A linguistic analysis of dehumanization toward substance use across three decades of news articles

Substances and the people who use them have been dehumanized for decades. As a result, lawmakers and healthcare providers have implemented policies that subjected millions to criminalization, incarceration, and inadequate resources to support health and wellbeing. While there have been recent shifts in public opinion on issues such as legalization, in the case of marijuana in the U.S., or addiction as a disease, dehumanization and stigma are still leading barriers for individuals seeking treatment. Integral to the narrative of "substance users" as thoughtless zombies or violent criminals is their portrayal in popular media, such as films and news.

This study attempts to quantify the dehumanization of people who use substances (PWUS) across time using a large corpus of over 3 million news articles. We apply a computational linguistic framework for measuring dehumanization across three decades of New York Times articles.

We show that (1) levels of dehumanization remain high and (2) while marijuana has become less dehumanized over time, attitudes toward other substances such as heroin and cocaine remain stable.

This work highlights the importance of a holistic view of substance use that places all substances within the context of addiction as a disease, prioritizes the humanization of PWUS, and centers around harm reduction.