This Week in Moral Panic

A few stories from New Zealand over the past few days: Cheap smokes! “I’m bloody horrified, but not surprised at their tactics,” [Maori Party MP Hone Harawira] said. “There’s now overwhelming support from New Zealanders to get rid of tobacco in this country and companies are doing their best to hook as many people as [...]

Democraphobia Goes Mainstream (Sort of)

This op-ed from Tapu Misa contains an odd mix of democraphobia (yay!) and statophilia (boo!). First the good: The catalyst for the march was the Government daring to ignore the result of the recent ambiguously worded citizens-initiated referendum on the child discipline law. Which means the Government is clearly undemocratic. “The people are the boss [...]

Scenes from a Moral Panic

From Craig Reinarman and Harry G. Levine (1997), The Crack Attack: Politics and Media in the Crack Scare. On September 5, 1989, President Bush, speaking from the presidential desk in the Oval Office, announced his plan for achieving “victory over drugs” in his first major prime-time address to the nation, broadcast on all three national [...]

The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave

That’s the title of  a forthcoming book by Mark Schrad, which looks very interesting. I’ve read a paper on this topic by the author, which has been very useful to the chapter I’m currently writing of my thesis (basically analyzing the consequences of  what Schrad calls “bad policy ideas” on constitutional effectiveness). I really wish the [...]

Drug Deaths vs Media Coverage

From the Guardian’s Data Blog comes this neat visualization of poisoning deaths from various drugs and compared to press coverage thereof. The at the comparison for pot in particular. I think this image, which shows the deaths as a proportion of users is probably more relevant when considering the likely social consequences of media bias.

The Most Disturbing Statistic I Found Today

In 1988, at the height of the HIV/AIDS panic in the States, the GSS asked a bunch of questions about AIDS. At that time, 63.7 percent of respondents favoured a policy of “requir[ing] people with the AIDS virus to wear identification tags that look like those carried by people with allergies or diabetes.” Any kind [...]

Drunk in Public

Geoffrey Palmer want to make being drunk in public an offence in New Zealand: “It’s not an offence to be drunk in a public place but nonetheless police have to deal with (drunk people), but they have nowhere to take them.” Being drunk in a public place should be an infringement offence that incurs a [...]

Fatties as Folk Devils

Megan McArdle has a great interview in the Atlantic with Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth. Campos argues that turning fat people into thin people is impossible, and in any case wouldn’t do much to improve health outcomes. The part I found most interesting, though, is the discussion of status politics and moral panic: It’s the classic pattern [...]

New Zealand’s Web Filter

The New Zealand Government has apparently already been blocking access to some child porn sites, and are now expanding the budget to filter more sites: The Government is spending $150,000 on website “filtering” software, outraging some bloggers who say the move amounts to censorship of the internet. Since 2007 the Department of Internal Affairs’ Censorship [...]

The Occasional Broken Penis is a Small Price to Pay

The Jamaican government is cracking down on a new dance craze which is as dangerous as it is sexy (Hat tip: Kiwiblog): An erotic dance craze is thought to be the cause of a recent spate of broken penises in Jamaica, and now faces a government crackdown. “Daggering”, a lewd dance style where couples simulate dry [...]