Drug Addiction (1951)
Drug Addiction (1951) – This 50s Encyclopedia Britannica anti-drug film is about as campy as I’ve ever seen EB get. It tells the story of Marty, a nice, clean-cut 50s teen who succumbs to peer pressure and tries reefers. Before you know it, he’s a junkie mainlining heroin, and then experiences the inevitable downward spiral of losing his part-time job at the grocery store, worrying his parents, getting snubbed by all the other clean-cut teens, turning to shoplifting and thievery to support his habit, and finally becoming a drug pusher. (You know who the street pushers are because they’re the ones wearing turtlenecks, like all street pushers, amirite?) Eventually he gets arrested for all of this and, after his mother tearfully tells the judge that he’s a “good boy,” gets court-ordered into substance abuse treatment. But after he gets out of rehab, all the nice teens still shun him and he has to contend with pressure from his old junkie pals to start using again. This well-worn story is told in an incredibly dorky and hyperbolic fashion–highlights include Marty’s friends getting sick when they first smoke marijuana (Marty also feels sick but hides it–the sign of a true addict-in-the-making), Marty and his friends drinking Pepsi from broken bottles while in a hopped-up state, Marty’s mother trying to talk to her surly son about her worries about him, and the post-rehab Marty trying to resist the pressure of his old junkie pal, Duke, to start using again. As in all drug films, the marijuana …
Substance abuse program unveiled
Filed under: drug abuse treatment association inc
A $ 7.5 million effort to combat a drug abuse epidemic that finds more West Virginians succumbing to the silent poisons of chemicals than the loud, grinding crashes on highways is putting cash into every county to detect and treat addicts. One year ago …
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Kentucky sees surge in addicted infants
Filed under: drug abuse treatment association inc
It kills about 1,000 Kentuckians a year and wrecks thousands more lives in a state plagued by doctor shortages, high levels of chronic pain and illness, and too little drug abuse treatment. Van Ingram, executive director of the state Office of Drug …
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