cannabisnews.com: Study: 'Partisan' Sites Winning Web War on Drugs





Study: 'Partisan' Sites Winning Web War on Drugs
Posted by FoM on August 09, 2001 at 08:45:14 PT
By Neil Sherman, HealthScoutNews Reporter
Source: HealthScoutNews
If search engines are any indication, drug-promoting Web sites are winning the war on drugs, at least on the Internet. Researchers say a simple Internet search using street drug names like "ecstasy" or "psychedelic mushrooms" lists eight to nine Web sites promoting illicit drug use and providing misinformation, some of it dangerous. Because only one or two federal anti-drug sites get listed, the researchers say the federal government needs to be more Web-savvy if it wants get its anti-drug message across. 
Not so, says President Bush's Office of National Drug Control Policy. More than 30 government anti-drug Web sites give accurate drug information on the Internet, each designed to get the anti-drug message to teens or their parents, an agency official says. The Web site that sold manufacturing kits for GHB, the "date rape drug," initiated the research, says Dr. Edward Boyer, an assistant in general pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Boston. "And so we started looking at a Web site called Erowid. I noticed that the site described something called GHB withdrawal which was not, at the time, well-described in the literature and wouldn't be for another year and a half. What was interesting was that Erowid described a drug-use pattern long before medical professionals picked up on it, and that prompted us to look at other Web sites." Boyer and his colleagues typed the names of such street drugs as "GHB," "ecstasy," and "psychedelic mushrooms" into the Metacrawler search engine on separate occasions over 10 months to see what information would be retrieved. "The information provided by the search engine focused on pro-drug Web sites, and you were far more likely to get a pro-drug -- or what we call a 'partisan' -- Web site than you were to get an anti-drug Web site produced by the government," Boyer says. "And we also found that the drug sites that promoted drug use invariably made recommendations that were potentially dangerous." Boyer says their first two searches listed eight "partisan" and two federal anti-drug Web sites in the top 10 results. The third search identified nine "partisan" sites and one federal site, and the final two searches found eight pro-drug sites and no federal sites. Boyer says Metacrawler was chosen "because it prevents repetition of results." He also says researchers verified the findings using two other search engines, Google and Ixquick. "We found these results significant because the federal government is taking the lead in anti-drug efforts, and they also have a multi-billion dollar effort to try and prevent drug use," Boyer says. "Their multi-media effort is not getting out over the Internet. The issue here is that the Internet is more and more the communication vehicle of choice for adolescents and young adults." The findings appear in a research letter in the Aug. 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Boyer says pro-drug Web sites are popular because they provide "plausible descriptions of the preparation, dose and administration and psychoactive effects of drugs. A site like Erowid has more than 4,000 pages of information on drugs, and it's not only believable, but it's credible in the eyes of young users. And the federal government is not keeping anybody off these sites, and they do not have an effective alternative to these sources of information." Jennifer de Vallance, a spokeswoman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, says the researchers are right about the number of pro-drug sites but wrong about the federal government . "The National Youth Anti-Drug Media campaign uses a number of different methods to reach adolescents and their parents with science-based anti-drug information, including significant outreach on the Internet," says de Vallance. "Our interactive strategy is twofold: to drive traffic to the media campaign Web sites like freevibe.com, which targets messages to youth, and antidrug.com that provides parents and other adults and caregivers with strategies for raising drug-free kids. And there are actually 27 other anti-drug sites that we are either sponsors of or we link to. The media campaign alone purchases over 100 keywords to combat online pro-drug strategies." She says, "The media campaign was never intended to match or divert the plethora of pro-drug information available on the Internet. The media campaign is designed to provide information and education to empower youths and their parents to make healthy decisions about drug use. To say that there isn't specific and scientific drug information on any of our Web sites is just factually inaccurate." Kids are using the Internet to find out about drugs, says Howard Simon, a spokesperson for the Partnership for A Drug-Free America in New York City. "We know from our own research that the number of teens who are saying they are using the Internet to find information on drugs is up 38 percent since 1998. Now, over that same period of time, the percentage of kids exposed to anti-drug Web sites is up 50 percent. So while these are interesting findings and worth studying, I don't think you can draw the conclusion that there isn't any valuable anti-drug information on the Web or that kids aren't see it. That does not seem to be supported by what the Partnership is finding." The proof may be in the pudding, Simon says. "Since 1997, teen drug use in the United States is actually down." He says 53 percent of teens in grade seven through 12 nationally said they had tried drugs that year, but by 2000 the figure was down to 48 percent. "Is that too high? Absolutely. But the number's moving in the right direction," Simon says. Anti-drug efforts will only be successful if parents are involved, Simon says. "If parents are talking to kids about drugs, then perhaps that can spur kids to go to a site. If parent's are not speaking to their kids about drugs, they can be darn sure that someone else is." What To Do: To see what information is provided about drugs online, visit a "partisan" site like The Vaults of Erowid. Anti-drug use information and messages are provided by the federal government at freevibe as well as by the Partnership For A Drug Free America.Source: HealthScoutNewsAuthor: Neil Sherman, HealthScoutNews ReporterPublished: Thursday, August 9, 2001Copyright: 2001 ScoutNews, LLC. Contact: editors healthscoutnews.comWebsite: http://www.healthscoutnews.com/Related Article & Web Sites:The Vaults of Erowidhttp://www.erowid.org/New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/FreeVibehttp://www.freevibe.com The Anti-Drughttp://www.theantidrug.com Drug Web Sites Provide Harmful Informationhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10563.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by Sudaca on August 10, 2001 at 13:37:33 PT
if you look
on a search engine about Nazis you'll find a lot more information about war crime atrocities than you will find pro-Nazi websites. Would you call that partisan?The fact that there are official websites spreading the gov't's propaganda on the subject is the abnormality. The fact that the article equates them with non partisan information goes to show the editorial line of that paper. The rest is , as you may have observed, a sign that allowed free speech, the tone of the discourse of drugs is way different than the one the gov't would like to impose. 
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Comment #7 posted by The GCW on August 09, 2001 at 15:03:07 PT
The truth will always come out.
Did the Pharisees go out like the dinasaurs? Where are the Pharisees now? Who talks the talk of the Pharisees today? Am I way off or is there a similarity? Give to Ceasczar what is Siezcars, leave to God what is Gods.It comes as elementary that it is way known that we can pray and thank God for cannabis and use it in prayer and ask God questions and get God worthy answers. That is the single common denominator that the Gov. is worried about. THEY ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE TRUTH. GOD IS TRUTH. The Bible tells us we can pray with cannabis and through thanks giving literally have a relationship with God, as has been known for a long, long time. Cannabis does more for man in prayer than most of us are familuar with. Check it out, get clean, get close to God. That is BIG Truth. We all know cannabis is ok, which is truth. Pray and ask our Father to show you, because he will, just as it is promised in the Bible. It works in a manner that will just blow your world closer to God. And He does not stop! At times it is like a computer with out wires! Every plant has the finger print of God.God blessed us with cannabis (that is God's word not mine)! Who gives us cannabis prohibition, putting humans (our Fathers Children) in a cage and worst?The Green Collar Worker
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Comment #6 posted by Dan B on August 09, 2001 at 14:24:43 PT:
The Bright Side . . .Sort Of
A couple of things in this article may actually put a smile on one's face. Here they are:(1) In terms of availability and plurality of information, we are winning the battle over the Internet.(2) The feds are frightened of us because of our presence on the web.(3) Proof that they are frightened of us can be found in the following definition for "partisan"  2. Mil. a member of a party of light or irregular troops  engaged in harassing an enemy, esp. a native engaged in  fighting or sabotage against an occupying army.Thus, they may be calling us "partisan" not so much because we blindly follow our version of the "party line," but because we are, to them, like guerrillas (or, as some of us like to say, "freedom fighters"). They would then represent the "occupying army" that we are "fighting or sabotaging" with the truth. (4) There is some free advertising here for Erowid (which they openly admit has better information than the federal anti-drug sites, as can be seen in this quotation:"And so we started looking at a Web site called Erowid. I noticed that the site described something called GHB withdrawal which was not, at the time, well-described in the literature and wouldn't be for another year and a half. What was interesting was that Erowid described a drug-use pattern long before medical professionals picked up on it, and that prompted us to look at other Web sites." See that? Erowid had the factual information "long before medical professionals picked up on it." Tell me, what was wrong with that scenario again? Sounds like Erowid could expect to see many more hits in the near future (that's http://www.erowid.org kiddies).(5) They don't even have the guts to say what the "potentially dangerous" information on these web sites might be, and they offer no government-sponsored information that might remedy the supposed danger in this information. Here is the extent of what they have to say about this supposed "dangerous information." Boyer says. "And we also found that the drug sites that promoted drug use invariably made recommendations that were potentially dangerous." Invariably? The only message I can think of that is consistently spread through all of these sites is that the drug war is an expensive, counterproductive and dangerous fraud, and it must be stopped. To them, calling for an end the drug war is exactly the same as "promoting drug use." Because these sites contain information that runs counter to federal government propaganda, they are considered to be providing "recommendations that are potentially dangerous."If the feds really had any hard data to support the assertions that these sites are making "potentially dangerous" recommendations, wouldn't they be obligated to make the public aware of that potentially dangerous material? Why aren't they? (This is a rhetorical question; they aren't because they know that the only dangerous information given out by these sites is that which undermines zero-tolerance).So, cheer up everyone! The feds are running scared because they know we have the truth. But while you're cheering up, look out. I predict another legislative crack at censoring all drug information on the Internet in the near future. I believe that the real purpose behind this article and others like it is to prepare the American public for such censorship.Dan B
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Comment #5 posted by bcg on August 09, 2001 at 10:13:24 PT
letter to editor
Dear editor,I am a research scientist involved in preclinical studies of potential medictions for cocaine addiction. I find the idea proposed in your article "Study: 'Partisan' Sites Winning Web War on Drugs" that Federal and Partnership for Drug Free America web sites are "non-partisan" laughable. In my personal experience, the only information I have gleaned from these web sites is the obscene amount of money we throw away each day locking up all non-violent drug-offenders with no treatment for those really in need. I have found Erowid and Lycaeum to be indespensible to my work as dosage and subjective reports of drug effects can be very informative when compared to my animal models of drug abuse. This report further solidifies that the jihad that is the "drug-war" is a modern incarnation of McCarthyism promoted by an alliance between the Federal government and corporate drug companies hiding behind masks of the Partnership for Drug Free America and the Robert-Wood-Johnson Organization. Perhaps your journalists need to review the importance of the First Amendment and the neccessity our founding fathers saw in excising the heavy hand of government from the media.
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on August 09, 2001 at 10:09:47 PT:
I begin to understand a little
about how the Native Peoples feel about Colombus Day. (Discovered these 'partisan' sites?. You 'discovered' nothing, bub; what's here has been here for a long time. you were just too ignoarnt about this medium to look.)Not too long ago, we had the likes of Italian UNDCP DrugCzar Pino (discredited and asked by his boss to resign) Arlacchi making the same kind of noises, only he was much bolder in calling for muzzling the internet. These goofs are, as 4D has stated, trying to sidle up on this real slow. The implication is as obvious as the nose on an anteater's face.They will try something to 'muzzle' the Internet a la the Anti-Meth Bill, again; trust me, antis are that stupid. And it will be shot down in flames again. Know why? Because these people are so hopelessly outclassed they they even telegraph their moves.That's why I am not so worried. We're so far ahead of them they are like a sprinter wearing lead shoes, rocks in their pockets and carrying a telephone pole. In the information race race, they haven't got a chance. it's almost enough to make me pity them.Almost. But not quite.
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Comment #3 posted by wades on August 09, 2001 at 09:52:32 PT:
"Partisan"
partisan, partizanloyally supporting a person, principle or political party, often without considering or judging the matter very carefully"The information provided by the search engine focused on pro-drug Web sites, and you were far more likely to get a pro-drug -- or what we call a 'partisan' -- Web site than you were to get an anti-drug Web site produced by the government," Boyer says.Someone please explain to me how it is that a source of information like erowid is 'partisan' while the Feds' disinformation should not be considered 'partisan'?
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Comment #2 posted by Patrick on August 09, 2001 at 09:30:39 PT
Stepping on the 1st Amendment
Why do you think Freedom of the Press was the First Amendment?Boyer says pro-drug Web sites are popular because they provide "plausible descriptions of the preparation, dose and administration and psychoactive effects of drugs. A site like Erowid has more than 4,000 pages of information on drugs, and it's not only believable, but it's credible in the eyes of young users. And the federal government is not keeping anybody off these sites, and they do not have an effective alternative to these sources of information."So the author is suggesting that the government regulate what people can read or see? Is censorship to be the next weapon in the Drug Warriors arsenal? Are we only supposed to read what the "Government" wants us to read?My God is our country this far down the crapper?Are we slowly becoming the United Soviet Socialists States of America?Will next week bring on the TEA, Thought Enforcement Agency to tell us what we can imagine, think and feel.You want an example of Hypocrisy look only to the name of the following organization:Partnership For A Drug Free America.While Ritalin use is up, Prozac use is up, and a whole myriad of "legal" drug use is up. The US per capita, consumes more drugs than any other nation on the planet. How can they profess to be for a drug free America?Unless they change they change their name to Partnership For Using the Drugs We Tell You to Use America, they can kiss my white Irish  ss. Sorry FoM for cussing. 
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Comment #1 posted by greenfox on August 09, 2001 at 09:24:40 PT
Accurate information?
More like disaccurate disinformation. I hate this shit, really I do. When respectable sites such as the lycaeum and erowid can offer non-biased information collected from personal experience, I don't understand how the media can call this information dangerous. Wait a second, I DO understand. It's because they don't want you to read the truth, rather their propaganda crap. And you know what's really funny? They make accusations, but I don't see one of these "lying" sites listed. Could that mean that it's bullshit? Comming from Uncle SAMKKKK.... most likely.-gf
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