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How movies, music, and social media have simultaneously normalized and stigmatized substance abuse

In today’s age, media directed toward young people have had dangerous impacts on the normalization of drug use with real-world consequences. From popular culture to the most talked about television shows, the portrayal of drug usage has slowly conditioned us into glamorizing such substances.
Take any teen coming-of-age story. There’s always the cool, rebellious character with a cigarette in their mouth at all times, a party with alcohol, a character pressured to try drugs with their friends.
According to the Harmony Ridge Recovery Center, such portrayals more often than not “desensitize viewers to the negative consequences of substance abuse,” internalizing that “drugs and alcohol [convey] an image of a fun and carefree living.”
Even if they “highlight peer pressure and experimentation,” it is rare that viewers see the “long-term consequences,” as if such substances must be a part of the authentic, teenage experience. In an article published by the Society for the Study of Addiction, a series of studies on various forms of substance-related media found that “[a] total of 76.3% of all substance-related content was positive in its description of substance use.”
An article published in the journal, Current Addiction Reports argues that the alcohol and tobacco industries have a history of resorting to “paid placements of products in films, television, and video games that are popular among youth,” for the sole purpose of pumping out their products. Since youth consume these types of media in huge amounts and are already “[preoccupied] with personal image and identity,” these portrayals are “key environmental influences on youth substance use.”
Because youth “lack cognitive capacities to distinguish the reality portrayed in [media] from real-life experiences,” they equate the two internally. To grow up, then, it seems to be required to take part in these activities — that is what that character or musician they look up to or resonate with teaches them with the portrayal of substance use. Given how susceptible youth already are, it is no surprise that such media portrayal is “associated with subsequent substance use.”
Yet, even when drug use is portrayed negatively in movies, it poses another threat. In an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Culture of Science, after positive portrayal, “[t]he next notable portrayal of substance use and people with addiction was violent or dangerous,” illustrating people with substance use disorders as “criminal[s].” In turn, these depictions further the “[s]tigma about substance use disorders,” and act as “a barrier to treatment and care.”
Given how complicated such crises are, it is clear that there is not an easy solution to how exactly they should be portrayed in the media. While positive descriptions of drug usage have obviously pushed the narrative that such activities are a part of growing up, it is also true that negative portrayals done tastelessly perpetuate the notion that people who struggle are lawless and aggressive.
Nor is it possible for every portrayal in the media to be a self-help tutorial or for the media to completely ignore something already deep rooted in our culture, given that media is an expression of culture.
But when, according to American Addiction Centers, “71% of prime-time television programs depict alcohol use”—a scene with alcohol “shown on television every 22 minutes”— when “drugs are present in nearly half of all music videos”— an average of “85 drug references a day” being heard in “popular music”— we must be cognizant and methodical about the way in which substances are painted in the media we consume daily.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.



