You
are in Library Grow-op
raids - BBC and Newspapers carry police propaganda2006
saw a development in the anti-cannabis campaign, where the police began to pubicise
their action against cannabis grow operations or "grow ops" as they
are known. To this end they began supplying the media with press releases which
of course the media were happy to run without critical comment or any kind of
analysis. On
Monday 25th September BBC news - on all the stations and website - gave coverage
to a news item that hadn't happened yet. The BBC announced that the police had
just started a series of raids against cannabis farms. This must be the first
time ever that a series of drugs raids were announced in advance!
| "Seventeen
police forces across England and Wales are carrying out raids over the next two
weeks on addresses where they suspect cannabis is being grown". "In
the UK, the type of drug which is mainly grown is known as skunk, a strong variant
of the drug which is potentially harmful."
BBC
online report | The
BBC articles didn't question the police tactic at all of course, but rather they
carried the warnings about strict enforcement and the penalties those caught could
expect. They also repeated the claims that so-called "skunk" may lead
to mental health problems and used that to justify the raids. There was no examination
of the reason for the raids or the reason these grow-ops exist. This
is a classic case of news management - policing by public relations with the BBC
simply broadcasting what it was told to broadcast. The proportion of street cannabis
grown in this country is now over 50% and there is organised crime involved in
this of course, it's big money. That, of course, has only happened because of
the attempt to prevent the trade through prohibition, so where was the criticisms
of the government that's caused this situation? Expect
more of this sort of "spin" and news management. Look out for similar
stories of daring police raids in your local paper over the next couple of weeks. Why
does the BBC carry such blatant government / police public relations spin without
criticism? So much for the "trusted news service" the BBC claims to
be.
| The
Daily Mail and Independent waded in: The
same story was run by the Independent newspaper and by the Daily Mail the day
after. In a valiant attempt to justify the raids, both papers cut and pasted the
police press release to come up with this gem: "The
crackdown is targeting the most potent and potentially form of cannabis, known
as "skunk".
Skunk
contains far higher quantities of the chemical THC than herbal or resin-based
cannabis."
Daily
Mail report "The
crackdown is targeting the most potent and potentially form of cannabis, known
as "skunk".
Skunk contains far higher quantities of the chemical
THC than herbal or resin-based cannabis."
Independent
report How
was it that both national papers had the same cut and paste error? Did they really
copy it from the BBC report? And
how is it that no-one on either paper seemed to know that "skunk" is,
in fact, herbal cannabis? | | 
