The Hollywood approach to drugs is conservative, cowardly and hypocritical, author Harry Shapiro tells Stephen Dixon
Hollywood has always had a drugs problem. Stars, writers, producers and directors may have injected, sniffed, snorted and smoked what author Harry Shapiro, who specialises in the link between drugs and popular culture, calls "the entire smorgasbord of intoxicating substances" in private over the years, but what's up there on the screen has rarely reflected the reality of drug use in society. Even in today's more tolerant climate, the old Victorian "rise and fall" morality tale is still often played out, because the story being told is going to focus on individuals, and the context - the bigger issues of this often fatal attraction - are complicated and distract from the narrative.
Such themes still worry Hollywood, says Shapiro, "and to a large extent they are probably right. There are a few exceptions, like Trainspotting, but even something like Blow, the Johnny Depp movie, didn't do all that well at the box office, and sidelined the drug movie. I thought after Traffic in 2000 - which, for all its melodrama, was a reasonable stab at looking at some of the broader issues - that there would be a bit of a surge in drug movies, but the fact that Blow didn't do all that well gave Hollywood a reason to say that drug movies are a bit passé; we won't do that for a while. I'm not aware of any big druggie blockbusters on the way." From the days of wild (and now totally smirksome) propaganda movies such as Reefer Madness and Cocaine Fiends in the 1930s, through laudable milestone attempts at balance like 1955's Man With The Golden Arm and even the galvanising, attitude-changing Easy Rider in 1969, Hollywood's approach to drugs has mostly been marked by conservatism, hypocrisy and timidity.
However much we may wish to dignify the movie business with elements of social significance, in the end it is just that; a business, much more to do with putting bums on seats and making money than anything else. "When Reefer Madness came out," says Shapiro, "it actually defied the American cinema code, because at the time unless you had a special licence your film could not be shown at mainstream cinemas, and there was a whole list of 'don'ts' that you couldn't have in films, and references to using drugs was one of them. On the other hand, the Narcotics Bureau wanted to sponsor anti-drug movies, so they supported a number of movies like Reefer Madness and these were never shown in the big-city mainstream cinemas because they weren't allowed. So you had Government-sponsored movies that had to be shown in low-rent cinemas, and they all came with this stern lecture at the beginning saying this is a terrible thing that is going to destroy our society. And in those days the public had very little idea what was going on regarding drugs. A lot of that nonsense about cannabis - that it drove you mad et cetera - was believed implicitly because it came from police sources, and there were very few people out there who were prepared, or had the scientific wherewithal, to question any of this. And eventually Hollywood changed the script and said that it doesn't necessarily make you go mad, but it does lead you to take other drugs; the stepping-stone theory. You will come to a bad end in some way. And that was the message even in Easy Rider. The main characters were like the martyrs of the alternative society, and in the end they got shot by rednecks on the road."
Talk of martyrdom brings him to Robert Downey Junior, currently carrying the can for all Hollywood's chemical misdemeanours. As Shapiro comments in Shooting Stars: "His treatment at the hands of American justice leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing condition. Most users trying to get off go through this 'one step forward, two steps back' dance routine as they struggle to move towards a life without having to depend on drugs to get up in the morning. That Downey should have faced jail time for every backwards motion is an affront to human rights . . . Film-makers who want to show how the world is struggle for funds and tussle with regulators who are naturally cautious about what we see on our screens and sensitive to the unease drugs cause among the general public. Attacks rain down on film and TV companies for 'encouraging drug use' in the face of a complete lack of evidence that this actually happens. And Hollywood executives take government dollars to waste on anti-drug advertising campaigns while leaving it to Robert Downey Junior to deflect attention away from what lies underneath."
Clichés about drug images perhaps extend to our perception of what a writer on popular culture and drug use might look like - either young and insolent (Irvine Welsh) or old and raddled (Howard Marks). Harry Shapiro doesn't look at all like the kind of a chap to whom you would entrust the construction of a 12-skin Camberwell Carrot at three in the morning - the slight, neat, scholarly, middle-aged Londoner seems more of a "just a small sherry if you insist; good gracious, is that the time?" sort of person - but Shooting Stars, while fastidious in its research, is imbued with a subtle wit, an anger where appropriate and an attractive ambivalence. As far as his personal stance on drugs is concerned, he claims to be a liberal humanist: "A chaotic mixture of tolerance, permissiveness, pragmatism, moral uncertainty, global anxiety and deconstructive scepticism." Shapiro's previous books include a biography of Jimi Hendrix and Waiting for the Man, a history of drugs and music, and in his day job he works for a UK charity, Drugscope, which provides a public information service on the issues, and edits Druglink, a drug treatment workers' trade magazine. He is keen to point out that the charity exists to disseminate information, and is neither judgmental nor campaigning. This even-handedness carries over into Shooting Stars, which explains how the cinema has tried to shape the public mood and been forced to respond, often dishonestly, to the realities of widespread drug use. Examining the complex links between censorship, public morals and the dream machine, it is both a handy reference work and an engrossing read.
"I've written about Hendrix and Clapton and other musicians who had drug problems, and although the music business wouldn't be as overt as to say it, they know that the relationship between rock and drugs helps to promote bands. It almost seems to be part of the job description if you're a rock musician. With film it's different. For years there was self-censorship in Hollywood that wouldn't even acknowledge there was such a thing as drug-taking, while they were all mad at it behind the cameras. But the studio bosses were terrified that if they didn't self-regulate then the government would regulate for them, because up to the mid-1960s there was no rating system in America, so anybody could see any film, which meant that you were very limited in what you could show on the screen and, of course, lots of movie stars had certain screen images that were kind of wholesome, and it did you no good at all if it was known that offstage you indulged.
"But of course they did.
"I think that now it would be interesting to see films that put drugs in a broader context. I saw Veronica Guerin recently, and while it focused on her story and her dealings with gangsters, there were some quite stark images of kids in a lot of trouble in Dublin, but you didn't really get too much of a sense of what that was all about. How did they get in that state, what are the economic circumstances that led to that state? What is the context for kids getting into that kind of a mess? Television documentary-makers go out to some dreary estate and they talk to the kids and it's all individual stories; I started on this and then I tried that and now I'm in trouble. Why? You only ever see the end result. And I think we need to find out more about the whys. It's about families, the way kids are brought up, the economic situation that people find themselves in. It's a much broader thing."
As far as tackling the root causes of drug use is concerned, this quietly-humorous man believes that a smile can accomplish more than a wagging finger, and he talks enthusiastically about a British television campaign which makes funny points about drugs and the fact that parents find it hard to talk to their kids. "Drugs, especially heroin and crack, cause enormous problems in the community, and Ireland has suffered as much as anywhere. But the kind of fear and mystery and threat that wraps around drugs makes the situation almost worse. Things that you can make jokes about seem less threatening, and if things seem less threatening then they are easier to deal with. I think it's a step forward."
So it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that both his favourite drug films, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and Withnail and I (1989), have a high comedy content. "They are quite simply the best pro and anti-drugs films. Depending entirely on your perspective, you can look at each and see the terrible mess people can get themselves into. On the other hand, some people would undoubtedly find that quite an appealing way to carry on."
- Shooting Stars: Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies, by Harry Shapiro. Serpent's Tail Books, £14.99