Howard Brian Smith, Thesis Supervisor Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Honors Advisor Dr. Jeffery Todd Ulmer, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
crack crime cocaine
Abstract:
The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act criminalized crack cocaine harsher than it criminalized powder cocaine 100:1. Media outlets such as TIME and Newsweek magazine saturated their reports on crack and cocaine with rhetoric that implied that crack was a more potent and dangerous form of cocaine and its use was spreading out of the inner cities and into the suburbs. Drug policy responds to the public perceptions of a problem. Mainstream media directly affects the public perceptions of a problem. If the rhetoric behind news coverage of crack and cocaine was exaggerated, then an exaggerated response to crack and cocaine like the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act should be expected. By analyzing the rhetoric behind the news coverage, the public perceptions policy makers were responding to can be understood.
