Rosalind (Ros) Stone is a media strategist with 8+ years´ specialised experience in communications regarding psychedelic research and policy reform. Transfixed by the intertwining of policy, stigma and public perception, she co-hosts the language-focussed discussion series The Semantrix Sessions. She is currently Press Officer for Breaking Convention, and coordinates outreach for the Bassé Root church and Onaya’s new Psychedelic Mentorship Training programme.
Colloquium Presentation: 27 September 2024
Title: The Emperor’s New Drugs: What Media Coverage of “Addiction” Ignores
The addictive and influential potential of mainstream media consumption is a critical trope — media commentators including Alain de Botton, Charlie Brooker, Thomas De Zengotitia, and Josef Pepier liken reading the news to taking drugs. This presentation celebrates the complexities of the interplay between media consumption and drug consumption — how the designedly habit-forming elements of media on drugs can relate to the lived-life formation of habits — and expectations. Scrutinising media-wrought and marketing-derived contexts for particular kinds of drug-taking (study drugs, celebratory drinks, healing journeys) aims to engender a widened gaze at some of the unfoundedly established, limiting portrayals of drug-related phenomena that dog psychedelic discourse — widening access to the liminal and making visible the vested interest that ride in on the backs of the dragons that public attention has been trained to chase.