Why does the press automatically accept reports of heroin overdoses, no matter how thin the evidence?
Stanton Peele On August 31, 1994 a headline on the front-page of the New York Times reported, “13 Heroin Deaths Spark Wide Police Investigation.” The article began: “They call it China Cat, an exotic name for a blend of heroin so pure it promised a perfect high, but instead killed 13 people in five days.” In less time than that, the story started to unravel. On September 2, a brief article in the Times’ B section announced: “Officials Lower Number of Deaths Related to Concentrated Heroin.” By this time, published reports had attributed fourteen deaths to China Cat. But now the Times reported that “authorities yesterday lowered from fourteen to eight the number of deaths in the last week that the police believe are related to highly concentrated heroin.” The Medical Examiner had discovered that “two of the 14 men originally suspected of having died from taking the powerful heroin had actually died of natural causes. Four others died of overdoses of cocaine . . . . Of the eight whose dea
