Jack Shafer

About the author: Jack Shafer is the deputy edito r of Slate, an online magazine published by Microsoft Corporation.

The heroin-related death of Jonathan Melvoin—of the rock group Smashing Pumpkins—and the release of the movie Trainspotting— a movie about heroin addicts—has prompted the press to publish a rash of articles announcing a new heroin epidemic. But the press have been announcing a "new" heroin epidemic for years. The media's obsessive coverage of heroin addiction is often overstated, contradictory, and misinformed. One newspaper reports the purity of heroin at 70 percent while another reports it at 30 percent, for example, while neither publication explains that levels of purity actually have little or nothing to do with overdoses. Alcohol used in combination with heroin does contribute to rates of...