What is it about drugs that set people on edge? Parents absolutely lose it if they find they're kind smoking a joint, but they don't think twice about jacking their kids up on ritalin and anti-depressants.

Exactly what message is that sending them?

At least get hemp legalized. Aside from the recreational use, it has so many other uses that keeping it illegal is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

~X~

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[clang_jangle]

Exactly what message is that sending them?

Do the right drugs, the ones that help you fit in with corporate culture and make $$$?

Have you noticed how freaking huge Hillary's face has become recently? Symptom of anti-depressant abuse.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[morgan_greywolf]

Then I could write a story that says "MULTIVITAMINS WILL KILL YOU!!!!" You could write a story right now. This study shows that, among other things, black pepper will kill you:

Black pepper has the scientific name Piper nigrum, which refers to black and white peppers. Individuals self-medicate (orally) with pepper to treat gastric, bronchial, and cancer conditions (Leung & Foster, 1996). Early evidence indicates that black pepper may protect against colon cancer (Nalini, Sabitha, Viswanathan, & Menon, 1998). Conversely, Singh and Rao (1993) found that black pepper induces the enzymes that cause liver tumors (el-Mofty, Khudoley, & Shwaireb, 1991). Aspiration of large amounts of black pepper has caused deaths (Cohle et al., 1988; Sheahan, Page, Kemper, & Suarez, 1988). Typical doses range from 300-600 mg or as much as 1.5 g per day (Gruenwald et al., 1998); 0.25 tsp is equivalent to 1.25 g dry weight. Treat this herb with caution.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Max Littlemore]

Drug use is promoted everywhere. Alcohol consumption, for example, is so ingrained in our culture that it forms an important part of some religious observances. Caffeine consumption, particularly amongst ./ readers I'll wager, is also incredibly high.

That's the thing that really shits me about the kind of story the NYT has run here. It's a story based on a knee-jerk "OH noes, wired included positive effects of an ILLEGAL drug in an article" approach rather than any semblance rational thought. I'll say it now, knowing full well there are idiots who can't get over this: the legality or otherwise of a drug has a causal relationship with how bad/dangerous it is.

Compare the effects of heavy coffee consumption with equivalent coca consumption and the actual medical side effects start to make coffee look a lot worse. Of course coca is not readily available except as a processed powder with is usually cut with other chemicals and it is associated with criminal activity, but if were not illegal would that be the case? I don't think there is any rational argument that can be made to suggest that criminalisation is not the cause of the majority of the ill effects on society of cocaine.

These articles help perpetuate the myth that all illegal drugs are bad and prescription drugs are good. This has two very detrimental effects on society. Firstly, people tend to trust the latest wonder drug that doctors hand out because it is legal. Then a few years later we find out too late just how many people taking the latest wonder drug are sleep walking off balconies or committing suicide or dying of liver failure.

The second effect is that drugs that are illegal but which can have real benefit are ignored. I don't take drugs usually, but a few years ago I broke my clavicle and a couple of ribs and bruised my spine in a bicycle accident. I could not get up or down without extreme pain and at the time I was single and had to look after myself. The prescribed pain killers where physically addictive and felt unpleasant to me as I tend not to enjoy opiates. The anti-inflammatories had evil side effects. So I ate pot. I hadn't used that since college and never really thought I would again, but as a muscle relaxant, anti-inflammatory and pain killer it was excellent, plus it made lying down and doing nothing a lot less boring. I didn't have to drive a car, there was not a lot of chance of long term mental health issues from a couple of weeks use, all in all it was perfect.

So as far as I'm concerned the whole "illegal drugs are bad because they are illegal" attitude gave me a choice of feeling like shit as a result of drugs that doctors can legally prescribe, or feeling okay physically, but committing a crime or several and taking my chances that the drug I was taking was not laced with something more dangerous. Clinically what I took was more appropriate for my situation, but knee jerk idiots who are incapable of rational debate on drugs made it more dangerous to me than it should have been.

Drugs are bad, mkay, but they are useful and given any health situation where using a particular drug may be beneficial, it should be legally available.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[oracle128]

Hydrogen Cyanide is safe in extremely small doses too. Based on that, perhaps we should legalize it too? Of course, at least cyanide isn't phsyiologically addictive, nor are multivitamins. Guess what is?

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[ColdWetDog]

Have you noticed how freaking huge Hillary's face has become recently? Symptom of anti-depressant abuse.

Well maybe you ought to cut down on the Prozac then. Of course, consult your doctor.

Either that or move away from the screen.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[stickystyle]

Yeah..but they are the ones that came up with name aspirin

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Of course, at least cyanide isn't phsyiologically addictive, nor are multivitamins. Guess what is?

Alcohol.
Tobacco.
Oxycontin.
Benzodiazepines (http://www.medicinenet.com/alprazolam/article.htm).

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Max Littlemore]

I wouldn't exactly consider the overly rampant but legal use of opium in China in the late 1800s a positive development.

I didn't say that drugs are good, nor did I suggest anywhere that rampant abuse of drugs is ever positive. This is exactly the kind of brainless knee-jerk non argument I did refer to. You have a position which you seek to support by taking one case that on the surface appears contradict my argument, while in truth it doesn't. Idiots with preconceived notions who half read my post and read your response will have their preconceived idiot notions reinforced. This does nothing to further rational debate.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they lost copyright to that name after WWI so anyone can use it now. The word is trademark, moron. How can people not understand the difference? No wonder our IP laws are so fucked up. Nobody seems to have the first clue about it, yet they seem to think they do.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[mixmatch]

I think we should use your reply for every post on Slashdot that mixes up the two, but will need your permission since your comment is trademarked to you.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[inKubus]

weed isnt physiologically addictive either until you get to about a few pounds of it a day. If you are doing that much weed addiction is the least of your problems. Good luck finding a study that says any different.

unfortunately weed prevents capitalizing the first word in your sentence and if I may be quite frank here the proper use of the comma.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[joelSantaguida]

I took Ambien, prescribed, for a year. It messes with you so much, and you have to take larger doses as you progress. I couldn't sleep for 3 months after I stopped taking it. My Adderall had the same effect. And with hemp, if you speak of the unsmokable male plant, can grow 7x faster than corn, replenishes the soil, and would put a lot of industries under.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[phalse phace]

Yup, I agree. Turn on the t.v. and you'll see drug commercials, turn on the radio and you'll hear drug commercials, flip open a magazine and you'll see drug ads. Shit, there are drug ads everywhere. When are the NY Times going to start blaming them for 'promoting drug use'?

It's like what Chris Rock said about the government and drugs.....

"The government, they don't want you to use your drugs. They want you to use their drugs. So every night on t.v. you see a weird ass drug commercial trying to get you hooked on some legal shit. And they just keep naming symptoms til they get one that you fuckin' got."

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Miseph]

Because hysteria and overblown studies aside, marijuana is essentially harmless and stupid to prohibit. Plus, for all you fiscal conservatives out there, it is extraordinarily expensive to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate marijuana users especially given that it is such a mild drug in the first place.

The fact that even the most dire effects found in studies basically amount to "it can be addictive if used in large quantities over long periods of time", "generally mildly detrimental to health and higher nervous function" and "mildly impairs judgment and perception" is just sort of the icing on the cake. 40 years of anti-weed hysteria has yielded little more than "ha! it actually MIGHT be addictive!" and frankly that just doesn't cut it (especially as, to the very best of my knowledge, there is no law against being addicted to something, or any compelling reason to outright ban a substance based on a possibly addictive nature... alcohol and tobacco would both be considerably more illegal than weed if either were the case).

Most nations with sensible drug policies have at least decriminalized marijuana, and some have even had the good sense to go as far as legalizing and regulating it similarly to alcohol and with comparable legal requirements for both its sale and consumption. If your real problem is people driving while high, then make laws against DUI, but don't just arbitrarily ban various substances which people could use to run afoul of that law while protecting the corporate interests of those who produce others.

As for vitamins not having an abuse risk... I've known many people to substitute a large daily regimen of vitamins for balanced diets as a means of maintaining "healthy" weight. I've heard from many, many sources that I trust (including dietitians) that doing this is EXTREMELY counterproductive because, among other reasons, your body will acclimate to receiving these nutrients in that format and will therefore ramp up the ability to use them in pure form while deactivating the systems intended to extract them from actual food. Aside from weakening the digestive system overall, this actually leads to people being unable to properly obtain nutrients from food, making them dependent on supplements for proper nutrition. That sounds an awful lot like abuse leading to physiological addiction to me, even if it doesn't occur in the brain's "addiction center" (so called because many addictive substances cause stimulation there, not because it defines what is addictive, by the way).

The point is, pharmaceutical companies are praised for pushing all kinds of dangerous mind-altering substances (including, by the way, amphetamines, synthetic opiates, barbiturates and hallucinogens) with extremely dangerous side affects and addictive properties, while marijuana is obsessively attacked by various groups despite being essentially harmless by comparison. Treat your stress and anxiety by smoking pot and you run the risk of having a negative reaction and possibly going to jail; do it with Xanax and you still run the risk of a negative reaction, but you've paid a whole lot more and the negative reaction in question may include suicidal tendencies (something never credibly linked to marijuana use) or a potentially fatal drug interaction (again, something never credibly demonstrated with marijuana), but it's legal.

Sure, some of it is about "hippies" who want to smoke pot... but it's also about people who just don't buy into the "pot is evil" bullshit because it's a bunch of hypocritical fear-mongering with no basis in reality other than the business concerns of legal drug producers who prefer to compete as little as possible. I'm mostly just sick of seeing tax dollars that could be spent on useful things, like education or health care or the enforcement of laws that actually matter instead wasted on fighting a pseudo-war on drugs that can't ever be won and has no point.

Granted, I also want to put a spike in the head of every idiot asshole who balks at spending a couple of mill

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I saw that test in an article in my local news site. One thing that they don't take into account, of course, is the life-style these people live. Depression has also be shown to shrink your brain. The brain shrinkage from that scientific test could just be a consequence of the lifestyle of the test subjects. It's not too hard to believe that people who smoke 5 joints a day for 10 year might not do very much and be in a similar state to depressed people in terms of neurological activity. You could probably get the same results from people who watch TV all the time.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Max Littlemore]

I think it's certainly worth a try. We have established that prohibition doesn't work, and in fact makes the problems worse.

There is little evidence that prohibition is a deterrent, in fact there is some evidence that prohibition makes illicit drug use more attractive to some people, in particular risk takers like teenagers and twenty-somethings. So there is a strong case suggesting that legalisation can reduce drug abuse, or at least leave it at unchanged levels.

What is certain is that the associated crime would drop if these drugs were legally available - why shoot people to protect a supply chain that is cheap, legal and unchallenged? Why rob people to support a cheap drug habit, or would that be any worse than alcohol related crime? Also, changing the status from bad illegal drug to legal drug that you're welcome to use but has a long list of side effects is more likely to deter peoples than keeping it illegal and just saying it's bad because it's bad. People will no doubt still abuse drugs, but accurate information is more of a deterrent to abuse than prohibition.

Which brings me to another related point. I firmly believe that prohibition is maintained because it creates an illegal economy. I believe there are people in positions of influence who profit from the illegal drug trade who are outspoken supporters of prohibition, otherwise how could so many people be stupid enough to support a system that so obviously fails to do what it intends and oppose even debate on alternative strategies? To my mind, anyone who supports prohibition must be a drug pusher.

But then again, maybe that's just a paranoid delusion caused by my week and a half stint of criminal THC abuse when I was injured...

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

No, it wasn't. It was a deliberate effort on the part of the British to addict as many Chinese as possible to enlarge their influence there.

What's your point? Not all drugs should be legalized because some are very addictive? I don't think GP ever said we should.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[TapeCutter]

"In drug studies, they need to get the animals to self administer."

So what is difficult about having two piles of cookies, one with dope and one without?

I realise you have some objection to dope for some reason or other but please don't pretend science is on your side with the addiction thing or that the current laws against dope have anything to do with medical issues. The dope plant is in fact one of the most studied plants on the planet and as such we now know a great deal more about it than we did when Anslinger went on his self-serving crusade.

The main problems with using dope are scizophernia[sic] for those who are already genetically predisposed and lung/throat disease for those who smoke rather than ingest it. As for addiction, opiates, tobacco and alcohol are physically addictive in that you will suffer physical symptoms during withdrawal. Dope, chocolate, and video games are mearly habit forming.

Now even if smoking a joint was as foolish as playing russian roulette, under what moral/ethical imperitive do you have the right to stop me putting chocolate or battery acid into MY veins should choose to do so?

Prohibition did not work for booze and it is not working for other drugs. Someone once said that "If we eliminate all recreational drugs people will simply spin in circles on their front lawn until they can no longer stand up, because that is what we as humans like to do".

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Toonol]

Of course, if you had actually dug into the details you would have found out that it was a small study that really wasn't best run, and that these people had smoked a minimum of 5 joints a day for 10 years.

Now, I'm all for legalization, and think that any rational standard that allows legal consumption of alcohol would have to allow marijuana.

But that said, I have also ran into crazed pro-pot fanatics that have the same problem as prohibitionists, in reverse: They have already decided that marijuana does no harm, and will reject any study that even hints otherwise. This is to the point of some of them even arguing that inhaling smoke from burning pot plants does no damage to your lungs. That's just as biased.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[TapeCutter]

I agree and I can explain the motivation for the bias displayed by "crazed pro-pot fanatics". What I can't explain is the motivation for the opposite bias displayed by the far larger group of "crazed prohibitionists", particularly the sub-group of "crazed prohibitionists" who regularly (ab)use tobacco and/or alcohol.

These so called rational and drug free individuals who are the 'pillars of society' are anything but rational when it comes to the drug trade. And it's not just the US, my country's federal police have been recently accused of deliberately allowing young Aussie drug mules to fly to Indonesia and tipping off the authorities on the other side. They now face the very real possibility of execution by firing squad. The original accuser is the farther of one of the mules who tipped off the cops several days before the flight in order to stop his son leaving the country for "dada means death" land.

As for the study in question it doesn't take a genius to recognise that dope can fuck with a head of a heavy user, particularly if the head belongs to a teenager, a glutton (5 J's/day!!!), or someone who is already battling to remain 'sane'.

Re:when haven't we promoted drugs?

[Ellis D. Tripp]

They also invented and trademarked another well-known drug. It is technically known as diacetylmorphine, but you probably know it better under Bayer's tradename--HEROIN.

Methamphetamine is NOT illegal!

[Ellis D. Tripp]

It is listed in DEA schedule II. Truly illegal drugs (like heroin and pot)are Schedule I.

Methamphetamine is available on prescription under the brand name Desoxyn:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desoxyn

Re:Methamphetamine is NOT illegal!

[tshetter]

All DEA Scheduled drugs are legal given proper permits.

Schedule 2-5 usually only require a prescription from a doctor with proper DEA licensing.

Schedule 1+ can also be had, but with more restrictive DEA licensing.


Alexander Shulgin may be the best known for his DEA Schedule 1 license and his ensuing discovery of numerous psychoactive substances.

Re:Methamphetamine is NOT illegal!

[cayenne8]

Isn't is funny, that it took a freakin' Constitutional Amendment to ban alcohol from the US, and a 2nd one to repeal prohibition....and yet none of that has been required for pot, coke, or any other drug?

I've yet to figure how/why this angle hasn't been pursued by those who would like to see the freedom to do with their bodies as they please...

Who really cares what the NYT has to say?

[lawn.ninja]

I know I certainly don't. On that note I'm tired of all the main stream media in the US. It's all lies and talking points. Watch the news some night and flip back and forth between the channels, or better yet catch a few with the DVR at 7 and 11. Get different samples from the two time slots and tell me what's different. Nothing, other than the filler material. They even use the same verbage most of the time. So I figure this is all coming from a very small group of sources (probably AP wire considering how lazy the media is). Which means that you can't really trust it. Hell I don't know how many times recently we've seen articles about the media being duped by someone or something. So that means to me that they don't vet their stories or sources properly anymore. Fuck it, at least the ratings and the revenues are up, god forbid the profit margin shrinks.

Re:Who really cares what the NYT has to say?

[je ne sais quoi]

Most of the "newsy" articles come from AP and Reuters. That's one of the reasons I love to watch Jon Stewart's show, he does these montages of the cable news morons where he shows off just how silly and repetitive they are. I just laugh, how can anyone take cable news seriously after that? They've got one up right now about Clinton's concession speech and Obama's VP choice.

Promoting Drug Use

[nurb432]

Who cares if they were anyway? Its their magazine, they can say what ever they want. Or has it become illegal to express your beliefs?

Considering......

[Anachragnome]

.......That William Randolph Hearst and his Yellow-journalism fueled the war on drugs in the first place, the Media are the LAST people I trust to provide me with reliable information in regards to drugs.

As a matter of fact, I don't trust anyone to provide me with information regarding drugs anymore. Guv'ment included. The DEA website is so full of blatant propaganda, I find it hard to believe anyone can take it seriously

And besides, I seriously doubt anyone has my best interests in mind more then myself.

Re:Considering......

[zappepcs]

.......That William Randolph Hearst and his Yellow-journalism fueled the war on drugs in the first place, the Media are the LAST people I trust to provide me with reliable information. There, fixed that for you

How the NY Times has fallen.

[cunina]

It's been a year since I deleted the New York Times from my news media diet, and I haven't looked back (pardon the mixed metaphor). I was willing to forgive them for Jayson Blair nonsense, but Judith Miller's warmongering lies masquerading as journalism seriously damaged its credibility. And with the Times' caustic, perverted coverage of the Duke Lacrosse rape trial, any last shred of integrity they had in my eyes went out the window.

The Times has discarded their long tradition of conscientious news gathering in favor of making money, and it shows. At least we know how they paid for their shiny new skyscraper.

"like heroin and pot"

[Reality Master 201]

Truly illegal drugs (like heroin and pot)are Schedule I.

It's a sad commentary on the stupidity of our drug laws that heroin and marijuana get lumped into the same category.

Re:"like heroin and pot"

[notdotcom.com]

Nicotine is not a harmful drug???

Since when? Not only was Nicotine used widely as a pestacide (because of its toxicity), but it's one of the most dangerous drugs that the public are exposed to. 40 1/1000th of a gram is considered potentially deadly to a human. (40mg)

The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40â"60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.[11] [12] This designates nicotine an extremely deadly poison. It is more toxic than many other alkaloids such as cocaine, which has an LD50 of 95.1 mg/kg when administered to mice. Spilling liquid nicotine on human skin could result in death.[13] [Wikipedia.org]

Sure, yeah, um, "not a harmful drug" in what sense?

drugs and honesty

[drDugan]

It is almost impossible to have a large discussion about drugs and medical effects in the public sphere. There is a massive, taxpayer funded multi-media campaign from the U.S. federal government that has for many years taught a large fraction of the public a series of messages about drugs that are just plain false. Almost anyone with significant experience with using these same drugs knows this to be the case, but their voices are typically marginalized or not taken seriously.

My lawyer said....

[Balthisar]

I'm suing Wired. Even though my lawyer said not to mention anything outside the courtroom, the Wired article enticed me to try ALL of those drugs in order to rescue my failing career.

Under the Aderall, everyone that passed my cube though I was calling them names. That resulted in an unpleasant meeting where I swore at my boss.

With the Aniracetam, I had the unpleasant assignment of examining the weld quality on some Ambassor Bridge repairs. Thank goodness for fall harnesses!

I don't even want to recall the embarrassment at work when taking the Aricept. It was like first grade all over again.

Methamphetamine was probably my best try. I had to stop taking it when I was sent home for "the nerves."

The Modafinil made everyone think I actually *did* something with the stripper in the back room at the club, and worse, that it was contagious.

The Nicotine just got met cited by the county for violating workplace rules. It actually worked out quite well, but the $250 smoking fines really add up, ya know?

The Rolipram was a little better than the Aricept. You get much more sympathy when everything comes out from above rather than from below.

I'm currently taking Vasopressin. For some reason, people keep telling me to chew my food before I swallow it.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken them in the prescribed order? In any case, don't tell my attorney. Something about "spoiling my case."

Sometimes, old things just need to die

[hyades1]

Ever since it failed to address its support for the Bush administration with respect to the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times has become steadily less relevant. I don't know whether they believe only old, right-wing fossils still read newspapers or whether they're having trouble recruiting quality staff on the wages they're willing to pay. Whatever the problem, they should either fix it, or just turn out the lights and go home.

Wired has always published its share of articles written with a smart-ass or tongue-in-cheek tone, and its audience both likes them and understands that they're not intended to be taken as gospel. The Times reviewer is clearly from the "full body armour to ride a bicycle" school of saving us all from ourselves.

Re:LOLOUTRAGE!!1!11!

[Anti_Climax]

If even one weak person was swayed to a life of addiction by Wired's advice to "do the right drugs," Conde Nast has done evil.

If it's come to that, we all might as well fold our hands and wait to die.

Some people make good choices in life, some make poor ones. If a kid gets hooked on meth because of a mention in Wired, there's a certainly a problem; it's definitely not with Wired.

Re:LOLOUTRAGE!!1!11!

[Bullet-Dodger]

Wired is wrong to promote drug use, especially stuff like meth. I work with recovering addicts and believe me, some gullible young kids ARE swayed by this sort of stupid publicity by those self-appointed arbiters of coolness. Yes, wired promoted using meth by saying it causes "Parkinson's-like symptoms, addiction, stroke, psychosis, prison, death" and "Prolonged use can also make you stupid and crazy.".

How dare they make it look so cool and sexy!

Re:LOLOUTRAGE!!1!11!

[Anti_Climax]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that my view on free will is not going to be changed by my child making a poor decision in the future.

If we have to temper everything we say in the public sphere based on the reaction of the lowest common denominator of society, we're going nowhere fast.

The world is full of pitfalls and dangerous stuff. There's no end to the stuff that could hurt or kill you. But pretending that stuff doesn't exist isn't going to keep people safe from it.

Re:Drugs Drugs Drugs, Which are good which are bad

[Monkeyboy4]

Being mad at the Times for inaccurate, biased or fear mongering articles is like being mad a dog when he nips you. He's a DOG! That's what he does! Being mad at the NYT is just as silly. Trust them like you would Entertainment Tonight.

But you can train a dog not to nip you...How do you train the NYT? Roll them up and hit them on the nose with themselves?