Mississippi station isn't even trying anymore

It's bad enough when The Media is stovepiping right-wing drug warrior propaganda, but now they're not even trying to hide it anymore.

Mississippi is the home of WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg and WLOX-TV in Biloxi - both owned by the right-wing Raycom syndicate, which also infamously owns Cincinnati's Channel 19. Now these stations are going around claiming that Mississippi's law that makes over-the-counter allergy drugs available by prescription only has nearly eliminated meth labs - an out-and-out lie.

An article posted Tuesday by WDAM says, "The decrease of almost 90 percent is the result of a 2010 law banning the over-the-counter sale of pseudoephedrine." They didn't even qualify this statement by saying, "Supporters say." They just went ahead and posted it in a paragraph of its own - as if it's a hard fact.

If meth labs in Mississippi have declined by 90% in the past 4 years, it clearly isn't because of this law, because they've declined by even more nationwide. Meth is a stale relic of the Bush era, and meth labs were already declining in Mississippi when the state passed the law. But the prevalence of meth labs has actually increased in Oregon, the only other state with this law.

Even if WDAM's claim was actually true, it still doesn't justify the law. Part of the magic of a free society is that we maximize individual freedom and minimize punishing the innocent over the misbehavior of a few.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws - but it does mean we shouldn't have stupid laws. Sooner or later, somebody is going to burn to death because they couldn't smell the smoke in their house because they were unable to get Sudafed to unclog their sinuses. When that happens, it's more blood on the discredited drug warriors' hands. And WDAM has taken the side of the drug warriors - not the public who they're supposed to serve.

I'm an opinion blogger, but I haven't behaved any less like a journalist than those in The Media who parrot official lies. I studied mass media in college, and some news outlets just don't understand the way journalism is supposed to work. Reporters are supposed to ask incisive questions - not magnify propaganda.