Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus were dubbed as black sheep, misguided and outlandish the moment marijuana touched their lungs.

When public figures use drugs, there is almost always huge controversy. It doesn’t matter if use is casual, or if it results in tragedy. Celebs no longer need a publicist to construct a bad boy or girl image. Widespread myths about drugs and a lack of information foster negative speculation about celebrities. Our judgmental society makes any drug related controversy go absolutely viral.

Last week, in an interview with Life and Style, Melissa Joan Hart discussed her upcoming memoir, “Melissa Explains It All.” Despite my amusement at its incredibly clever title, many people are upset with the piece. In it, she explicitly highlights her drug experimentation in the 1990s.

Suddenly, everyone’s childhood is ruined because Sabrina the Teenage Witch did ecstasy a few times.

Really? The phrase, “ruined childhood”, is thrown around too much. It’s a bit unsympathetic to people who actually have had terrible experiences as children.

So why all of the hubbub? Hart’s memoir also says that she didn’t particularly like the drugs and wasn’t an addict.

We care now more than we did in the 1990s because without social media and Perez Hilton, we didn’t have a platform to blow things completely out of proportion. Hart wasn’t trying to hide her drug use; she just didn’t have to because she used drugs socially and casually.

Celebrities who seek rehabilitation for their drug use are subject to the same criticism by the public, despite their efforts to get better.

It was recently revealed that Zac Efron went through rehab for cocaine addiction and MDMA, or ‘molly.’ Many were upset at his decision to hide this from the public for so long. Going into rehab, which is supposed to be a positive, ongoing process, is so common today that it’s become comedic.

Lindsay Lohan’s ups and downs are self-written jokes for late night hosts.

This is probably why Zac Efron hid his time in rehab, just like Hart didn’t speak about her drug use until now. His acting career is becoming notably diverse and he’s appeared in award winning films like “The Paper Boy.” He wants to be taken seriously. His seriousness as an actor is probably why he went into rehab in the first place.
But the public assumes that celebrities who use drugs are not serious about their work. They blow it totally out of proportion.

Drug related celebrity deaths also cause mass anxiety about casual drug use.

Cory Montieth’s death this summer was tragic and unexpected. It resulted in a huge social media response and unfortunately lots of inaccurate articles. A fake photo of someone who looked like Lea Michele grieving at Montieth’s casket went completely viral.

Because of the socially pejorative nature of Montieth’s death, misinformation spread like wildfire.

Conservative individuals and traditional media use extreme examples like Cory Montieth to slap the wrists of celebrities to go on the straight and narrow. They cause alarm and make people think that all celebrities are susceptible to the same fate.

However, they fail to look at the whole picture surrounding celebrity drug use. They automatically associate even the mildest drug use with a troubled past or dark secret, rather than someone who doesn’t suffer from addiction and just wants to smoke at her birthday party—I’m here for you, Miley.

Celebrity gossip is an incredible tool for establishing public opinion about an issue. We know so little about drugs and the effects they have on individuals that it’s nearly impossible to appropriately react when we hear about our favorite celebrity using them. Despite this, society irrationally and unnecessarily lashes out at celebrities for their “bad behavior.”

Cassie-lee Grimaldi is a senior television, radio and film major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected].

Published on September 30, 2013 at 1:30 am