War On Drugs

great image and information. on the subject.

fantastic research and powerful image Helen,,,, well done

Wow a very addictive picture , thanks for the info!!!

Helen-once again you have produced not just a photograph and some words but a documentary on the “state of play” regarding this subject. The questions you have asked here regarding social injustice, government inefficiencies and just how we are going to tackle this global problem should be at the very top of any debate between the US presidential candidates about now. My biggest concern is where does the money go?

I guess there are a lot of wealthy DEA people out there…........ and politicians, lawyers, etc etc etc.

Thanks for raising this (yet another) important issue Helen. My attitude to drug addiction is simple: addiction is a disease. It is an irresistable urge for the substance of abuse, and using ‘willpower’ is as effective as it would be for someone suffering diahorreah. It is not a crime, or a ‘sin’. It is an affliction and, there but for the grace of some higher power, goes any one of us. I run a community campaign (http://www.caama.net/) for drug education and i encounter addicts every day. They can be street people, actors, judges, teachers, ministers, hookers, teenagers, elderly…the disease has no boundaries. And I do not believe we should jail people for their disease.

Because the law makers are all self righteous fucktards, Helen?

Helen, not sure I’d give this to someone as a card, but Wow! It’s a truly great image and packs a powerful punch of impact! Surely someone out there will buy it for an anti-drug campaingne, it’s brilliant, and has an ominous feel to it. Great work Helen.

WTF is wrong with me tonight? I am making a bunch of typos. Ah, it’s 3:10 am here. Duh. Sleep deprivation I suppose.

I absolutely agree that addicts should not be treated as criminals, but so often they commit crimes to feed their addictions. Then there is no choice! You can’t have one set of rules for one group and another for the rest of society.

I reject that notion of drug addiction as being a disease, at least to this extent – if it is a disease, it is an entirely preventable one, brought about by not one or two but a prolonged series of decisions by the user.

As any user or addict will acknowledge, the common notion that addiction strikes suddenly like snakebite in as little as a single instance of use of the addictive substance, or even a handful of hits, is a myth without factual basis. Tolerance takes prolonged use, although the extent of that use before a habit is acquired varies from substance to substance. Heroin, for example, is far less addictive than ice or crack…which is not to say that the addiction has any less of a hold once a serious habit has been acquired.

My opinion is that the “drug addiction is a disease” assertion that is circulating with ever-increasing frequency and is thus given more and more credibility as time goes on, is not helpful, in that it suggests a lack of personal responsiibility on the part of the addict. This is not correct.

The “disease” is entirely user-induced (except in the tragic cases of infants born to addicts) as a result of multiple decisions on the part of the user that s/he is free – at pre-habit stage – to make or not make. That is a vital point that is in danger of being lost if addiction continues to be referred to by default and without qualification as a “disease”.

Having made that point, I agree with you, Helen, that the sort of war on drugs rubbish that the cops and state wages is a waste of resources, as is targeting individual users. In a sense, those are the easy options (pity they don’t work), the purpose of which is to demonstrate a political party’s commitment to clamp down on the use of illegal drugs. The real answers are far more difficult. How do we heal the psychic maladies and spiritual deficiencies that are at the heart of drug addiciton and many other ills of society? We have to change our values and the very nature of our society. Yeah, right.

Seems like a million dollar frame.
or what is the price of this stuff?
Anyway, how many lives are destroyed by it.
How many children got beat up for it?

Did my share of blow in the 80’s. Someone once said that it wasn’t addictive and that their 25 year habit could have been kicked easily at any time.
Yup, no addiction there man!!!
Great message Helen dear.

Excellent work Helen….your willingness to face off with and take on the tougher issues stands you in good stead, many would just walk away…

Interesting note: Only $200 million per year for the next three years toward treatment. On an annual basis, that’s about 7% in one year for treatment as compared to the $2,931,488,631 spent thus far on enforcement. One can’t help but ponder the priorities.

I would suggest to Hotbeetees that you consider the motivation people might have for taking drugs in the first place. If you look deep enough, it is likely to be some aspect of their personality and experiences that predisposes them to do so.

The choice to start may be instantaneous, but rather than representing the start of a drug taking lifestyle, it probably represents the culmination of a series of life experiences that lead to that point. Drug use may not be a disease, but it is certainly an illness. An illness that is symptomatic of some deeper pain.

I, and many others, like to smoke tobacco. Our drug of choice is legal, but were that not the case, well, who knows…...

In any case, would be interesting to see the breakdown for the arrests thus far as to how many were users and how many were dealers. I suspect a great many users. You can’t beat drugs by arresting users….someone else just steps up to the plate.

Dear Helen, my youngest son Peter, died because of an alcohol addiction, he was 28 years old and it has devastated the whole family and his friends. If only they could really do something to rid the world of these terrible drug lords etc., my heart goes out to mothers of young people who naively think that “One Wont Hurt”

WOW how sad and this is a great eye opener

MarkFaulconbridge,

No argument from me with anything you wrote. This is a subject about which I have pretty extensive personal knowledge – you can’t cover everything in a few paras here. Rest assured, I’m completely aware of the more complex psychological and personality issues you allude to that may predispose some people towards addictive behaviour, and of the role of personal circumstance in such predispositions – broadly acknowledged in the last two sentences in my previous post above.

That does not detract from my assertion that the current tendency to glibly (IMO) categorise drug addiction (and of course, that includes legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol) as “a disease” is unhelpful in uncoupling the series of personal decisions that lead to addiction from the notion of personal responsibility. That assertion is not demeaning or harsh, even if it sounds like it. It is, in fact, empowering, since it places the onus of responsibility back on the individual; once an addict can fully face the reality that they alone are responsible for their addiction, it can be a turning point signalling a way back to recovery. In accepting responsibility, you are taking back the power that was always yours, even if you didn’t realise it, and that includes the power to decide to make changes. Phrasing such as that I have just used starts to sound pretty impotent and cliched in the context of the challenge faced by the addict who wishes to throw their addiction, though. Indeed, at this point, the addiction does have the quality of a disease.

great work

hotbeetees, the concept of addiction is for most people, as hard to understand as depression or annorexia. The temptation is for us to tell the depressed, ‘well just cheer up,’ there are worse people worse off than you,’ or to tell annorexics, ‘don’t be stupid, you’re not fat…’ etc. And to put some kind of moral judgement on those that suffer a disease which we are fortunate to not have, or suggest that somehow they are weak and guilty because their affliction is ‘their choice.’

There is a growing amount of evidence that addiction may be genetic, for example a gene has been found in the liver of alcoholics that creates a reaction to alcohol which is an uncontrollable compulsion. It’s no less real that the reaction that someone has to something they are allergic to, or that a diabetic has to sugar.

Your belief that addictions take a long time to develop is also factually incorrect, the addiction begins the moment the person has a taste of the substance which they will become addicted to. Many crystal meth addicts will tell you that it took just one hit to become addicted. Like i said, its difficult to explain or quantify addiction, but the theory goes something like this. Meth works by forcing the brain to release serotonin, creating a feeling of bliss. One hit can force up to 200 times the normal levels of this happy hormone in the user’s brain. That is a high which is impossible to maintain and with continued use, the brain starts to shut down on production so that eventually the user is just never able to feel good, and their whole life becomes a constant and futile quest for a return of those good feelings. The statistics are telling. In Sydney, where i run my campaign, there were 8000 meth addicts in 06. In 07 there were 12000. There are now more than 20000. Two in three regular users become dependant. A third of them become psychotic. It took me two years and many bitter political battles to get some graphic education material out there. I have seen the lives of many friends and neighbours destroyed in a very short time, they lose everything, in a matter of months. And there are always a dozen people around them who’s lives are also negatively impacted: parents and family, partners, friends, employees and all the innocent bystanders….

By definition, addiction is not a choice. I suppose it is hard, for example, to understand that an alcoholic doesn’t WANT to drink, he or she simply has no choice. The same with any other substance of addiction.

The only choice an addict has is to ask for help, and I get phone calls every day from desperate people seeking just that. The sad fact is that while there is a hugely funded state infrastructure for punishing these people, the will and and the money to provide counselling, rehab etc., is just not there.

There are however, millions of self help groups, mostly 12 step programmes, where people with the same incurable disease get together every day to help each other, and themselves, to maintain some kind of recovery, one day at a time.

Having watched my husband battle addiction for the past 8 years I can say that the addict can not chose to stop using by willpower alone. My husband never really wanted to use or to get drunk. It was a compulsion from deep inside him. He has been sober now for about 5 months and he can not tell you how it began or why he drank. He did make a conscious choice to seek help after he realized he could not beat the disease on his own. He sought treatment.

I worked in the criminal justice system for years I know that a prisoner can get any drug inside prison as easily as they can get it on the street. I would so prefer that our money is spent on treatment and maintaining sobriety.

...and more power to jay, helen. Five months becomes a year becomes a lifestyle, one day at a time. And kudos to you, too, going through addiction with a loved one must be one of the most horrible things to have to suffer.

A very thought provoking image and presentation Helen.

I’ve heard all the arguments of both sides, Shayne. Sorry, but I do not accept that ice or any other substance is addictive after a single hit. Recovering addicts and other experts disagree over this stuff. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

No argument re the possibility of “addictive” genes, by the way. Certainly, there is such a thing as an addictive personality, and why would there not be a possibility that genes may play a part? IMO, that still does not mean addicition is possible in a single hit – or more, for that matter – of any substance, although the psychologically based compulsion can surely be triggered. If you include that compulsion within the definition of addiction – which I don’t – then perhaps we have reached our real point of disagreement. Your definition implies that people are born addicts, and that triggering the process that leads to addiction is only a matter of a single instance of substance exposure. I believe it is more complex than that.

Helen, I agree entirely that an addict cannot just choose to stop as a matter of willpower. Nothing I have written suggests otherwise. My point about reaching the understanding that one does have the power of personal choice (which I maintain comes with the full acceptance of personal resonsibility for one’s actions) is demonstrated in your husband’s conscious choice to seek help. The exercising of personal power in choice is vital to commitment of any sort. Commitment, not will power, is the force that can conquer addiction. I would contend that once commitment is total, will power doesn’t even come into the equation.

And I absolutely share your views on where resources would best be directed.

You always have the images and the facts to back them up, Helen. Thank you.

I lost someone to addictions about ten years ago…..he now inspires a lot of my writing….. I have seen both sides though as I also have a close friendship with someone that took that same road, and turned it around and has been sober and clean for over 20 years. So it can be done. Thanks Helen for your continued statements on facets of life that need to be addressed and urgently!

Helen The pic is a true eye opener….........I want to run for president in the near future I have a simple solution to this drug problem here is my plan

1. If you sell drugs you will be arrested and you will pay for any treatment that the individual whose hooked on it’s rehab and any other medical bills that can incur from your sale.
2. If you are an addict you will be sent to a special prison which will reprogram your brain after a strict period of detoxificaion. After your Detox you will be sent to a college course that teaches you to boost your self esteem where you will be willing and able to work at a moments notice. You will have to work with organizations who give back to the community such as red cross….etc. Till your able to function normally in society.

3 If you are a drug dealer you will also replace any military soldier on the front lines of the battlefield you will then protect this counrty weather you like it or not or be buried at your familys expense

4. I will add 2 extra weeks to each calander month to be able to add 2 weeks of extra pay for every american while still being able to keep there normal 30 day contracts with bills etc. Giving each family member an additional 14 days to save extra money and catch up on there bills…...ending the cycle of depression people get into from living paycheck to paycheck…

YOU DONT WANT ME TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT I WILL DO A CLEAN SWEEP OF THE ENTIRE US…..............

Thanks Helen for letting me speak my peace on your page :)
Rob

Hmm, usual scapegoating of the dealer. Dealers are the easy target, but they are not the problem. Taking the emotion out of the equation, dealers are businessmen catering for a market (albeit an illegal one). The focus needs to be on the demand, not the supply. If there was no demand, they would be no suppliers. The converse is never true.

SHIT! Wish there was an edit function to fix up typos. I meant: “If there was no demand, there would be no suppliers”.

The US is the demander and the Supplier of funding

If you guys only knew the whole story behind it all you have NOOOO CLUE

It’s really not worth my life

Im sorry it is a lot bigger then we all can EVER imagine

That sort of self-projecting ego-motivated comment only undermines your credibility, Robxavier. Get into a cycle of “I’m an expert with access to insider knowledge and inevitably right, you’re babes-in-the-woods and inevitably wrong” and it’s the end of any possibility of constructive debate. This sort of discussion is important, IMO, and until now it has been free of personal projection. Shayne, Helen and I might not agree on all points, but there has been no sense of personal attack or ego-projection with any of our comments. Hopefully, yours will be the last such instance.

Helen, I think I know what you’re saying with your “supplier creates the demand” comment. Are you referring to dealers tempting prospective clients into a free or heavily discounted taste, then another and another until the hook sets? If so, I would still contend that it is a personal decision of the client to take that first taste, and the second, and every one after that to the point of habit. The dealer is not forcing them to take a hit at the barrel of a gun. Manipulation is everywhere. We all have the capacity to decide for ourselves what we will do in any given set of circumstances…although I acknowledge that capacity varies from person to person and that such a statement is necessarily simplistic and idealistic to a degree. And I am not referring to kids who do not have the capacity or development to make informed choices. In those cases, I agree with you.

And let it not be misinterpreted that I am defending drug dealers here! Absolutely not. These pricks are low-life (generally speaking…the addict-turned-dealer to finance their own habit is possibly a different case). BUT, too often you hear parents and others pointing the finger at the dealer and demanding all sorts of dire medieval punishments, when the responsibility for addiction does not lie solely – or even mostly, in the case of adult addicts – with the dealer. It comes back to the user. That might be unplatable, but it’s the fact as I see it.

From Serendipity

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as is by now well-known by anyone who has cared to be informed, has long been deeply involved in the international trafficking of the addictive drugs heroin and (since the early 1980s, if not earlier) cocaine, the enormous profits from which have financed, and continue to finance, both U.S. covert operations and the U.S. military (via payments to Pentagon contractors).

Hotbeetees you seem to know alot about nothing keep confusing youself as well as others..sorry Helen

Helen if the parents wont teach them whats right and whats wrong. The television was dfesigned to take care of the children when mommy and daddy are away…......The Television becomes the parent when the parent is sick and tired of answering the childs questions…....also…....read between the lines…..TELEVISION>>>>>TELL LIES TO THE VISION

Television…...............teLEVIsion…........Levi….......Liviathan….......get it?????

NEWS …..Not…..Exactly…....What ’s…....Seen

Thanks for the info Helen and for raising this very important issue! Great capture!

wow… very strong image…

great work in ur portfolio!! well done..

love the macro, great work!

aah drugs… how dare a government tell me how i should think.
:(

snorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt there goes the old brain cells…....................I just have never understood why some one would spend hard earned dollars on drugs when chocolate is so much cheaper.
just kidding…..very powerful image helen.

wow…a very powerful and moving piece…..I am a first hand success story of recovery from drugs…now my drug of choice is my camera…It saved my life….That image is so very moving

Wow i’ve been reading some of the comments to go with this evocative image which is amazing by the way … the information here is great but i’m on the fence here about the whys and wherefores of addiction … i had a son who was an addict and i do believe he had an addictive personality … also some people become addicted very easily as i think it is chemical reaction and we all have chemicals in our body … can be a conflict … i know some heroin addicts who got off by themselves … personally i can’t understand how anyone would be interested in getting “hooked” on any drug as i’ve never really been that interested although of course i used to smoke pot years ago when it was the “in thing” to do but i got over it quite easily … never been interested in anything chemical as i like to know what is going on in my life and i need a job to survive!!! there are so many issues involved with this subject and i do agree that governments let these things go on as it is so lucrative to many people in power!!! that is reality … i’m not looking down on anyone as i do have an addiction to nicotine and have given it up many times and have to do it again but you have to have the right “mind set” to get anything done and that is up to you and only you to change it … then you can get help!!! hope i haven’t upset anyone as i certainly do understand both sides of the equation and my hats off to you Helen for being brave to do this and your comments are certainly informative … we could talk about this all day!!! take care my girl and i really admire your positivity … we all need to stay in that realm!!!!

Now that sends an image. Great work.

This is such a menacing image Helen. How many lives does it represent?

Oh, I don’t know Hotbeetees, I’m don’t think I’m yet convinced… I think a person can take responsibility for their current drug use and hence become empowered over it without taking the blame for starting in the first place.

I think maybe it’s like when someone goes through trauma as a child. At the point that they grow up from there they have two choices.

They can dwell on their plight and sink into depression, or they can take back control and learn to move on. That is, they had no control over the trauma, but they can, if they choose, have control over the outcome.

I think maybe that a person addicted to drugs, while having no control over the circumstances that lead them to that point, can take control over where the addiction takes them. I don’t think that the empowerment of stepping up to a fight against addiction necessarily means you are to blame for starting….they are two different things.

Acknowledging that a person got to a point in their life partly or mostly through circumstance (genetic, social or otherwise) doesn’t necessarily deny them the right or responsibility to take control of their life again.

”. I didn’t say they could spend my tax dollars kicking in doors, planting evidence, and beating confessions out of people.”

just a bit unfair don’t you think?.. sure there are some bad cops, but most are good people.. I have been doing it for the past 25 years, 8 of those I had one of those drug sniffing german shepherds you mentioned…I have worked on drug task forces.. I have never seen drugs “planted” or a confession beaten out of anyone.

I have seen officers buy food for addicts and their families… buy them motel rooms when they had no place to go on a cold night and the “shelters” refused to let them in… I have seen officers write and visit addicts and dealers they have sent to prison, send them books and try to find them work when they get released..
I have also seen the effects that the addiction does to families… dad is on crack so all the household items start vanishing as they are traded for crack… even the children’s new bikes… mom having to hide the new microwave she bought when the first two “vanished”.. hiding it in a closet so she can heat baby formula with it… or a 70 year old man having to find a job as a truck driver because he spent his life savings on his son’s rehab over and over, and trying to keep him out of prison for his multiple arrests….... or the families who have nothing to do with drugs having to come home and find there door kicked in when an addict entered to steal anything he could trade for drugs..

Then there is the violence, especially in the homes….

I rarely see any treatment or rehab work… I have never seen it work for a crack or meth addiction…

There comes a time when all else fails and a jail sentence is the only thing left… when the risk the person poses to others is greater than the hope that any voluntary treatment will finally work.

I really do not understand what your message is here… is it that drugs should just be legalized and money spent on treatment? I agree that money is wasted and the war on drugs is mismanaged, especially on a federal level..I agree that treatment should be available for anyone who wants it… but I dont know what you are suggesting for a solution… I think maybe the planting evidence statement just hit a nerve..

by the way.. I like the photo very much.. as with all your art, you did great job!

sorry if I came of as preaching…. :-)

John

Wah!!! I get so angry myself about this subject!!! Great photo and description of a huge problem here!!! Well done!!!

Holy shit Helen!!! What a gripping image! You are amazing…

Woah, this is really good work. The facts and the image work perfectly together! good work!

you are a woman to be admired!
you have an issue and you speak out/continue this and always make a difference

powerful image and words, helen….

MMM Yes please..The best find I found in the US..Why do they ban all the good fun?
Here you could buy a house for a good deal so its now just a memory. It did start the Cola Company too and I know why.
Cheers SH.

powerful image

WOW! Mother I am very proud of you for having the balls to even bring up this touchy subject…I live in this reality far to close for comfort.
The mall in the city where I live is completely infested with whatever drug you love, Kids sell these drugs from their placeof bussiness. For the very companies that give to the people to stop drugs, Ha ha, some might say….
Well not me. A young girl not even six months ago was taken to the hospital for a rumored overdose while working in the mall. I go to work I take cigerette breaks and I see and hear just how this all happens on a DAILY basis. Most of time I just look the other way because it’s not my problem, or concern. Only to return to work and wonder if someone beside is high. This is not what life sould be like. Parents truly have no idea what the kids are doing, and Kids have no way of knowing what the Parents are doing….YES! I said it parents, you BUY FROM THE OTHER KIDS!! I see it!!! THIS IS NOT A WAR TO BE WON!!!!! :(

We are all drug takers …

Our government seems to think “war” is the answer for many things. Why does our government spray dangerous herbicides all over Columbia in an effort to rid the world of cocaine, while leaving the poppy fields in Afghanistan untouched? Can they be that incompetent? I don’t think so.
Thanks for your art _and_information.

i SEEN HIM!

ITS MAKING MY NOSE BURN
LOVELLY

LOVE
the drug
against
WAR

http://www.redbubble.com/people/maurits/clothing/1104844-1-love-the-drug-against-war

greetz :-)

right you are…, i just need to learn to say no!!!

Wow, this is such a Cool shot!! How many lines of coke do you DO a day Helen?

bummer

And I thought this is ice skating, lol! Well now everything reminds me ice skating.
But seriously – awesome image. Just the other day I was watching a movie about history of cocaine. We are on the top of the world… as couriers and users.. just terrible.