The legal highs problem in the Polish printed media--actors, claims, and its hidden meanings.

The authors present the results of a qualitative analysis of press articles focused on legal highs in Poland. The aim of analysis was the identification of all social actors involved in the media discourse, the arguments used, and the claims made in the frame of social, political, economical, legal, and moral issues. This analysis covered two major daily newspapers--Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita and two weeklies--Polityka and Newsweek. Articles were collected during a systematic analysis covering the complete number of issues starting from 2008 to 2011. As a result, a base of 386 articles was developed. The study was founded by the statutory budget.