Online report covering advertising, drug use in film and television, films and smoking, reports of scientific studies, and drug use in music.

The reality television show analysed in this study contains numerous messages on substance use that imply both rejection and endorsement of use. The juxtaposition of verbal rejection messages and visual endorsement messages, and the depiction of contradictory messages about substance use from show characters, may send mixed messages to viewers about substance use.

Review of a study that shows that the depiction of alcohol in children's cartoon films has increased.

Laboratory analysis consistently reveals that drugs are rarely cut with noxious substances. How is it then that every time a journalist goes out on the street to investigate the drug scene, they turn up 'evidence' suggesting that dangerous adulteration is routine? (Member log-in required).

In the '60s it was the sometimes amphetamine-aided mods and rockers clashes that outraged the nation for a few years before interest faded. Similarly a moral panic over solvents spread throughout the UK from the mid-'70s apparently faded in the '80s, leaving a legacy of damaging misconceptions. "Shocking" punk sniffers and "shocked" adults joined in mutual provocation, raising the temperature of public reaction and making sniffing a prime element in punk's stock of shock-tactics. Richard Ives explains how this unlikely alliance elevated glue sniffing to public drug concern number one. (Member log-in required)

A survey of 3000 people conducted by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) revealed that even for films rated 18, cinema audiences were more offended by scenes of drug use that sex and violence. (Member log-in required).

This article outlines the media’s presentation of drug use in the 1970s, describing stories of cannabis-crazed hippies and glue-sniffing kids, while ignoring the sleeping pill epidemic. (Member log-in required)

Article on 60s song lyrics about drug use which concludes that when, sooner or later, an urban child - who lives in the ordinary world, not in the pop world where a drug conviction can be shrugged off - is offered a marijuana cigarette or a dose of LSD, he will remember them not as something his health and hygiene teacher spoke warningly about, but as something Mick Jagger, or John Lennon, or Paul MacCartney has used and enjoyed.

Articles from the 1970s dealt mainly with drugs that spread in parallel with youth counter-culture. The mainstream press and the counter-culture press often express diametrically opposed views about drugs. Many mainstream young people's press avoided discussing the issue, which has been dramatized by the mainstream press as a whole.

This paper sets out to analyse and interpret British press coverage of minor tranquillisers in terms of the types of user portrayed, their experiences of dependence and withdrawal and the cultural and ideological messages conveyed by these images. An analysis of 62 stories recounting the experiences of tranquilliser users revealed that journalists concentrate on two kinds of person; celebrities and ordinary users. Furthermore journalists concentrate on the experience of dependence and withdrawal rather than the reasons for taking tranquillisers. Possible causes for this are given and include: dramatisation, to hold readers interest; simplification, so that the story is quickly assimilated; and personalisation, which enables people to identify with those in the story. The effects of the transmission of these messages on different audiences are then discussed.