The Culture of Fear (47 page)

17
ABC, “20/20,” 14 March 1997.

18
Statistics about parents: Christopher Wren, “Marijuana Use by Youths Continues to Rise,”
New York Times,
20 February 1996, p. A11; ABC News Special, “Straight Talk About Drugs,” 12 March 1997.

19
“Drug Use by Teen-Agers,”
New York Times,
23 August 1996, p. A26.

20
ABC, “Good Morning America,” 5 March 1997.

21
See Leslie Savan, “ABC Fries,”
Village Voice,
18 March 1997, pp. 34-35. Clinton quote from ABC, “Good Morning America,” 31 March 1997.

22
Examples of the stories on mothers: ABC, “Good Morning America,” 3 March and 7 March 1997; ABC, “World News Tonight,” 3 March and 25 March 1997. “Grace Under Fire” episode aired 14 March 1997.

23
Critics: Jennifer Nix, “Worse-Than-Useless Anti-Drug Propaganda?”
Salon,
12 March 1997 (online) ; Jacob Weisberg, “This Is Your Network on Drugs,”
Slate,
15 March 1997; Savan, “ABC Fries”; Robert Scheer, “Fighting Abuse Only When It Doesn’ t Pay,”
Los Angeles Times,
11 March 1997. “Popsicle” quote from ABC, “Good Morning America,” 3 March 1997; ABC, “Turning Point,” 6 March 1997 (contains “allure” quote). See also stories on ABC, “Good Morning America,” 4 March 1997, and ABC, “World News Tonight,” 17 March 1997.

24
Criticism of ABC: Weisberg, “This Is Your Network”; Savan, “ABC Fries.” Headlines cited in Jack Shafer, “Smack Happy,”
Slate,
19 July 1996. ABC’s “Turning Point” aired 6 March 1997. “Stemming the Flow on the Heroin Trail,”
TheAge
(Melbourne, Australia), 2 August 1997 (contains statistic).

25
Shafer, “Smack Happy” (contains
Newsweek
citation); Brent Staples, “Closing in on Death,”
New York Times,
26 May 1997, p. A22; Ike Flores, “Heroin Has Its Deadly Hooks in Teens Across the Nation,”
USA Today
, 9 October 1996, p. A4. Other quotes from Mike Miles, “Another Anti-Teen Fix,”
Extra,
November-December 1996, pp. 15-17.

26
ABC News, “Turning Point,” 6 March 1997; ABC, “World News Tonight,” 17 June 1996.

27
Bruce Johnson, Andrew Golub, and Jeffrey Fagan, “Careers in Crack, Drug Use, Drug Distribution, and Nondrug Criminality,”
Crime and Delinquency
41 (July 1995): 275-95; Mike Males and Faye Docuyanan, “The Return of Reefer Madness,”
Progressive,
May 1996, pp. 26-29; Mike Males, “Another Anti-Teen Fix,”
Extra,
November—December 1996, pp. 15-17; Michael Massing, “Heroin and Red Herrings,”
New York Times,
6 December 1997, p. A21.

28
Massing, “Crime and Drugs.”

29
Christopher Wren, “Drugged Look in Fashion Ads Angers Clinton,”
New York Times,
22 May 1997, p. A12. Comparison statistics: Males, “Another Anti-Teen Fix.”

30
CNN, “Prime News,” 13 August 1997; Dina Bass, “Poll Finds Sharp Rise in Drug Use Among Youngsters,”
Los Angeles Times,
14 August 1997, p. A4; NBC, “Nightly News,” 13 August 1997. See also ABC “This Week,” 17 August 1997.

31
Household survey: Eric Lekus, “Use of Illegal Drugs Declined for Adolescents in 1996,”
Baltimore Sun,
7 August 1997, p. A1; CNN, “Prime News,” 13 August 1997. See also Christopher Wren, “Survey Suggests Leveling Off in Use of Drugs by Students,”
New York Times,
21 December 1997, p. A12.

32
Christopher Wren, “Drugs Common in Schools, Survey Says,”
New York Times,
9 September 1997, p. A12.

33
On fluctuations and trends see Barry Glassner and Julia Loughlin,
Drugs and Crime in Adolescent Worlds
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Michael Massing, “Reefer Madness Strikes Again,”
New York Times,
27 August 1996, p. A17; Walter Shapiro, “The Drug Issue,”
USA Today,
18 September 1996, p. A2; Wren, “Survey Suggests Leveling Off”; Karen Peterson, “Survey: Teen Drug Use Declines,”
USA Today
, 19 June 1998, p. A6. Specific statistics are culled from annual summaries of the National
Household Survey on Drug Abuse and the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey (conducted by the Centers for Disease Control).

34
Longitudinal study: Jerald Bachman, Katherine Wadsworth et al.,
Drug Use in Young Adulthood
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997). See also Oscar Bukstein,
Adolescent Substance Abuse
(New York: Wiley, 1995), pp. 69-71.

35
Information about Koontz (here and following section) from “A Crack in the All-American Dream,”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
1 December 1996, p. El; “Man Goes on Trial in Slaying of Homecoming Queen,” Associated Press, 31 March 1996; Peter Wilkinson, “Who Killed the Homecoming Queen?”
Rolling Stone,
23 January 1997, pp. 54-62.

36
Shafer, “Smack Happy” (“resurgence” quote). Cobain overdose: see Arthur Santana and Charles Hall, “Banned ’Date Rape’ Drug Is Linked to Six Assaults,”
Washington Post,
14 June 1996, p. B1; Laura Evenson and Sam Whiting, “Heroin’s in Fashion and Death Statistics Prove It,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
30 July 1996, p. A1 (“couldn’t kick” claim).

37
ER statistics: Mike Males,
The Scapegoat Generation
(Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1996), ch. 6. See also Pete Stark, “Increased Regulations of Prescription Drugs Is Necessary,” in D. Bender and B. Leone, eds.,
Drug Abuse: Opposing Viewpoints
(San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1994), pp. 142—49.

38
Gary Logan, “Stress and Access Make Doctors Vulnerable,”
Washington Post,
3 September 1996, p. Z11; National Public Radio, “Morning Edition,” 28 January 1997.

39
Cynthia Cotts, “The Pushers in the Suites,”
Nation,
31 August 1992, pp. 208-11; Tracy Weber, “Tarnishing the Golden Years with Addiction,”
Los Angeles Times,
20 December 1996, p. A1; 2.8 million statistic: Wren, “Many Women”; Robert McCarthy, “It Takes More Than a Phone Call to Manage Demand,”
Business and Health
15 (May 1997): 36-40.

40
See Celia Moore, “Prozac Fact Sheet,”
Ms.,
July 1997, p. 65; Elizabeth Ettorre and Elianne Riska,
Gendered Moods
(New York: Routledge, 1995).

41
PAC figure from the Federal Election Commission; other information from Cotts, “Pushers in the Suites.”

42
Helen Thorpe, “A New Low,”
Texas Monthly,
September 1995, p. 88; Mireya Navarro, “In South, Drug Abusers Turn to a Smuggled Sedative,”
New York Times,
9 December 1995, p. A6; Tom Masland, “Bootlegged Drugs Hit Africa Hard,”
Chicago Tribune,
31 July 1988, p. 21.

43
Julie Hirschfeld, “Rape Is Only Thing That This Drug Is For,” St.
Louis Post-Dispatch,
17 July 1996, p. B5 (contains Biden quote); Vicky Edwards, “Wake Up,”
Chicago
Tribune, 22 October 1996, p. 3; David Kidwell and Connie Piloto, “Parents, Officials Are Alarmed over Sedative’s Use,”
Dallas Morning News,
18 February 1996, p. A12 (contains “mightiest” quote). For another Mickey Finn reference see Carol M. Miller, “Forget Me Pill,”
St. Petersburg Times,
17 June 1996, p. B1.

44
Julio Laboy, “Police Suspect Illegal Sedative Used in Date Rapes,”
Dallas Morning News,
17 December 1995, p. A40 (“lots of” quote); Tim Friend, “Date-Rape Drug,”
USA Today,
20 June 1996, p. A1. For a story that included a correction see CNN, 15 June 1996.

45
Karla Haworth, “The Growing Popularity of a New Drug Alarms Health Educa tors,”
Chronicle of Higher Education,
10 July 1998, pp. A31—32; additional information provided by Hoffmann-LaRoche. (Testing was done by El Sohly Laboratories, a forensic toxicology facility certified by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.)

46
Dan Weikel, “Prescription for an Epidemic,”
Los Angeles Times,
19 August 1996, p. A10. Statistics are from Hoffmann-LaRoche; Kathleen Day, “Countering III Effects of an Abused Drug,”
Washington Post,
2 November 1996, p. H1; Tamara Henry and Carrie Hedges, “Date-Rape Drug Target of New Law,”
USA Today,
14 October 1996, p. A1.

47
Ann Scales, “Dole Trumpets Antidrug Slogan,”
Boston Globe,
19 September 1996, p. A26; Lance Morrow, “Kids and Pot,”
Time,
9 December 1996, p. 26; “Clinton OKs Penalties for ‘Date-Rape’ Drug,”
Baltimore Sun,
14 October 1996, p. A3; “Date-Rape Pill Law Signed,” Associated Press, 14 October 1996.

48
Studies: Mary Koss and S. L. Cook, “Finding the Facts,” in R.J. Gelles, ed.,
Current Controversies on Family Violence
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), pp. 104-19; Diana Russell,
Sexual Exploitation
(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984); Marshall Clinard and Robert Meier,
Deviant Behavior
(Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1995), pp. 167-68; Caryl Rivers,
Slick Spins, Fractured Facts
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 130-31. Critics: Neil Gilbert, “The Phantom Epidemic of Sexual Assault,”
The Public Interest
103 (1991): 54-65; Katie Roiphe,
The Morning After:Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1993).

49
Anita Manning, “Clemson Case Shows Prosecution Difficulties,”
USA Today,
29 October 1996, p. D2; Nicole Peradotto, “A Little Pill That Brings Devastating Consequences,”
Buffalo News,
14 August 1996, p. C1.

50
Ilsa Lottes and Martin Weinberg, “Sexual Coercion Among University Students,”
Journal
of Sex Research 34 (1997): 67-76; Koss and Cook, “Finding the Facts.” Commonplace date rape was not entirely ignored by the media. See, e.g., a segment on ABC, “Good Morning America,” 14 November 1997.

51
John Carpenter, “Warning on Date-Rape Drugs,”
Chicago Sun-Times,
14 August 1997, p. 1; ABC, “Good Morning America,” 12 September 1996. For other examples see Cindy Horswell, “Among Claims for ’Date-Rape Drug’ Is a New One,”
Houston Chronicle,
15 September 1996, p. 1; CNN, “Impact,” 22 June 1997.

1
Susan Sontag,
AIDS and Its Metaphors
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989), p. 14.

2
I do not use the term
metaphoric
to refer to the agonizing symptoms that sufferers endure, but rather to how the illnesses that those symptoms are said to constitute are put to use in political and social discourse. Nor do I intend to suggest, by virtue of my assessment of published studies, that future research will not support what currently appear to be unlikely theories about these ailments.

3
See Arthur Kleinman,
Social Origins of Distress and Disease
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Norma Ware and Arthur Kleinman, “Culture and Somatic Experience,”
Psychosomatic Medicine
54 (1992): 546-60; Abba Terr, “Clinical Ecology,”
Journal
of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
79 (1987): 423-26,; Tom Lutz,
American Nervousness
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Simon Wessely, “The History of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” in S. Straus, ed.,
Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1994), pp. 3-44; and Susan Abbey and Paul Garfinkel, “Neurasthenia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,”
American Journal ofPsychiatry
148 (1991): 1638—46.

4
Jean Baudrillard,
TheGulf War Did Not Take Place
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 62, 68; John R. MacArthur,
Lapdogs for the Pentagon Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda
in the
Gulf War
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1992); George Gerbner, “Persian Gulf War, the Movie,” in H. Mowlana et al., eds.,
Triumphof the Image
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 243-65; PBS, “Frontline: The War We Left Behind,” 29 October 1991; Eliot Cohen, “The Mystique of U.S. Air Power,”
Foreign Affairs
73 (1994): 11—29.

5
Lauren Rabinovitz and Susan Jeffords, “Introduction,” in L. Rabinovitz and S. Jef fords, eds.,
Seeing Through the Media
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), pp. 1—17; Alicia Munday, Arthur E. Rowse, and Ana Arana, “Is the Press Any Match for Powerhouse P.R.?”
Columbia Journalism Review
31 (1992): 27-34; Tara Parker-Pope, “Hill and Knowlton Polishes Its Own Image,”
Wall Street Journal,
19 February 1997, pp. B1, 8.

6
Arthur E. Rowse, “Lapdogs for the Pentagon,”
Progressive
56 (1 July 1992): 38; PBS, “Frontline: The Gulf War,” January 1996.

7
PBS, “Frontline: The Gulf War,”January 1996; Sandra Moriarty and David Shaw, “An Antiseptic War,”
News Photographer
50 (April 1995): 4-9; Elaine Showalter,
Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), ch. 9 (“bleak” quote on p. 140).

8
Philip Shenon, “Two Studies Seem to Back Veterans Who Trace Illnesses to Gulf War,”
New York Times,
26 November 1996, pp. A1, 10; Robert Haley et al., “Is There a Gulf War Syndome?” and “Self Reported Exposure to Neurotoxic Chemical- Combinations in the Gulf War,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
277 (1997): 215-22 and 231-37; Seymour Hersh,
Against All
Enemies (New York: Ballantine, 1998).

9
William Lowther, “Mystery Illness and the Gulf War,”
Maclean‘s,
23 August 1993, pp. 32-33; Gregory Jaynes, “Walking Wounded,”
Esquire,
May 1994, pp. 70-76; Michael Fumento, “Gulf War Syndrome and the Press,”
Wall Street Journal,
4 March 1997, p. A18.

10
J. R. Moehringer, “Legacy of Worry,”
Los Angeles Times,
22 November 1995, pp. A3, 27. For another article about babies with GWS see Kenneth Miller, “The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm,”
Life,
November 1995, pp. 46-62.