Reporting Guidelines
General Press Release No. 20 (April 1978)

Drugs reporting

The Australian Press Council has issued a warning to all newspapers and journalists of the great responsibility that rests upon them to present news about drugs with a lively sense of the danger that fear-arousing articles may well encourage curiosity and dangerous experimentation.

The Federal Department of Health has recently emphasised this danger, pointing out that there is some evidence that some kinds of Press information provide models leading some people to copy potentially dangerous behaviour.

The menace of drug addiction is so horrifying a feature of modern life that most careful consideration should be given to the likelihood of counter-productive effects from frightening news items and the provision of indiscriminate information about drugs.

The Council urges all engaged in journalism to accept even rigid self restraints rather than risk contributing to the spread of the disaster of drug taking habits.
 

Other guidelines on reporting of drugs are GPR 36, GPR 100, GPR 121.

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