Letter to RTE (Irish State Broadcaster) regarding Prime Time, 26th January

The following is a letter sent to RTE and cc’ed to Minister Mary Harney and Minister John Curran.  The programme it relates to can be viewed here:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1064984

To Whom It May Concern

I have just watched the section of Prime Time, 26th January, dealing with Head Shops and, increasingly towards the end of the piece, mephedrone. I am not quite sure where to begin in pointing out how thin, short-sighted, reactionary, ill-reasoned, obfuscated and intellectually offensive I found it. First let me go straight to the short-sightedness as it is this which has the most resounding effects on human safety, the aspect the piece spoke most about.

I am sure that RTE wants to see itself as a guardian of public safety and would like its viewers to see it in a similar light; hard-hitting journalism, asking the questions that matter, getting the voice of the people where it needs to be, putting the government under pressure and so on and so forth. However, is it RTE’s job merely to reflect the questions of a thusfar uninformed public or, as state broadcaster, is it not RTE’s job to inform the public? I say uninformed here only in regards to, for instance, a substance such as MDVP or mephedrone and I use the word ‘inform’ as opposed to ‘pander to’. Not once in the piece did RTE ask the question; what happens to drugs that are banned? Two things happen to them, one is mentioned in the piece, one is not. Drugs that are banned are either replaced or, where a suitable replacement cannot be found, they appear as contraband on the illegal market. How amusing to hear an RTE journalist asking a former cocaine-user what his dealer thought about him choosing legal highs over illegal ones. Amusing and bemusing, as it certainly seems that the line of discourse RTE have chosen would see street dealers stay in business for as long as possible, passing over to them an increasingly lengthy roster of illegal, but marketable, substances to peddle. Did nobody in editing notice the clash of reasoning in having a medical opinion stating that abscesses from injecting legal substances were worse than those from injecting cocaine? Or the complete lack of reasoning in having medical opinions stating that replacement drugs are increasingly unpredictable in their effects while at the same time clamouring to keep on systematically banning them? The answer is no, because the programme seems to have been designed only to appeal to a specific audience and most certainly not to put forward ideas and proposals that would make life safer for what we might call ‘career’ drug users.

All RTE has done in this piece is make itself a part of a discourse on narcotics which does nothing to address the causes of drug use, the address of which is the only constructive way to approach the subject. Psycho-active drugs are marketable because people want them. The question that RTE should be asking is this; what kind of nation are we the people, under the leadership of our government, creating, that leads so many to seek pleasure and release in substances which many claim have detrimental effects? RTE have chosen not to ask this question but have chosen instead to further marginalise those who find themselves in a position where this is indeed their only release. So, in its position as spokesperson for the nation, is RTE driving the government towards legislation that will improve or worsen our beautiful state and everything that it was built on? Certainly when hearing a lawyer suggest ‘imaginative’ legal steps and a presenter heckling a minister more or less towards ignoring due-process, and then broadcasting these views to the eyes and ears of the viewership of Prime Time, who, let’s be honest, are probably not those who find themselves seeking such releases on a Friday or Saturday night, one is lead to somewhat believe that RTE has taken upon itself to encourage the public to shout and scream for legislation on subjects it knows little or nothing about. But what it should be doing, as stated, is informing the public and, much more importantly, encouraging the public to inform themselves, as I did after watching the piece, having never heard of mephedrone before.

This is the very worst kind of mass-appeal journalism. The constant leaping between generalities and specifics was simply mind-boggling – did RTE expressly decide to confuse the issue as much as possible? A doctor is asked about his experience in A&E wards concerning the drugs, he talks almost exclusively about hallucinogenics, then mentions a survey from the UK stating that mephedrone is now the 4th most popular drug amongst clubbers – I also found this piece of information on wikipedia. What he does not do is mention any specific case from experience that he can accurately pin on mephedrone. But apparently that doesn’t matter, the word has been used and so Keelin Shanley, speaking, apparently, for the whole nation, starts demanding that the minister ban it, ban it, ban it, whatever it takes just ban it. Seemingly our presenter has learnt nothing in the preceding ten minutes about the almost instant replaceability of these drugs or, on a general level, how easy illegal drugs are to access despite their status as such.

Here is an interesting quote from the same wikipedia page on mephedrone, where I’m sure Dr.Chris Luke got his UK survey result from: Professor David Nutt, former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in the UK: “people are better off taking ecstasy or amphetamines than those [drugs] we know nothing about” and “Who knows what’s in [mephedrone] when you buy it? We don’t have a testing system. It could be very dangerous, we just don’t know. These chemicals have never been put into animals, let alone humans.”

That right there is the crux and nutshell of the entire issue: better the devil you know. There is a discourse on narcotics that must be had, even Gay Byrne suggested that it needed to take place but public opinion, backed up by the loud media voices, shouted him down and even, with a further complete lack of logic, suggested that he was being doubly irresponsible given his position on the Road Safety Authority. Every person who dies in this nation from substance abuse, be it cocaine, nicotine, heroin, alcohol, amphetamines or through the side-effects of hallucinogenics, represents a tragedy. What price can you put on a human life? we are asked in the report. You cannot put a price on it. Therefore there is only one statistic to be taken into account, not how many people have died due to this substance or that one (which as we all know would shine a very dark light on nicotine and alcohol) but the statistic of all drug use in Ireland – is it increasing or decreasing? If RTE really care about the state of the nation and not just about appealing to the target audience of one of its documentary news programmes then it should look at the fact that drug use is increasing and say; current legislation and banning of substances is not decreasing drug use. The problem must therefore lie somewhere else. Real hard-hitting journalism would be to go and find that. I, for one, am utterly fed-up of legislation which does nothing more than appear to be useful, but that surface appearance need only be scratched the tiniest amount to see how false it is.

There is my viewer challenge to RTE – to admit, statistically, that current drug policy – drug strategy as they now call it – is neither decreasing drug usage nor, more importantly, making drug usage safer for those addicted, and to encourage our government to take positive, constructive steps towards honestly educating its people and letting itself be educated by its people, asking them why they have this unquenchable thirst for release that feeds both the legal and the illegal drug market. The banning of a substance merely creates a vacuum, as with the changes of off-licensing laws, legislation without replacement alternative action achieves nothing. I would dearly like to see RTE adopt this positive, constructive approach in suggesting that our government seek to find and heal the social causes of substance abuse and not continue to just drive it, still expanding, further into the underground.

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