In the film Swansea Love Story, the difficult lives of heroin addicts in Swansea, Wales is illustrated quite vividly. The film mainly focuses on the story of a homeless couple, Amy Protheroe and Cornelius Collins, but does occasionally piece in other people. The film focuses on the rise of heroin and how it’s becoming increasingly popular in Swansea. The drug seems to have taken over the town, and turned doing heroin into a sort of sub-culture there. The film shows the hardships Amy and Cornelius face as homeless addicts, and sheds some light into their family life to explain why they are the way they are. Swansea Love Story also incorporates other people into the film and shows the struggles that come with being a heroin addict. I think …show more content…
It’s very hard to be a heroin addict and have a normal, properly functioning life. Most of the times addicts cannot hold stable jobs, so there is not a stable income coming in, which in turn results in these individuals becoming homeless, or turning to criminal activity to support their drug use. It is not easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle when you struggle with an addiction. I’ve seen first hand with family members how quickly your life spirals out of control, and how hard it can be to get back on your feet once you’re addicted. If people using heroin are taking it intravenously, there are a number of risks that come with that as well. Unclean needles can cause people to contract HIV or Hepatitis, and other infectious diseases if they use dirty puddles of water to cook their drugs. The veins of heroin addicts can also become damaged. On top of all that, if these addicts aren’t using clean needles, abscesses can form wherever they’re injecting drugs into the body, which can be very dangerous. For all of the reasons above, the cons of taking heroin certainly outweigh the …show more content…
Back then, people were convinced that heroin was not as addictive as morphine and was safer for people to consume. Obviously that’s not the case. The scary thing is heroin isn’t that different from morphine, yet doctors are okay with giving patients morphine. I think with a drug that is so addictive, doctors need to be more vigilant on who they use morphine on, even when it comes to medical procedures. Back in the early 1900’s, when people weren’t truly aware of the effects of heroin, it might have been okay for them to use it to help people suffering from severe pain. In this day and time, heroin is widely abused and not used for its’ original intentions. Heroin has become a recreational drug of choice for people, not something they use to treat
In David Sheff’s book “Beautiful Boy” he utilizes descriptive diction, allusions to other works, and vivid imagery to recreate the experiences he’s gone through during his son’s addiction, times in recovery, and relapses.
By providing clean needles to drug addicts, are we causing another issue such as increased drug
Philadelphia is the heights rat of crim in the USA over 30-40 homicides crimes per month and drug related crimes. This links in with the other text that we are looking at, the novel “Damage done” and how is shows that sometimes facts get in the way of a good story. This all promotes the current view Australia has one drugs, the way that there is supposably an ice epidemic happing. This document follows Theroux around Philadelphia’s drug action streets while he does interviews with the criminals and follows the police around finding out what is really happing out on the streets of Philadelphia. Some events that where selected to promote this view to the audiences was the interview with the street boys, showing just how carpeted Philadelphia is how they talk of “code of silence – never snitch!”. There was all so the confronting images of the dead body left in the abandoned house, from a suspected over does on ice. The drug issue in Philadelphia is represented in way that it controls the streets nothing ever happens unless its drug related. These parts have been purposely highlighted throughout the documentary to get the most dramatic message across to the views, as dose the novel. Tis representation achieves the goal of getting the message across of how street gangs and drugs are becoming to rules the streets. This message impacts and effects the way the audients sees this type of action and making them believe that it is taking place all around them. This documentary is to inform and promote the understanding of these types of actions, this is all so done with some help of filming
But the fight for a better life won't stop just because you aren't ready. What we're doing is not something you decide to do when you feel like it. Whether you're ready or not, this struggle will go on.” Pg. 159. The drug issue is relevant in the world today because kids, especially teens, use it as a way to escape the reality they are living in. Some use it to have fun but others to forget of what they are living in and to relieve the “stress” they might have. Reading fiction can teach students the harm and danger of certain things, like drugs. It can show what it does and how it can affect you in the future and even though it may take away the hurt you are feeling, it will only come back when that feeling is gone.“When you win we win but when you go down you go down alone” Pg. 159. The author shows by this quote how not everyone is willing to go down when you go down, but only succeed when you do. This is relevant in the world because when you are doing good everyone want to be surrounded by you, but once you fail no one is there to help you. This relates to the thesis because it can teach students the harm drugs can cause when using them for a temporary
Before the mid 1900’s the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was formed to tax those making, importing or selling any derivative of opium or coca leaves. In the 1920s, doctors became aware of the highly addictive nature of opioids and started to avoid treating patients with them (Center, 2004). In 1924 heroin became illegal. However according to a history published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003, anesthesiologists opened "nerve block clinics" in the 1950s and 1960s to manage pain without having to resort to surgery (Meldrum, 2003). This push for treating pain without surgery was a major factor in the opioid epidemic we see today. In 2008 the overdose death rate was almost four times the rate in 1999, and the sales of prescription pain relievers in 2010 were four times higher than in 1999 (Paulozzi et al, 2011). The substance use disorder treatment admission rate is also greater than in 1999, with it having been six times higher in 2009. Chasing Heroin’s claims surrounding the fear of prescribing pain medications is accurate as you see an increase in public policies surrounding opiate use in the early 1900’s. The climbing rates of overdose deaths and the increased amount of people seeking addiction treatment suggests that the fear of prescription opiates was
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
Two main arguments for needle exchange programs include that the needle exchange would help prevent the spread of disease and that they are key to fighting HIV and in turn saving lives. Since, the needle exchange programs don’t really force people to get off the substance they are abusing, a lot of users will actually choose to do the treatment programs on their own because they don’t feel pressured into doing so. Not only do the needle exchange programs supply sterile needles, they also supply counseling and therapy for those that not only want some help in the guidance of getting off their substance, but mental and life assistance to help them reestablish their lives. By doing so, the previously addicted can reestablish relationships with people who they were friends with when they were sober.... ...
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat anything from coughs to restlessness. Yet, just as quickly as it became a household staple, many began to question the innocence of the substance. While the 1906 law had inherent weaknesses, it signaled the beginning of the end for “cure-all” drugs, such as opiate-filled “soothing syrups” that were used for infants. By tracing and evaluating various reports by doctors and investigative journalists on the medical use of heroin, it is clear that the desire for this legislative measure developed from an offshoot in the medical community-- a transformation that took doctors out from behind the curtain, and brought the public into a new era of awareness.
Drugs is one of the themes in this story that shows the impact of both the user and their loved ones. There is no doubt that heroin destroys lives and families, but it offers a momentary escape from the characters ' oppressive environment and serves as a coping mechanism to help deal with the human suffering that is all around him. Suffering is seen as a contributing factor of his drug addiction and the suffering is linked to the narrator’s daughter loss of Grace. The story opens with the narrator feeling ice in his veins when he read about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin. The two brothers are able to patch things up and knowing that his younger brother has an addiction. He still buys him an alcoholic drink at the end of the story because, he has accepted his brother for who he really is.
Heroin is one of the most dangerous drugs in the world. When using heroin, people run the risk of developing serious “infectious diseases” such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis (The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 2014, para 10). Above all, heroin use often results in death. The DEA Strategic Intelligence Section (2016), who prepared the 2016 National Heroin Threat Assessment Summary claims that heroin is the most fatal drug compared to other drugs because heroin related deaths occur at a much higher rate. In 2014 cocaine users outnumbered heroin users by about three and a half to one, yet there were twice as many heroin related deaths compared to that of cocaine (p. 9). One of the main causes of the large amount of death is a result of what dealers are lacing their heroin with. Fentanyl, a drug that is considered “50” to “100” times stronger than morphine (NIDA, 2016, para 1), is being used by dealers to mix in with their heroin in order to increase its effects and the quantity of their product. Because of how strong fentanyl-laced heroin is, the possibility of overdosing rises, which is the effect that numerous addicts seek out to attain. In the article “Spiked”, written by Maggie Lee (2015), Lieutenant Rick Mason from the Atlanta Police Department emphasizes, “… if somebody OD’s, that’s who [heroin addicts] want to buy their heroin from because it’s the strongest and it must be the best” (para 22). Heroin addicts chase the powerful batches, often asking around for the dealer selling the batch that is causing mass overdoses. Their high tolerance for heroin lead them to believe that they will not fall victim to a deadly overdose until it is too late. When these users consume what they think is their normal dose, the fentanyl kills them. Those unable to receive prescription medication from a doctor will argue that heroin is a cheap way to relieve pain. While heroin may help to
Heroin was originally synthesized in 1874 by a man named C.R Alder Wright. Created as a solution to opium, a drug that had plagued many American households. It was originally produced for medical purposes evidently becoming highly addictive. Heroin “... was originally marketed as a non-addictive substance” (“History of Addiction”) which inevitably increased its popularity. It became especially popular in places of poverty. Heroin became a solution to struggle. So common it was almost as if heroin was a prescribed medicine for hardship. Known as “[a] treatment of many illnesses and pain” (“A brief history of addiction”) but later revealed that it caused more harm than good. Being so easily accessible it became immensely common among musicians.
This didn’t last very long considering morphine was found to be much more addictive than alcohol. In the early 1900s, morphine was identified as a controlled substance under the Harrison Act. The Harrison Act was put in place to control morphine by making it only legal for those with a prescription for the drug to carry and use it. It is now considered a Schedule I&II drug, which basically defines the levels of enforcement against the drugs. At the time, morphine was the most commonly abused drug, because of its mind-numbing, and reality shattering capabilities.
...liams (in person) First hand account of drug trafficking, use, abuse, effects, and treatment in a Washington State male correctional facility.
many to die from heroin and other drug addictions. Drugs seem to make you a
Dobler-Mikola, A. Gschwed, P. Gutzwiller, F. Steffen, T. Rehm, J. Ucthengagen, A. (2001) Fesaibility, Safely, and Efficacy of Injectable Heroin Prescription for Refractory Opioid Addicts: a follow-up study. The Lancet, volume 358, pg 1417-1420