In Craig Renarman's and Harry Levine's article entitled "The Crack Attack : Politics and Media in America's Latest Drug Scare," the authors attempts to expose and to deal with some of the societal problems that have related from the over-exaggeration of crack-cocaine as an "epidemic problem" in our country. Without detracting attention away from the serio

Finally, Dorfman (1993) evaluates and discusses the importance of counter-ads to our "war on drugs" (and to social problems in general). In doing so, she modestly contradicts Reinarman and Levine's assertion that drug advertising promotes drug use. Dorfman (1993) sees a reasonable quality in the testimonials of some of these advertisements and from a both a general and a Puritan perspective, one could easily see how she feels that the effective use of such advertisements can help keep society away from drugs. But I have noted that what Dorfman still fails to do is to examine the genuine cost-effectiveness of counter-ads to determine whether or not they are, or would be-- over-exaggerated in this perceived "war against drugs."

And even if treated as health problem, drugs should still not be treated as an epidemic health problem. Reinarman and Levine discussed how throughout our nation's history, various "drug scares" have been instigated by the need for various economic controls. According to them, laws against drugs have traditionally been created to suppress various groups whose activities were counterproductive to the government. And yet today, Ed D'Angelo (1994) still points out that the chiefly publicized reason for anti-drug laws is "to protect public health and safety." So why then are drugs not treated as a public health problem as Perrine suggests they should?

From this study, I have learned much about the evolution of drug laws in our society and developed a new understanding of our government's apparent lack of sincerity in their efforts to "protect" us. It is obvious that we do indeed need to maintain a greater and more focused emphasis on the important and more widespread problems in society. Important energies and well-needed monies are being diverted from them to fight in an almost-imaginary battle against a controlled substance. Conclusively, we should allow drugs like crack-cocaine receive to their due attention as social problems, but let them receive no more than that !.

It is clear from the research, that the "war on drugs" is indeed based upon an exaggeration of facts. Although it is also evident that substances such as crack-cocaine may serve to pose great health risks to those that use them- the data does not demonstrate any widespread "epidemic" use of the drug nor any validity to the apparent myths that it causes such immediate devastation and is life-wrecking in every single case.

To correct the problems of misdirected and over-exaggerated attention to the "war on drugs," Reinarman and Levine suggest that we take a certain amount of responsibility for the actions of society and remove blame from the individual. They offer that the ails of society not be blamed by today's y

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