Designing Drug Panics: Wax, Smiles, Cheese, & Krokodil

• In Event: Media Constructions of Deviance, Crime and Criminality

Abstract

This research considers the manner and degree to which the media construct contemporary drug panics. Focusing on the ‘new’ drug panics, specifically, synthetics cannabinoids labeled ‘spice & k-2,’ designers coined ‘bath salts, gravel, smiles, cheese, & spice’’ and narrows current media rhetoric surrounding fresh medical marijuana debates; ultimately augmenting the discourse for states which have decriminalized and recreationalized marijuana. This research is grounded through evaluating the extent to which the media construct, characterize, and frame specific concepts and elements and groups during a drug panic. Exposing the fluid nature of drug panics by examining whether certain concepts and themes still generate, influence, and contextualize the drug panic. Consequently, the research seeks to understand shifts in the nature of contemporary moral panic discourse and attempts to refine our understanding of the media’s role and purpose in constructing a variety of modern-day moral panics.

Author

• Ryan Baker, Kentucky Wesleyan College