Editing Moral panic (section)

==== War on drugs (1970s–present) ====
{{Main|War on Drugs|Urban legends about drugs}}

Some critics have pointed to moral panic as an explanation for the War on Drugs. For example, a [[Royal Society of Arts]] commission concluded that "the [[Misuse of Drugs Act 1971]]&nbsp;... is driven more by 'moral panic' than by a practical desire to reduce harm".<ref name="DR">{{Cite web|date=March 2007|title=Drugs Report|url=http://www.thersa.org/action-research-centre/current-projects/drugs-commission/drugs-report|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909140009/http://www.thersa.org/action-research-centre/current-projects/drugs-commission/drugs-report|archive-date=9 September 2014|access-date=24 November 2014|publisher=[[Royal Society of Arts]] Action and Research Centre}} [http://www.rsadrugscommission.org.uk/pdf/RSA_Drugs_Report.pdf Pdf.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140420011816/http://www.rsadrugscommission.org.uk/pdf/RSA_Drugs_Report.pdf|date=20 April 2014}}</ref>

Some have written that one of the many rungs supporting the moral panic behind the War on Drugs was a separate but related moral panic, which peaked in the late 1990s, involving media's gross exaggeration of the [[Date rape drug#Media coverage|frequency of the surreptitious use of date rape drugs]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jenkins|first=Philip|url=https://archive.org/details/syntheticpanicss0000jenk|title=Synthetic Panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs|publisher=New York University Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0814742440|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/syntheticpanicss0000jenk/page/20 20] and 161–182|author-link=Philip Jenkins|url-access=registration}}</ref>{{sfn|Goode|Ben-Yehuda|2009|p=217}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Webber|first=Craig|url=https://archive.org/details/psychol_web_2010_00_6514/page/67|title=Psychology & Crime|publisher=Sage|year=2010|isbn=978-1412919425|location=Los Angeles & London|page=[https://archive.org/details/psychol_web_2010_00_6514/page/67 67]}}</ref> News media have been criticized for advocating "grossly excessive protective measures for women, particularly in coverage between 1996 and 1998", for overstating the threat and for excessively dwelling on the topic.{{sfn|Goode|Ben-Yehuda|2009|p=217}} For example, a 2009 Australian study found that drug panel tests were unable to detect any drug in any of the 97 instances of patients admitted to the hospital believing their drinks might have been spiked.<ref name="Quigley 2009">{{Cite journal|last1=Quigley|first1=Paul|last2=Lynch|first2=Dania M.|last3=Little|first3=Mark|last4=Murray|first4=Lindsay|last5=Lynch|first5=Ann-Maree|last6=O'Halloran|first6=Sean J.|year=2009|title=Prospective study of 101 patients with suspected drink spiking|journal=Emergency Medicine Australasia|volume=21|issue=3|pages=222–228|doi=10.1111/j.1742-6723.2009.01185.x|pmid=19527282|s2cid=11404683|doi-access=free}}</ref>