Drugs...

In the English language, the term "drugs" encompasses both prescription medications and substances like heroin, cocaine, or amphetamines. In French, it is a word primarily associated with addiction.

The realm of psychotropic substances is largely illegal in most countries, with potential sentences often rivaling those for murder or rape. Throughout history, waves of crime have surged in the parallel trade of these compounds, as governmental efforts consistently fall short in addressing them effectively.

Drugs. The demon of the century, associated with evil, crime, AIDS, madness, and even unemployment, yet their image saturates popular culture, shaping our collective consciousness from a young age. Heroin is depicted as turning individuals into human waste with gangrenous veins, cocaine as transforming them into paranoid, overclocked whirlwinds culminating in convulsions and death. Smoking, lethal though it may be, retains an air of coolness. Alcohol, to be consumed in moderation, stands as our oldest friend, offering assurance and disinhibition.

These substances often serve as perfect scapegoats, deflecting attention from the societal issues of which they are but byproducts, while others are endorsed as an acceptable means of pacifying the masses through cheap catharsis. Amidst the constant duplicity between the war on drugs and its fetishization, the truth about one of the most imposing scarecrows of the past two centuries remains hidden.

Prohibition, marijuana, hippie culture, the American dream, drug barons, and health crises—all these elements trace a journey of almost a hundred and twenty years of images and discourse on psychotropic substances in the United States. The question remains:

ever since then, how did pop culture represent drugs, and how harmful has this representation truly been?

Following the Great War, alcohol emerged as one of the first drugs to be regulated in the 20th century. Prohibition gave rise to a colossal parallel economy and solidified the power of crime syndicates. Beyond failing to curb the supply of bootleg alcohol, prohibition led to a drastic surge in crime rates. The enduring image of old-fashioned gangsters is still romanticized, in part, due to its representation in popular culture, particularly in cinema.

The gangster film emerged in the 1920s, becoming a phenomenon in the early 1930s. In a climate of deep depression and growing skepticism about Prohibition, public opinion criticized the lack of tax revenue from alcohol consumption that the country desperately needed. Almost a decade of prohibition had only increased insecurity, and the smuggling business flourished alongside gang wars. Public attention needed to be deflected, focusing exclusively on the figure of the gangster as solely responsible for the situation.

In this context, gangster films became immensely popular, portraying a meteoric rise and a fall into death—a narrative scheme still used in films by directors like Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma. The gangster, an illustration of the era, fascinated the public, shaping the figure as both the root of evil and a captivating anti-hero.

The eldest of the trio, Little Caesar, unfolds the story of Caesar Enrico Bandello, known as "Rico." A small-time criminal, Rico aspires to become a big boss in the underworld. The film begins with a biblical quote, setting the tone for the classic narrative of the gangster genre—rise and fall.

Rico, portrayed as arrogant and self-assured, represents the flip side of the American dream—aggressively coping with its decay. Despite the criminal acts, the film inadvertently allows the audience to empathize with Rico, elevating him as an icon through death. Rico becomes a symbol, tangible for the lower classes compared to the distant government or law enforcement.

The Public Enemy, directed by William Wellman, delves deeper into the portrayal of ordinary thugs transforming from childhood petty theft to adult lives as big shots of the underworld. The film creates dissonance between the gangster as the root of evil and its representation as an anti-hero. James Cagney's masterful performance makes his character hypnotizing, charming, and visceral.

The gangster becomes the ultimate rebellious figure, embodying a power fantasy where citizens, confronted with their own powerlessness, can imagine themselves. The gangster, like the monster or the Western outlaw, becomes cool to watch.

Released in 1932, Scarface culminates this line of films with its impressive cinematography and willingness to depict a certain level of violence for its time. Tony's pitiful downfall, portrayed radically differently from the 1983 remake, reinforces the gangster's iconic image. Despite efforts to make the gangster the scapegoat, it inadvertently generated the opposite effect. The dissonance between the intended portrayal and reality marked the last stand of a governmental failure. The 18th Amendment's ratification on December 5, 1933, officially ended alcohol prohibition in the United States, just over a year and a half after Scarface was released.

The prohibition may have lasted for a mere decade, but a new scapegoat swiftly emerged: cannabis, commonly referred to as the devil's lettuce. Hemp, once a widely cultivated crop supporting various industries from textiles to food, faced a large-scale disinformation campaign. Intriguingly, the cannabis leaf adorned ten-dollar bills until 1900, underlining its historical significance in the United States.

Not all industrialists embraced this versatile crop. Figures like Lammot Du Pont, threatened by hemp's competition with new products like nylon, joined forces with allies such as Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and William Randolph Hearst, a powerful press magnate. Anslinger, a vocal racist, was elevated to power by his wife's uncle, Andrew Mellon, treasurer of the influential Mellon Bank. Hearst, facing financial losses due to hemp's popularity, used his newspapers to fuel tensions towards minorities.

Anslinger, DuPont, and Hearst.

In the convergence of interests among these oligarchs, the demonization campaign against cannabis unfolded. Hemp, now termed marijuana to evoke images of Mexican smugglers, was portrayed as a substance driving people to madness, turning them into murderers and rapists. This convenient narrative served the interests of industrialists and had a racial undertone. By associating marijuana with African-Americans, it became a tool for oppressing them, leading to absurd and unreasonable penalties that disproportionately affected one population.

Amid Hearst's disinformation campaign, two propaganda films, Reefer Madness and Marihuana, were released in the late 1930s. The Hays Code, imposing censorship for moral reasons, brought a wave of puritanism to cinema. Unlike gangster films, these productions no longer adopted the viewpoint of the gangster but portrayed the upright and honest citizen corrupted by the forces of evil. Reefer Madness and Marihuana depicted dealers targeting young people, contributing to a debacle of bad acting, surreal scenes, and a list of supposed abuses caused by the substance.

While these films may sound false and dissonant to those familiar with cannabis, the propaganda had real consequences. In 1937, cannabis was criminalized by the Marihuana Tax Act, allowing its production only for medical or industrial purposes under heavy taxes. The smear campaign against hemp became a triumph for industrial elites without the consent of the people. Textile and pharmaceutical industrialists preserved their monopoly, and Anslinger and Hearst gained a powerful weapon to target minorities they despised.

According to Anslinger:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, results from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others.”

Explosive tensions were building. Racial injustice, fueled by Anslinger and Hearst, coupled with Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klan terror, had created a volatile environment. Segregation, purportedly promoting separation but equality, aimed at the physical and mental enslavement of a part of the population. In the context of the Cold War, the treatment of African-American citizens tarnished the image of the United States abroad.

The 1950s witnessed a turning point. In 1951, African-American parents led a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, challenging segregation. The Brown v. Board of Education trial concluded in 1954, unanimously voting in favor of the parents, challenging Jim Crow laws for the first time.

The frustration among African-Americans grew, leading to more active activism in the following decade. Names like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, James Farmer, John Lewis, Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young emerged as advocates for peaceful but active resistance. The civil rights movement gained momentum, challenging segregation through protests and acts of disobedience. The first wave in the 1960s culminated in the March on Washington in 1963, with Martin Luther King delivering his famous speech. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, making racial discrimination in voting illegal.

Society's gradual acceptance of African Americans is mirrored in the embrace of their associated music, jazz. However, jazz, long linked with vices, notably marijuana, undergoes a transformation through its association with civil rights movements. The rise of bebop, led by black artists, challenges the demonic image of marijuana. Despite being avid heroin users, jazz icons like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Charlie Parker contribute to the genre's popularity.

In a 1960 Playboy interview, jazz greats Duke Ellington and John Gillespie discuss the link between jazz and heroin addiction, emphasizing the social aspects of the problem. Gillespie recounts firing a band member caught with drug paraphernalia, highlighting the challenges faced by musicians in an environment where addiction is prevalent. The media, perpetuating the association between heroin and jazz, exacerbates societal suspicions, adding another layer of difficulty for black musicians who already grapple with racial prejudice.

While jazz musicians navigate this challenging landscape, society's attitude toward cannabis begins to shift. Although viewed more justly, cannabis possession still carries excessive penalties, reaching up to fifteen or twenty years of imprisonment. Harry Anslinger and his associates persist in demonizing marijuana, propagating the narrative that it serves as a gateway to heavier substances.

Meanwhile, counterculture gains momentum, finding expression in the Beat Generation. The movement, spearheaded by writer Jack Kerouac, becomes popular in artistic and intellectual circles, later caricatured as beatniks. The media perpetuates a fantasized image of these subcultures, projecting it onto the silver screen with films like The Beat Generation in 1959, portraying them as violent and criminal junkies.

This beatnik image lays the groundwork for a pivotal movement of the 1960s—the hippies. The beatnik's liberated lifestyle, long hair, and unabashed substance use become defining features that carry over into the hippie culture, shaping the contemporary conception of drugs in the collective unconscious.

On November 1, 1955, the American forces invaded Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, ostensibly as a liberation force supporting the South Vietnamese army. In reality, it was a new proxy war against the USSR, attempting to maintain Western hegemony in the region. The conflict, supposed to be short-lived, prolonged as the U.S. faced asymmetric warfare, battling guerrilla attacks from the Viet Cong. The war's complexity blurred the line between civilian and enemy, fostering public discontent as casualties mounted.

Faced with public hostility, President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam in 1963. Anti-war movements gained momentum, leading to protests, riots, and increased crime rates. The Hippie movement emerged as a manifestation of this dissent. The Human Be-In in San Francisco in January 1967 and the Summer of Love in the summer of the same year marked significant events in the movement. Woodstock in 1969 drew over 400,000 people for three days.

Artists like Dion Wright, Peter Max Finkelstein, Vaughn Bode, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, and Keiichi Tanaami played crucial roles in visually shaping the movement.

The Hippie movement, primarily a lifestyle and religion rather than a militant ideology, had a profound cultural impact. It rejected institutions, war, and puritan morality while embracing sexual and artistic liberation. Eastern spirituality, particularly influenced by Buddhism, found a place in the movement. However, it was LSD that most significantly influenced their spirituality, becoming a muse for the movement due to its sense of cosmic unity and connection between living entities.

The movement manifested its impact culturally, influencing various artistic domains. The fashion industry adopted the recognizable hippie style with loose, colorful clothing, Oriental influences, free-flowing hair, and vibrant accessories. Psychedelia, an artistic movement inseparable from psychedelic drugs, became a hallmark of the Hippie movement.

The movement influenced literature, with writers like William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and music, particularly psychedelic rock. Iconic artists such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Captain Beefheart embraced psychedelics and their influence on artistic processes.

In cinema, the Hippie movement attracted attention, reflected in films like The Trip (1967), directed by Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson, portraying a nuanced psychedelic experience.

However, by 1968, films like The Acid Eaters and Psych-Out began to exaggerate and exploit the hippie culture, signaling a symbolic end to the movement’s purity. As mainstream culture incorporated aspects of the Hippie movement, it seemed to lose its initial meaning and gradually wane.

From the famed Summer of Love in 1967, the precursor signs of the movement’s demise emerge. As the counterculture gains prominence, an influx of individuals overwhelms the Haight-Ashbury district. The area, unable to accommodate such numbers, witnesses unsanitary living conditions and people sleeping on the streets. The reluctance to work, coupled with overpopulation and irresponsible drug use, transforms the once vibrant hub into a haven of poverty and crime.

The Altamont Free Concert in particular, where a young man is fatally stabbed by Hells Angels providing security for the Rolling Stones, the Manson Family murders, the Berkeley building destruction in April 1969 leading to conflicts with the National Guard mobilized by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, and the intensified criminalization of drugs mark the end of this brief era. The movement loses momentum, attracts criticism, and generates a moral panic about the decadence it supposedly embodies.

Hundreds of thousands, who once believed in the movement and sacrificed for it, face the harsh reality of reintegrating into society. Some do so bitterly, while others continue to jeopardize their health and soul in denial.

Two films encapsulate this era's end: More in 1969 and The Panic in Needle Park in 1971.

In More, directed by Barbet Schroeder, Stefan, a young German in search of thrills, discovers a range of substances, especially heroin, through his relationship with Estelle, a young American woman. The film portrays a journey through the history of drugs, presenting a cold and pessimistic perspective on the future of hippies in '69.

The Panic in Needle Park, directed by Jerry Schatzberg, lacks romanticism. It portrays a bleak reality with no music and no hope. The film depicts the harsh consequences of addiction, with characters trapped in a cycle of toxicity and repeating destructive patterns.

In 1998, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas encapsulates this era through the hallucinatory road trip of two doomed junkies, Raoul Duke and his attorney Gonzo. The film exposes the farcical nature of the war on drugs, where even the most degraded junkie infiltrates meetings attended by clueless authority figures. The story unfolds as two human wrecks locked in a 1950s American way of life bubble, contemplating the reflections the outside world projects into this bubble, ultimately leaving Vegas and the hippie dream to face harsh reality.

As the era progresses, the landscape shifts dramatically. Martin Luther King’s assassination in '68 marks a transition from peaceful civil rights movements to more radical Black Power movements. The far-left, influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideologies, takes center stage, funding themselves through drug trafficking and engaging in clashes with the police.

The FBI’s COINTELPRO seeks to infiltrate and discredit what the government deems identity hate groups. Love and understanding give way to a turbulent period of anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism. The once utopian vision dissipates, and a stark reality replaces the dream.

COINTELPRO

The meteoric rise of the hippie generation in the late '60s and throughout the '70s is swiftly followed by its collapse. The media’s waning interest and the conclusion of the Vietnam War diminish the impact of the anti-war sentiment, leaving behind stereotypes assimilated in popular culture and the harsh reality of years of substance abuse. The sense of connection and belonging, once cemented by love and understanding, gives way to disappointment and bitterness. The counterculture morphs into the punk era, characterized by a more confrontational atmosphere. The dream of snubbing the world’s problems with love and LSD fades, replaced by a recognition that these issues have only worsened.

The new scene embraces extreme nonconformity, rejecting gender norms, decency, and good taste. It seeks to shock social norms and retreats into an exaggerated underground identity, vehemently opposing mainstream culture. This form of nihilism is marked by intentionally self-destructive drug use. Despite the emergence of the Straight Edge lifestyle promoting a healthy and moderate way of life, including veganism, the scene persists in its excesses, involving the consumption of industrial glue vapors or methamphetamine. The Straight Edge ethic even faces its antithesis in the Bent Edge, advocating for the most depraved lifestyle.

Heroin, a constant presence across eras and subcultures, takes on new significance. It becomes a substance of pure pleasure, an escape from society's harsh realities. The film Trainspotting, released in '96, depicts the disheartened youth shooting up to evade the cruel world they cynically despise. The film captures a total loss of references, the necessity to confront the harsh aspects of life, and the looming specter of HIV. While not exactly set in the right spatiotemporal context, the film encapsulates the overall feeling of an era in the Western world.

The failure of the Beatnik and hippie eras prompts a shift in aesthetics and images. Psychedelia loses steam throughout the '70s and has a final hurrah in the disco scene, only to recede significantly in the '80s. The representation of drugs finds a place in the 1983 film Scarface, portraying tragic figures succumbing to overdose, redundant remnants of the American Dream. Cocaine-snorted noses, big guns, and colorful neon lights contribute to a sense of great depression, juxtaposed against the backdrop of capitalism at its peak.

Drugs also emerge in declassified information about activities parallel to the Vietnam War. Project MK-Ultra, human experimentation at the Edgewood Arsenal, and nerve gas tests cast shadows over the popular representation of drugs. Behind Woodstock and promiscuity, the CIA tests the potential of these substances as weapons of war, espionage, and mind control. The Controlled Substances Act, a response to Anslinger's campaigns, materializes as a law making nearly all recreational psychotropic substances illegal.

The '80s witness the crack scare, characterized by a media campaign and demonization of the supposed crack cocaine addiction epidemic. The disproportionate penalties between crack and powdered cocaine reflect institutional racism, disproportionately affecting poor minorities. Michelle Alexander estimates that 88% of crack-related imprisonments are African-Americans, leading to the loss of constitutional rights and the perpetuation of ghettoization.

The '80s and '90s mark a dark age in public opinion on drugs, associated with drug lords, cartels, the crack scare, government mind control projects, and punks shooting up in squats. This era of disappointment, crime, criminalization, and constant sensory overstimulation lays the groundwork for cyberpunk aesthetics in our imagination.

Cyberpunk, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s writings, prominently features drugs. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, released in 1984, portrays the main character, Case, using drugs to cope with his inability to navigate cyberspace after damaging his nervous system. Works like Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell integrate drugs into their narratives, exploring the relationship between substance use and heightened consciousness. In this era, drugs become one of the pillars of cyberpunk aesthetics, inseparable from its birth context.

In the '90s and early 2000s, a fleeting love culture emerged through rave culture — illegal electronic music festivals in nature or squats, where MDMA reigned supreme. The empathogenic and euphoric effects of the substance echoed in the music born from these gatherings. While electronic music had its roots in the '80s with synthwave, synthpop, and Electronic Body Music, it was the advent of acid house evolving into hardcore, gabber, techno, or trance in the '90s that gave true meaning to the rave scene, birthing Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Concurrently, Electronic Body Music led to dark electro and aggrotech, subgenres associated with goth and metal scenes, sharing a mutual influence relationship with the EDM scene, featuring visceral, heavy, and ultra-sensory sounds. Essentially, it is dark music crafted for consumption under the influence of various substances like MDMA, speed, or club psychedelics such as 2C-B.

Artists like Covenant, Suicide Commando, Grendel, Hocico, and Combichrist evoke visceral sensations with tribal and technological sounds, creating music designed to instantly elevate dopamine levels, best enjoyed in specific conditions. These artists seamlessly fit into the soundtrack of any cyberpunk film, embodying both the aesthetic and the end-of-millennium despair, contrasting with the MDMA-induced optimism of traditional rave scenes.

Unsurprisingly, this counterculture is short-lived, collapsing like cyberpunk and others at the century's end, coinciding with economic downturns. As with other countercultures, it gets assimilated and gentrified by the mainstream, giving rise to another portrayal of drugs: the club aesthetics, discotheques, pop house, and cocaine. The pursuit of human connection through music and MDMA transforms into an orgy of bourgeois boredom immersed in sex and drugs, reminiscent of an Eyes Wide Shut-style debauchery.

In terms of representation in entertainment, the era favors lighthearted stoner movies and comedies featuring young people spending their days smoking weed and goofing around. Under the guise of subverting the war on drugs and mocking alarmist prevention campaigns, only a controlled opposition persists. Drugs become a comedic tool, a plot device devoid of relevant commentary on the substances. Characters may indulge in weed, but the underlying moral often suggests they should mature, find stability, and move beyond perpetual adolescence. From counterculture to mass culture, only an aesthetic appropriation remains for entertainment, exemplified by films like The Big Lebowski, How High, Harold & Kumar, and Ted. Despite apparent subversion, these comedies conceal absolute artistic and ideological conformity.

Drugs have transitioned into mass entertainment, pervading gangsta rap music videos, cinema, and the news — simultaneously omnipresent and elusive.

Beneath the constant surface fetishization, the imperative to dissuade people from consuming these substances persists amidst the ongoing War on Drugs, fortified by the post-9/11 War on Terror. Media continually covers crime stories, and prevention campaigns echo the hysteria reminiscent of Reefer Madness. Pseudo-scientific studies, accountable to their funders, support exaggerated claims about substances like methamphetamine melting faces and destroying brains.

The academic paper Methamphetamine: Fact VS. Fiction and Lessons From The Crack Hysteria reveals the lack of rigor in studies supporting these claims. For instance, brain impact analyses often rely on tests conducted on subjects already addicted, lacking a reference to their state before addiction. The control group typically comes from a higher, more educated social class. The narrative ignores the social context, opting to emphasize individual responsibility over social determinism.

Our century's Reefer Madness manifests in films like Requiem for A Dream or Breaking Bad. They sensationalize, featuring close-ups of gangrenous arms or faces hollowed out by stimulants against dramatic musical backdrops. Drugs become both a scarecrow and a dramatic device without substance — a dynamic beneficial to capitalism.

While illegal drugs face demonization, pharmaceutical drugs take center stage. While methamphetamine is illegal, 25% of students have used Adderall for enhanced productivity. The pharmaceutical industry thrives, distributing colorful pills advertised even on television.

Acceptable is the drug that benefits mega-corporations — one glorifying the race for performance, eliminating fatigue, depression, and burnout. It's a mascot for destructive capitalism addicted to inequality, depicted vividly in Martin Scorsese's film The Wolf of Wall Street. Traders, fueled by stimulants, derive quasi-sexual pleasure from their true addiction to money, parasitizing off the suffering of others.

Rap plays the Rockstar, with artists like Lil Pump, Lil Peep, Lil Xan, or $UICIDEBOY$ becoming apostles of benzodiazepines. Legal and relatively accessible, these medications, Schedule IV drugs under the CSA, contribute to a culture of dependency and overdose.

The deadly opioid epidemic in the United States stems from doctors' overprescribing opioids in the 1990s. The number of prescriptions tripled from 91 million in 1991 to 289 million in 2016, leading to unintended addiction when legislation imposed stricter controls. This crisis primarily affects the middle class, revealing a drug-obsessed medical system where private insurances prefer reimbursing pills over expensive therapies.

The opioid epidemic disproportionately affects white middle-class individuals compared to poorer populations unable to afford prescription opioids. The public health narrative differs from criminal narratives, reflecting a systemic issue: Big Pharma's promotion of Oxycodone as a necessity. On the flip side, African Americans face severe penalties for drug-related offenses. The legacy of a system that conditionally abolished slavery but perpetuates forced, unpaid labor in private prisons.

Rappers like Kendrick Lamar address this reality in their lyrics. Kanye's song New Slaves (2013) denounces the enticement of African Americans through capitalism, restricting their escape from their condition. Donald Glover's music video This Is America (2018) emphasizes the fear surrounding a black man lighting a joint compared to mass shootings. The narrative subtly deflects attention from overall panic through entertainment.

The film Moonlight (2016) portrays the story of a young African American navigating a drug-obsessed system. The dealer becomes entwined in selling death to his own community, a closed ghettoization where victims and tormentors are black, but the true culprit hides.

Through this discourse, it becomes evident that, directly or indirectly, drugs are generally linked to a negative connotation, whether in their use or in the social consequences of their representation. The formulation of responsible drug use and potential benefits is notably absent.

Drugs, whether legal or illegal, have been and will continue to be consumed. In this context, it would be more logical to mitigate harmful effects through genuine education, surpassing sensationalism. The illegal status of many substances limits consumers' knowledge, potentially preventing overdoses and complications if users were better informed. Harm reduction involves educating the public about drugs, not to endorse consumption, but recognizing its inevitability and ensuring it happens under optimal conditions. Understanding dosage, precautions, and explaining substance effects are key components. Various platforms and programs aim to minimize risky drug use, reducing the number of overdose victims and harmful drug combinations.

The lack of substance knowledge leads to tragedy, resulting in news stories that fuel demonization. One must question whether withholding vital information perpetuates a convenient narrative.

erowid.org

This narrative has real-life consequences. Criminalizing addicted consumers hinders them from seeking help, and illegalizing substances pushes users to street-bought products, often mixed with more dangerous drugs like fentanyl-cut MDMA. The refusal of supervised injection sites contributes to the spread of diseases like HIV among heroin users.

Improving the situation and drug image requires acknowledging that maintaining an artificial taboo only exacerbates problems. A properly educated society is key, dismissing myths associated with overconsumption post-decriminalization, as seen in the Netherlands. It involves recognizing that drugs have no inherent morality, and societal malaise contributes to severe addiction. For the past century, drugs, like terrorism in recent decades, have served as a convenient scapegoat for terminal capitalism trying to divert public attention from its misdeeds.

Certain substances could be effective treatments for repairing consequences caused by the system that prohibits them. Documentaries like Psychedelic Soldiers highlight MDMA's therapeutic use for veterans with PTSD, and medicinal cannabis proves to be a gentle pain reliever compared to opioids. Drugs can be beneficial, consumed recreationally but responsibly or as a spiritual experience under suitable conditions, conditions often absent from their representation.

Psychedelic Soldiers, MAPS (2017)

…drugs.

Representing drugs in a healthy way.

The United States serves as a perfect example of the consequences of the constant dissonance between drug demonization and glorification. Drugs act as weapons of war, both literally and in a hidden war against the poor and minorities waged for decades.

Alarmist media generates visibility without real information, fostering moral panic. A hedonistic cultural representation fetishizes excess, the star system, sensory stimulation, and consumption.

Approaching the hundredth anniversary of Prohibition, familiar patterns seem to repeat. The narrative of treating addicted individuals as criminals persists, despite insights from jazz musicians in 1960 suggesting they should be treated as sick people.

From the crack scare to the opioid crisis, suffering repeats as long as it serves the agenda of a power unwilling to educate on psychotropic substances.

To represent drugs healthily, it's crucial to step back from their history and recognize them as powerful tools. Directed thoughtfully, this intensity could lead to constructive practices. Money spent in a futile fight against drugs could be invested in repairing lives and raising awareness. A nuanced, less partisan representation encourages responsible use, creating a virtuous circle between reality and fiction—a dream of a better world.

Drugs...

In the English language, the term "drugs" encompasses both prescription medications and substances like heroin, cocaine, or amphetamines. In French, it is a word primarily associated with addiction.

The realm of psychotropic substances is largely illegal in most countries, with potential sentences often rivaling those for murder or rape. Throughout history, waves of crime have surged in the parallel trade of these compounds, as governmental efforts consistently fall short in addressing them effectively.

Drugs. The demon of the century, associated with evil, crime, AIDS, madness, and even unemployment, yet their image saturates popular culture, shaping our collective consciousness from a young age. Heroin is depicted as turning individuals into human waste with gangrenous veins, cocaine as transforming them into paranoid, overclocked whirlwinds culminating in convulsions and death. Smoking, lethal though it may be, retains an air of coolness. Alcohol, to be consumed in moderation, stands as our oldest friend, offering assurance and disinhibition.

These substances often serve as perfect scapegoats, deflecting attention from the societal issues of which they are but byproducts, while others are endorsed as an acceptable means of pacifying the masses through cheap catharsis. Amidst the constant duplicity between the war on drugs and its fetishization, the truth about one of the most imposing scarecrows of the past two centuries remains hidden.

Prohibition, marijuana, hippie culture, the American dream, drug barons, and health crises—all these elements trace a journey of almost a hundred and twenty years of images and discourse on psychotropic substances in the United States. The question remains:

ever since then, how did pop culture represent drugs, and how harmful has this representation truly been?

Following the Great War, alcohol emerged as one of the first drugs to be regulated in the 20th century. Prohibition gave rise to a colossal parallel economy and solidified the power of crime syndicates. Beyond failing to curb the supply of bootleg alcohol, prohibition led to a drastic surge in crime rates. The enduring image of old-fashioned gangsters is still romanticized, in part, due to its representation in popular culture, particularly in cinema.

The gangster film emerged in the 1920s, becoming a phenomenon in the early 1930s. In a climate of deep depression and growing skepticism about Prohibition, public opinion criticized the lack of tax revenue from alcohol consumption that the country desperately needed. Almost a decade of prohibition had only increased insecurity, and the smuggling business flourished alongside gang wars. Public attention needed to be deflected, focusing exclusively on the figure of the gangster as solely responsible for the situation.

In this context, gangster films became immensely popular, portraying a meteoric rise and a fall into death—a narrative scheme still used in films by directors like Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma. The gangster, an illustration of the era, fascinated the public, shaping the figure as both the root of evil and a captivating anti-hero.

The eldest of the trio, Little Caesar, unfolds the story of Caesar Enrico Bandello, known as "Rico." A small-time criminal, Rico aspires to become a big boss in the underworld. The film begins with a biblical quote, setting the tone for the classic narrative of the gangster genre—rise and fall.

Rico, portrayed as arrogant and self-assured, represents the flip side of the American dream—aggressively coping with its decay. Despite the criminal acts, the film inadvertently allows the audience to empathize with Rico, elevating him as an icon through death. Rico becomes a symbol, tangible for the lower classes compared to the distant government or law enforcement.

The Public Enemy, directed by William Wellman, delves deeper into the portrayal of ordinary thugs transforming from childhood petty theft to adult lives as big shots of the underworld. The film creates dissonance between the gangster as the root of evil and its representation as an anti-hero. James Cagney's masterful performance makes his character hypnotizing, charming, and visceral.

The gangster becomes the ultimate rebellious figure, embodying a power fantasy where citizens, confronted with their own powerlessness, can imagine themselves. The gangster, like the monster or the Western outlaw, becomes cool to watch.

Released in 1932, Scarface culminates this line of films with its impressive cinematography and willingness to depict a certain level of violence for its time. Tony's pitiful downfall, portrayed radically differently from the 1983 remake, reinforces the gangster's iconic image. Despite efforts to make the gangster the scapegoat, it inadvertently generated the opposite effect. The dissonance between the intended portrayal and reality marked the last stand of a governmental failure. The 18th Amendment's ratification on December 5, 1933, officially ended alcohol prohibition in the United States, just over a year and a half after Scarface was released.

The prohibition may have lasted for a mere decade, but a new scapegoat swiftly emerged: cannabis, commonly referred to as the devil's lettuce. Hemp, once a widely cultivated crop supporting various industries from textiles to food, faced a large-scale disinformation campaign. Intriguingly, the cannabis leaf adorned ten-dollar bills until 1900, underlining its historical significance in the United States.

Not all industrialists embraced this versatile crop. Figures like Lammot Du Pont, threatened by hemp's competition with new products like nylon, joined forces with allies such as Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and William Randolph Hearst, a powerful press magnate. Anslinger, a vocal racist, was elevated to power by his wife's uncle, Andrew Mellon, treasurer of the influential Mellon Bank. Hearst, facing financial losses due to hemp's popularity, used his newspapers to fuel tensions towards minorities.

Anslinger, DuPont, and Hearst.

In the convergence of interests among these oligarchs, the demonization campaign against cannabis unfolded. Hemp, now termed marijuana to evoke images of Mexican smugglers, was portrayed as a substance driving people to madness, turning them into murderers and rapists. This convenient narrative served the interests of industrialists and had a racial undertone. By associating marijuana with African-Americans, it became a tool for oppressing them, leading to absurd and unreasonable penalties that disproportionately affected one population.

Amid Hearst's disinformation campaign, two propaganda films, Reefer Madness and Marihuana, were released in the late 1930s. The Hays Code, imposing censorship for moral reasons, brought a wave of puritanism to cinema. Unlike gangster films, these productions no longer adopted the viewpoint of the gangster but portrayed the upright and honest citizen corrupted by the forces of evil. Reefer Madness and Marihuana depicted dealers targeting young people, contributing to a debacle of bad acting, surreal scenes, and a list of supposed abuses caused by the substance.

While these films may sound false and dissonant to those familiar with cannabis, the propaganda had real consequences. In 1937, cannabis was criminalized by the Marihuana Tax Act, allowing its production only for medical or industrial purposes under heavy taxes. The smear campaign against hemp became a triumph for industrial elites without the consent of the people. Textile and pharmaceutical industrialists preserved their monopoly, and Anslinger and Hearst gained a powerful weapon to target minorities they despised.

According to Anslinger:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, results from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others.”

Explosive tensions were building. Racial injustice, fueled by Anslinger and Hearst, coupled with Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klan terror, had created a volatile environment. Segregation, purportedly promoting separation but equality, aimed at the physical and mental enslavement of a part of the population. In the context of the Cold War, the treatment of African-American citizens tarnished the image of the United States abroad.

The 1950s witnessed a turning point. In 1951, African-American parents led a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, challenging segregation. The Brown v. Board of Education trial concluded in 1954, unanimously voting in favor of the parents, challenging Jim Crow laws for the first time.

The frustration among African-Americans grew, leading to more active activism in the following decade. Names like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, James Farmer, John Lewis, Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young emerged as advocates for peaceful but active resistance. The civil rights movement gained momentum, challenging segregation through protests and acts of disobedience. The first wave in the 1960s culminated in the March on Washington in 1963, with Martin Luther King delivering his famous speech. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, making racial discrimination in voting illegal.

Society's gradual acceptance of African Americans is mirrored in the embrace of their associated music, jazz. However, jazz, long linked with vices, notably marijuana, undergoes a transformation through its association with civil rights movements. The rise of bebop, led by black artists, challenges the demonic image of marijuana. Despite being avid heroin users, jazz icons like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Charlie Parker contribute to the genre's popularity.

In a 1960 Playboy interview, jazz greats Duke Ellington and John Gillespie discuss the link between jazz and heroin addiction, emphasizing the social aspects of the problem. Gillespie recounts firing a band member caught with drug paraphernalia, highlighting the challenges faced by musicians in an environment where addiction is prevalent. The media, perpetuating the association between heroin and jazz, exacerbates societal suspicions, adding another layer of difficulty for black musicians who already grapple with racial prejudice.

While jazz musicians navigate this challenging landscape, society's attitude toward cannabis begins to shift. Although viewed more justly, cannabis possession still carries excessive penalties, reaching up to fifteen or twenty years of imprisonment. Harry Anslinger and his associates persist in demonizing marijuana, propagating the narrative that it serves as a gateway to heavier substances.

Meanwhile, counterculture gains momentum, finding expression in the Beat Generation. The movement, spearheaded by writer Jack Kerouac, becomes popular in artistic and intellectual circles, later caricatured as beatniks. The media perpetuates a fantasized image of these subcultures, projecting it onto the silver screen with films like The Beat Generation in 1959, portraying them as violent and criminal junkies.

This beatnik image lays the groundwork for a pivotal movement of the 1960s—the hippies. The beatnik's liberated lifestyle, long hair, and unabashed substance use become defining features that carry over into the hippie culture, shaping the contemporary conception of drugs in the collective unconscious.

On November 1, 1955, the American forces invaded Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, ostensibly as a liberation force supporting the South Vietnamese army. In reality, it was a new proxy war against the USSR, attempting to maintain Western hegemony in the region. The conflict, supposed to be short-lived, prolonged as the U.S. faced asymmetric warfare, battling guerrilla attacks from the Viet Cong. The war's complexity blurred the line between civilian and enemy, fostering public discontent as casualties mounted.

Faced with public hostility, President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam in 1963. Anti-war movements gained momentum, leading to protests, riots, and increased crime rates. The Hippie movement emerged as a manifestation of this dissent. The Human Be-In in San Francisco in January 1967 and the Summer of Love in the summer of the same year marked significant events in the movement. Woodstock in 1969 drew over 400,000 people for three days.

Artists like Dion Wright, Peter Max Finkelstein, Vaughn Bode, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, and Keiichi Tanaami played crucial roles in visually shaping the movement.

The Hippie movement, primarily a lifestyle and religion rather than a militant ideology, had a profound cultural impact. It rejected institutions, war, and puritan morality while embracing sexual and artistic liberation. Eastern spirituality, particularly influenced by Buddhism, found a place in the movement. However, it was LSD that most significantly influenced their spirituality, becoming a muse for the movement due to its sense of cosmic unity and connection between living entities.

The movement manifested its impact culturally, influencing various artistic domains. The fashion industry adopted the recognizable hippie style with loose, colorful clothing, Oriental influences, free-flowing hair, and vibrant accessories. Psychedelia, an artistic movement inseparable from psychedelic drugs, became a hallmark of the Hippie movement.

The movement influenced literature, with writers like William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and music, particularly psychedelic rock. Iconic artists such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Captain Beefheart embraced psychedelics and their influence on artistic processes.

In cinema, the Hippie movement attracted attention, reflected in films like The Trip (1967), directed by Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson, portraying a nuanced psychedelic experience.

However, by 1968, films like The Acid Eaters and Psych-Out began to exaggerate and exploit the hippie culture, signaling a symbolic end to the movement’s purity. As mainstream culture incorporated aspects of the Hippie movement, it seemed to lose its initial meaning and gradually wane.

From the famed Summer of Love in 1967, the precursor signs of the movement’s demise emerge. As the counterculture gains prominence, an influx of individuals overwhelms the Haight-Ashbury district. The area, unable to accommodate such numbers, witnesses unsanitary living conditions and people sleeping on the streets. The reluctance to work, coupled with overpopulation and irresponsible drug use, transforms the once vibrant hub into a haven of poverty and crime.

The Altamont Free Concert in particular, where a young man is fatally stabbed by Hells Angels providing security for the Rolling Stones, the Manson Family murders, the Berkeley building destruction in April 1969 leading to conflicts with the National Guard mobilized by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, and the intensified criminalization of drugs mark the end of this brief era. The movement loses momentum, attracts criticism, and generates a moral panic about the decadence it supposedly embodies.

Hundreds of thousands, who once believed in the movement and sacrificed for it, face the harsh reality of reintegrating into society. Some do so bitterly, while others continue to jeopardize their health and soul in denial.

Two films encapsulate this era's end: More in 1969 and The Panic in Needle Park in 1971.

In More, directed by Barbet Schroeder, Stefan, a young German in search of thrills, discovers a range of substances, especially heroin, through his relationship with Estelle, a young American woman. The film portrays a journey through the history of drugs, presenting a cold and pessimistic perspective on the future of hippies in '69.

The Panic in Needle Park, directed by Jerry Schatzberg, lacks romanticism. It portrays a bleak reality with no music and no hope. The film depicts the harsh consequences of addiction, with characters trapped in a cycle of toxicity and repeating destructive patterns.

In 1998, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas encapsulates this era through the hallucinatory road trip of two doomed junkies, Raoul Duke and his attorney Gonzo. The film exposes the farcical nature of the war on drugs, where even the most degraded junkie infiltrates meetings attended by clueless authority figures. The story unfolds as two human wrecks locked in a 1950s American way of life bubble, contemplating the reflections the outside world projects into this bubble, ultimately leaving Vegas and the hippie dream to face harsh reality.

As the era progresses, the landscape shifts dramatically. Martin Luther King’s assassination in '68 marks a transition from peaceful civil rights movements to more radical Black Power movements. The far-left, influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideologies, takes center stage, funding themselves through drug trafficking and engaging in clashes with the police.

The FBI’s COINTELPRO seeks to infiltrate and discredit what the government deems identity hate groups. Love and understanding give way to a turbulent period of anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism. The once utopian vision dissipates, and a stark reality replaces the dream.

COINTELPRO

The meteoric rise of the hippie generation in the late '60s and throughout the '70s is swiftly followed by its collapse. The media’s waning interest and the conclusion of the Vietnam War diminish the impact of the anti-war sentiment, leaving behind stereotypes assimilated in popular culture and the harsh reality of years of substance abuse. The sense of connection and belonging, once cemented by love and understanding, gives way to disappointment and bitterness. The counterculture morphs into the punk era, characterized by a more confrontational atmosphere. The dream of snubbing the world’s problems with love and LSD fades, replaced by a recognition that these issues have only worsened.

The new scene embraces extreme nonconformity, rejecting gender norms, decency, and good taste. It seeks to shock social norms and retreats into an exaggerated underground identity, vehemently opposing mainstream culture. This form of nihilism is marked by intentionally self-destructive drug use. Despite the emergence of the Straight Edge lifestyle promoting a healthy and moderate way of life, including veganism, the scene persists in its excesses, involving the consumption of industrial glue vapors or methamphetamine. The Straight Edge ethic even faces its antithesis in the Bent Edge, advocating for the most depraved lifestyle.

Heroin, a constant presence across eras and subcultures, takes on new significance. It becomes a substance of pure pleasure, an escape from society's harsh realities. The film Trainspotting, released in '96, depicts the disheartened youth shooting up to evade the cruel world they cynically despise. The film captures a total loss of references, the necessity to confront the harsh aspects of life, and the looming specter of HIV. While not exactly set in the right spatiotemporal context, the film encapsulates the overall feeling of an era in the Western world.

The failure of the Beatnik and hippie eras prompts a shift in aesthetics and images. Psychedelia loses steam throughout the '70s and has a final hurrah in the disco scene, only to recede significantly in the '80s. The representation of drugs finds a place in the 1983 film Scarface, portraying tragic figures succumbing to overdose, redundant remnants of the American Dream. Cocaine-snorted noses, big guns, and colorful neon lights contribute to a sense of great depression, juxtaposed against the backdrop of capitalism at its peak.

Drugs also emerge in declassified information about activities parallel to the Vietnam War. Project MK-Ultra, human experimentation at the Edgewood Arsenal, and nerve gas tests cast shadows over the popular representation of drugs. Behind Woodstock and promiscuity, the CIA tests the potential of these substances as weapons of war, espionage, and mind control. The Controlled Substances Act, a response to Anslinger's campaigns, materializes as a law making nearly all recreational psychotropic substances illegal.

The '80s witness the crack scare, characterized by a media campaign and demonization of the supposed crack cocaine addiction epidemic. The disproportionate penalties between crack and powdered cocaine reflect institutional racism, disproportionately affecting poor minorities. Michelle Alexander estimates that 88% of crack-related imprisonments are African-Americans, leading to the loss of constitutional rights and the perpetuation of ghettoization.

The '80s and '90s mark a dark age in public opinion on drugs, associated with drug lords, cartels, the crack scare, government mind control projects, and punks shooting up in squats. This era of disappointment, crime, criminalization, and constant sensory overstimulation lays the groundwork for cyberpunk aesthetics in our imagination.

Cyberpunk, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s writings, prominently features drugs. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, released in 1984, portrays the main character, Case, using drugs to cope with his inability to navigate cyberspace after damaging his nervous system. Works like Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell integrate drugs into their narratives, exploring the relationship between substance use and heightened consciousness. In this era, drugs become one of the pillars of cyberpunk aesthetics, inseparable from its birth context.

In the '90s and early 2000s, a fleeting love culture emerged through rave culture — illegal electronic music festivals in nature or squats, where MDMA reigned supreme. The empathogenic and euphoric effects of the substance echoed in the music born from these gatherings. While electronic music had its roots in the '80s with synthwave, synthpop, and Electronic Body Music, it was the advent of acid house evolving into hardcore, gabber, techno, or trance in the '90s that gave true meaning to the rave scene, birthing Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Concurrently, Electronic Body Music led to dark electro and aggrotech, subgenres associated with goth and metal scenes, sharing a mutual influence relationship with the EDM scene, featuring visceral, heavy, and ultra-sensory sounds. Essentially, it is dark music crafted for consumption under the influence of various substances like MDMA, speed, or club psychedelics such as 2C-B.

Artists like Covenant, Suicide Commando, Grendel, Hocico, and Combichrist evoke visceral sensations with tribal and technological sounds, creating music designed to instantly elevate dopamine levels, best enjoyed in specific conditions. These artists seamlessly fit into the soundtrack of any cyberpunk film, embodying both the aesthetic and the end-of-millennium despair, contrasting with the MDMA-induced optimism of traditional rave scenes.

Unsurprisingly, this counterculture is short-lived, collapsing like cyberpunk and others at the century's end, coinciding with economic downturns. As with other countercultures, it gets assimilated and gentrified by the mainstream, giving rise to another portrayal of drugs: the club aesthetics, discotheques, pop house, and cocaine. The pursuit of human connection through music and MDMA transforms into an orgy of bourgeois boredom immersed in sex and drugs, reminiscent of an Eyes Wide Shut-style debauchery.

In terms of representation in entertainment, the era favors lighthearted stoner movies and comedies featuring young people spending their days smoking weed and goofing around. Under the guise of subverting the war on drugs and mocking alarmist prevention campaigns, only a controlled opposition persists. Drugs become a comedic tool, a plot device devoid of relevant commentary on the substances. Characters may indulge in weed, but the underlying moral often suggests they should mature, find stability, and move beyond perpetual adolescence. From counterculture to mass culture, only an aesthetic appropriation remains for entertainment, exemplified by films like The Big Lebowski, How High, Harold & Kumar, and Ted. Despite apparent subversion, these comedies conceal absolute artistic and ideological conformity.

Drugs have transitioned into mass entertainment, pervading gangsta rap music videos, cinema, and the news — simultaneously omnipresent and elusive.

Beneath the constant surface fetishization, the imperative to dissuade people from consuming these substances persists amidst the ongoing War on Drugs, fortified by the post-9/11 War on Terror. Media continually covers crime stories, and prevention campaigns echo the hysteria reminiscent of Reefer Madness. Pseudo-scientific studies, accountable to their funders, support exaggerated claims about substances like methamphetamine melting faces and destroying brains.

The academic paper Methamphetamine: Fact VS. Fiction and Lessons From The Crack Hysteria reveals the lack of rigor in studies supporting these claims. For instance, brain impact analyses often rely on tests conducted on subjects already addicted, lacking a reference to their state before addiction. The control group typically comes from a higher, more educated social class. The narrative ignores the social context, opting to emphasize individual responsibility over social determinism.

Our century's Reefer Madness manifests in films like Requiem for A Dream or Breaking Bad. They sensationalize, featuring close-ups of gangrenous arms or faces hollowed out by stimulants against dramatic musical backdrops. Drugs become both a scarecrow and a dramatic device without substance — a dynamic beneficial to capitalism.

While illegal drugs face demonization, pharmaceutical drugs take center stage. While methamphetamine is illegal, 25% of students have used Adderall for enhanced productivity. The pharmaceutical industry thrives, distributing colorful pills advertised even on television.

Acceptable is the drug that benefits mega-corporations — one glorifying the race for performance, eliminating fatigue, depression, and burnout. It's a mascot for destructive capitalism addicted to inequality, depicted vividly in Martin Scorsese's film The Wolf of Wall Street. Traders, fueled by stimulants, derive quasi-sexual pleasure from their true addiction to money, parasitizing off the suffering of others.

Rap plays the Rockstar, with artists like Lil Pump, Lil Peep, Lil Xan, or $UICIDEBOY$ becoming apostles of benzodiazepines. Legal and relatively accessible, these medications, Schedule IV drugs under the CSA, contribute to a culture of dependency and overdose.

The deadly opioid epidemic in the United States stems from doctors' overprescribing opioids in the 1990s. The number of prescriptions tripled from 91 million in 1991 to 289 million in 2016, leading to unintended addiction when legislation imposed stricter controls. This crisis primarily affects the middle class, revealing a drug-obsessed medical system where private insurances prefer reimbursing pills over expensive therapies.

The opioid epidemic disproportionately affects white middle-class individuals compared to poorer populations unable to afford prescription opioids. The public health narrative differs from criminal narratives, reflecting a systemic issue: Big Pharma's promotion of Oxycodone as a necessity. On the flip side, African Americans face severe penalties for drug-related offenses. The legacy of a system that conditionally abolished slavery but perpetuates forced, unpaid labor in private prisons.

Rappers like Kendrick Lamar address this reality in their lyrics. Kanye's song New Slaves (2013) denounces the enticement of African Americans through capitalism, restricting their escape from their condition. Donald Glover's music video This Is America (2018) emphasizes the fear surrounding a black man lighting a joint compared to mass shootings. The narrative subtly deflects attention from overall panic through entertainment.

The film Moonlight (2016) portrays the story of a young African American navigating a drug-obsessed system. The dealer becomes entwined in selling death to his own community, a closed ghettoization where victims and tormentors are black, but the true culprit hides.

Through this discourse, it becomes evident that, directly or indirectly, drugs are generally linked to a negative connotation, whether in their use or in the social consequences of their representation. The formulation of responsible drug use and potential benefits is notably absent.

Drugs, whether legal or illegal, have been and will continue to be consumed. In this context, it would be more logical to mitigate harmful effects through genuine education, surpassing sensationalism. The illegal status of many substances limits consumers' knowledge, potentially preventing overdoses and complications if users were better informed. Harm reduction involves educating the public about drugs, not to endorse consumption, but recognizing its inevitability and ensuring it happens under optimal conditions. Understanding dosage, precautions, and explaining substance effects are key components. Various platforms and programs aim to minimize risky drug use, reducing the number of overdose victims and harmful drug combinations.

The lack of substance knowledge leads to tragedy, resulting in news stories that fuel demonization. One must question whether withholding vital information perpetuates a convenient narrative.

erowid.org

This narrative has real-life consequences. Criminalizing addicted consumers hinders them from seeking help, and illegalizing substances pushes users to street-bought products, often mixed with more dangerous drugs like fentanyl-cut MDMA. The refusal of supervised injection sites contributes to the spread of diseases like HIV among heroin users.

Improving the situation and drug image requires acknowledging that maintaining an artificial taboo only exacerbates problems. A properly educated society is key, dismissing myths associated with overconsumption post-decriminalization, as seen in the Netherlands. It involves recognizing that drugs have no inherent morality, and societal malaise contributes to severe addiction. For the past century, drugs, like terrorism in recent decades, have served as a convenient scapegoat for terminal capitalism trying to divert public attention from its misdeeds.

Certain substances could be effective treatments for repairing consequences caused by the system that prohibits them. Documentaries like Psychedelic Soldiers highlight MDMA's therapeutic use for veterans with PTSD, and medicinal cannabis proves to be a gentle pain reliever compared to opioids. Drugs can be beneficial, consumed recreationally but responsibly or as a spiritual experience under suitable conditions, conditions often absent from their representation.

Psychedelic Soldiers, MAPS (2017)

…drugs.

Representing drugs in a healthy way.

The United States serves as a perfect example of the consequences of the constant dissonance between drug demonization and glorification. Drugs act as weapons of war, both literally and in a hidden war against the poor and minorities waged for decades.

Alarmist media generates visibility without real information, fostering moral panic. A hedonistic cultural representation fetishizes excess, the star system, sensory stimulation, and consumption.

Approaching the hundredth anniversary of Prohibition, familiar patterns seem to repeat. The narrative of treating addicted individuals as criminals persists, despite insights from jazz musicians in 1960 suggesting they should be treated as sick people.

From the crack scare to the opioid crisis, suffering repeats as long as it serves the agenda of a power unwilling to educate on psychotropic substances.

To represent drugs healthily, it's crucial to step back from their history and recognize them as powerful tools. Directed thoughtfully, this intensity could lead to constructive practices. Money spent in a futile fight against drugs could be invested in repairing lives and raising awareness. A nuanced, less partisan representation encourages responsible use, creating a virtuous circle between reality and fiction—a dream of a better world.