Correspondence
Web Sites and Misinformation about Illicit Drugs
N Engl J Med 2001; 345:1710December 6, 2001
- Article
To the Editor:
The letter by Boyer et al. (Aug. 9 issue)1 decrying the prevalence of “partisan” sites on illicit-drug use neglected to mention that theoretically objective government sites contain misinformation about drugs as well. For example, the National Institute on Drug Abuse publication “Marijuana: Facts for Teens”2 says that marijuana users are 104 times more likely to use cocaine than those who do not use marijuana and that because “marijuana use can affect thinking and judgment, users can forget to have safe sex and possibly expose themselves to HIV [human immunodeficiency virus], the virus that causes AIDS.”
With this kind of fear-mongering and exaggeration (which is hardly nonpartisan), it is not surprising that teenagers look to alternative sources for their information about drugs. And since government sites explicitly refuse to provide information that could help teenagers reduce the risks related to drug use, there is a vacuum that alternative sites seek to fill.
What is needed is genuinely objective information — neither the government's fear-mongering nor the downplaying of risks seen on some of the alternative sites. In the context of a so-called war on drugs, however, no one should be shocked that official sites are dismissed as propaganda. That's why the Office of National Drug Control Policy calls its Web site for teenagers Freevibe.com and hides the fact that it runs the site — anything called “.gov” would not be credible.
2 ReferencesMaia Szalavitz
1229 First Ave., New York, NY 10021
maia@echonyc.com 1
Boyer EW ,Shannon M ,Hibberd PL . Web sites with misinformation about illicit drugs. N Engl J Med 2001;345:469-471
Full Text | Web of Science | Medline2
National Institute on Drug Abuse. Marijuana: facts for teens (revised). Bethesda, Md.: National Institutes of Health, 1998. (NIH publication no. 98-4037.)
Author/Editor Response
The authors reply:
To the Editor: We appreciate the comments of Ms. Szalavitz, but we believe that her observations are erroneous. For example, she suggests that illicit substances have minimal effect on sexual behavior. Several studies performed in the United States and Europe, however, find that drug use increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection.1,2 Szalavitz's argument that scientifically derived data become less credible if they are cited on a U.S. government Web site lacks merit. We would suggest that this information is presented not with fear-mongering in mind, but in order to give an honest and accurate description of the risks associated with illicit-drug use.
In our opinion, teenagers do not turn to partisan Web sites because they object to the content of government sites; adolescents visit such sites because they want to learn about drugs. The point of our report was that those interested in learning about drugs of abuse will easily find partisan information promoting the use of these drugs, whereas antidrug Web sites require greater effort to locate.
Szalavitz proposes the creation of Web sites that contain objective information in an attempt to reduce the risks of illicit-drug use. That sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, “harm reduction” is often a euphemism for the legalization of substances of abuse.3 The use of these substances was criminalized because they were harmful; they are not harmful because they were criminalized. If their illegal status represents a bias, then at least it is a bias toward healthful and safe living.
3 ReferencesEdward W. Boyer, M.D., Ph.D.
Michael Shannon, M.D., M.P.H.
Patricia L. Hibberd, M.D., Ph.D.
Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115
edward.boyer@tch. harvard. edu 1
Seidman SN ,Sterk-Elifson C ,Aral SO . High-risk sexual behavior among drug-using men. Sex Transm Dis 1994;21:173-180
CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline2
van Empelen P ,Schaalma HP ,Kok G ,Jansen MW . Predicting condom use with casual and steady sex partners among drug users. Health Educ Res 2001;16:293-305
CrossRef | Web of Science | Medline3
National drug control strategy. Washington, D.C.: Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2000:49-51.
- Citing Articles (1)
Citing Articles
1
Robert F. Forman, Douglas B. Marlowe, A. Thomas McLellan. (2006) The internet as a source of drugs of abuse. Current Psychiatry Reports 8:5, 377-382
CrossRef
