More often than not, our society tends to label drug users as an ominous crease in the folds of the world, classifying them as a lower level of the human. Drug use tends to be seen by outsiders as simply a means to an end. People walk by those on the streets and generally just see an empty shell of what might have been a person. It’s when drugs are used by a famous actor/actress or singer/rocker that drugs become either a way of showing their resilience and “coolness”, back when drug use was still part of rock-and-roll, or the butt end of a joke. However, there’s always more to a person than what meats the eyes.
In our ASTU class, we recently watched a documentary on the world of drugs in Downtown Eastside Vancouver, focusing on the interactions between the police officers and a few, notably white, drug addicts that lived on the streets. “Through A Blue Lens”, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, shows the extreme levels of struggle and heartache that is found in many communities of poverty stricken areas (IMDb).
After watching the film, the class briefly discussed how the media tends to portray the lives before and after the deaths of drug addicted celebrities, mainly focusing on the lives of Amy Winehouse, Cory Monteith, Philp Seymour Hoffman, and Heath Ledger. I was too young to remember much about the death of Heath Ledger, and I wasn’t a big enough fan of Cory Monteith to know many details about what happened, but I was very aware when the reported deaths of Hoffman and Winehouse were announced. There was a lot of drama more about what would happen with Hoffman’s upcoming film, the 3rd installment of The Hunger Games films, rather than news about his death. Amy Winehouse had a considerable amount of broadcasting, with the paparazzi covering every drunken stupor, every drug induced action along the way prior to her untimely death. Another death that was morbidly covered, was that of Whitney Houston. Soon after her death, news vans were reported surrounding the hotel she had been in in hopes of being the first to broadcast her horrific death. The deaths of celebrities become a sort of prize for media outlets, all of them fighting for, like always, the best story. News broadcasters go from one celebrity to the next, pushing away their moral boundaries in hopes of gaining the next bonus that comes their way.
People have a tendency to judge those they know nothing about, putting assumptions (and we all know what those do…) onto their victims in a way that discredits them from being normal humans just trying to get through life. As those who don’t know the extent of the troubles the addicts may be going through, it is unfair to both ourselves and to them to try and make rash generalizations about people we know almost nothing about. As someone looking in from the outside, I can only imagine what it must be like for those people, and continue to live my life with compassion for those who are struggling.