Between October 1988 and October 1989, The Washington Post alone ran 1,565 stories about the “drug scourge.” Richard Harwood, the Post’s ombudsmen, eventually admitted the paper had lost “a proper sense of perspective” due to such a “hyperbole epidemic.” He said that “politicians are doing a number on people’s heads.”87 Sociologists Craig Reinarman and Harry Levine later made a similar point: “Crack was a godsend to the Right…. It could not have appeared at a more politically opportune moment.”88
