The life of a drug addict is short and ludicrous. A maximum of 7 years pass from the first dose to death. The whole raison d'être is to search for drugs and experience withdrawal symptoms, the last 1-2 years have passed in unsuccessful attempts to recover. With more serious drugs, the duration of the dosing period is halved or more.
What makes people commit such voluntary suicide? There are actually only two reasons. The first is accessibility, and the second, and the main one, is the massive propaganda of drugs that has captured almost all areas of the media. Psychiatrist, psychotherapist, narcologist, forensic psychiatric expert Marina Igorevna Runkova in an interview with the "At the Crossroads" channel spoke in detail about how children and adolescents are imposed an interest in drugs from TV screens, cinemas and concert venues, and why it is dangerous to ignore it.
What is considered propaganda?
Better to start from afar. According to T. Efremova's explanatory dictionary, "propaganda is the dissemination of ideas through constant, deep and detailed explanation." Similar definitions can also be found in the dictionaries of D. Ushakov and S. Ozhegov, however, the Internet resource Wikipedia, popular among young people, considers the dissemination of ideas, arguments and facts to be propaganda only when all this is done with the aim of forming public opinion. That is, in the opinion of information resources convenient for the West and the States, acquaintance with comprehensive information about the destructive, if there is a reservation that doing so is bad / dangerous / harmful to health, is not propaganda. This statement is wrong, and here's why.
Imagine a film that would tell about all the spheres of drug addiction: about the use and consequences for health, production, sale, accompanying details of a criminal nature. A layman brought up according to a Western methodology, would such a film be considered propaganda, calling for drug use? Of course not, because for the heroes of the film everything ended badly, and the fact that the heroes-drug addicts turned out to be more memorable, more emotional, to some extent even more charismatic than all other normal people - this is such an artistic move so that viewers understand the heroes probably even started to sympathize with them?
Yes exactly. This is called a substitution of concepts, and this is actively used by public organizations - and even some media outlets - which, under the specious pretext of drug addiction prevention, acquaint people with all aspects of using prohibited substances. Sometimes they even come to school, where they discuss with students in the eighth and eleventh grades what risks may arise - related to health or the law, if you start using such and such substances (here they usually begin to list the slang names of psychotropic substances). This is real propaganda, just a few mistakes were made in the word, and now it is spelled as “prevention”. They try to implement a similar scheme in the direction of the sex lumen - with a predictable result. As they say, information creates interest.
Promotional video:
Sometimes the impudence of those who benefit from promoting drug addiction simply goes off scale. An example is social banners in Norway, from which attractive young people look at us, and the inscriptions say that they are all alive because they knew how to use drugs correctly. Think about it - we are not being told that using drugs means killing your health, no - instead, Norwegians and their children are taught how to use them correctly.
The next step is the state-regulated (!) Distribution of drugs to everyone. And he, it seems, will not keep himself waiting long. (Link)
Propagating drugs through music and cinema
And of course, the most aggressive propaganda is carried out by artists, using the auditory, visual, kinesthetic method and all the same substitution of concepts. Let's dwell on them in more detail.
Auditory method, aka auditory
In creativity, the auditory, or auditory, method is the easiest to implement. You can recall all those situations when in films, in interviews, from the stage in songs, viewers hear the names of drugs, sometimes even direct calls to use. If a teenager often hears the same text, then with a high probability he will repeat it, and repetition is the mother of learning. It is hardly surprising that, having heard enough of idols talking about drugs, he can try to join this addict subculture. Just out of interest or to be like your ideal.
Visual way, it is also visual
Visuals are more commonly used in movies and clips. There we can be introduced to the method of use: how a substance enters the body, how it can be prepared or purchased. Almanac on the world of drug addiction can serve as "The Wolf of Wall Street". Well-known journalists and directors create a positive attitude towards this picture in advance, but if we put aside all the Oscars and awards, all the charisma of the actors and the ingenuity of the directors, what will remain in the end? Advertising of a drug addict lifestyle. In fact, many of the actors in this film are people who have been repeatedly seen using drugs. But every doctor who works with such patients will tell you that there are no former drug addicts. Are the viewers who go to see this filmwant to admire the product of the morbid thinking of poison addicts? Is this a really good choice of food for the mind?
Kinesthetic way
He works with images and sensations. The kinesthetic method combined with humor is very effective. The raid of the funny kind of removes the degree of danger from everything that gets ridiculed and sarcastic. That is, in fact, it makes the dangerous seemingly safe. There is a danger, but it is somewhere far away, on the other side of the screen, not mine - this is the setting that is laid in a kinesthetic way.
Substitution of concepts
The most blasphemous way to promote drugs. The substitution of concepts is generally used to promote everything destructive, when under plausible pretexts there is an advertisement of one or another source of problems, and at all stages - from sale (dealers are not at all interested in discouraging potential buyers) to consumption itself (poison will be strange to use, if it is directly called poison). Slang names were invented just to hide the meaning from people, and to interest potential buyers.
For the horror of realizing the scale of what is happening, one can cite the example of the Graduate-2019 concert held in the Kremlin. The group "RASA" performed on it, which managed to bring a song with … a narcotic bookmark to such a concert! “The speed does not give sleep, we are killed together,” - it seems that many will intuitively understand which word means a drug, and which is the effect of its use. And this is, once again, the Kremlin, and Graduate-2019 is a youth concert! Probably, the artists were not selected according to the principle “the dirtier the product of creativity, the better,” and everything happened due to the lack of knowledge of the slang names of drugs. That is why parents who are not indifferent to the fate of their children can try to listen to what is playing in the headphones of the child and ask themselves questions:"What is the target audience for these songs?" and "Should my child become part of this audience?"
Substitution of concepts and films based on books are a separate topic for conversation. This can be especially clearly observed on those characters who were always perceived by readers positively, positively, were considered an example to follow. A good example is the British film adaptation of the series of novels about Sherlock Holmes, who was eventually filed as a drug addict. And after all, they created plot twists that would make us sympathize with the main character, understand why he got into these very drugs … This is how a positive attitude towards drug addicts is gradually formed.
Some go even further. It is not uncommon for a singer, who promotes destructive ideas with all his creativity, conducts concerts under the pretext of charity. This is the case when money does not just smell, but exudes a deadly poison.
Well, we should separately touch upon those adolescents who are far from social networks, TV, YouTube, because they play computer games. Every narcologist, psychiatrist knows that a person who is addicted to computer games is a potential addict. And it's not just that there are games in which drugs are one of the most important elements of gameplay, it's about the sensations that the game makes the gamer experience: they are similar to those experienced by a drug addict, only the latter achieves them by introducing substances from the outside. And if parents are trying to fight the child's addiction by depriving them of the opportunity to play, then soon they may face the fact that their child will simply fall into another dangerous addiction.
So what should you do? How to protect a child or teenager from drug addiction, if talking about it means advertising it? Should focus his attention on other activities. Going to theaters, listening to classical music, playing sports - anything that can help save and keep him healthy and independent. A child does not rush for chocolate until he knows about its existence, and an adult can think and refuse it, no matter how sweet it is.
Author: Rena Mishkina