The Fly Effect Campaign against Heroin abuse
It is such a pity that a problem previously thought to be confined to cities or even desperate persons is today our main threat. Heroin has deepened its roots among teens and young adults from all spheres of life. This is a report of what the state and the federal governments are doing to curb an “epidemic” that is eating and rotting our society; the evil of heroin abuse. On realizing that it is now difficult to acquire prescribed drugs, the teens and other drug addicts have shifted their attention and are now into the streets buying heroin whose popularity is lately escalating; a situation that is making it highly demanded. However, we tend to ask ourselves from whence the problem has emanated. Ashery, Robertson, and Karol argue that the risks for drug abuse fall into three spheres, which are the individual, the family, and the social environment. The social environments include peers, school, vicinity, and the broader cultural environment (12). We will interrogate what the government and the society are doing to curb the vice eroding our society; a vice that is killing many of our people more than accidents and even diseases.
The campaign dubbed “The Fly effect “is designed to end the abuse of heroin nationwide. It illuminates to the public the big the problem of heroin abuse is and the urgency with which it needs to be dealt with. This urgency pushes the state and the federal governments to step forward and campaign against the use of heroin through legislation. This campaign makes use of media such as Television, Internet ads, the audio media, as well as giving $125,000 to communities that will fight the heroin epidemic. This will help reach a vast majority of the citizens who at this time and age are so well rooted in the use of media. In the ad, Ben Stibbe is featured serving jail time at Green Bay Correctional center for causing the deaths of four people who overdosed on drugs that he had supplied. Brought up in a middle-class Grafton, Stibbe got into drugs at the tender age of eleven and by nineteen years, he could inject himself with a gram of heroin each day. This is according to Davis and Polcyn reporting for Fox 6 now. Later on, he became the county’s one-man heroin supplier. Though it is hard for him to describe how things went on he mentions that he had no morals and can only remember his first-day experience after taking heroin. This has been done to educate the masses on the evils of drug addiction and the impacts it can cause in one’s life. As the audiences watch this advert, they very well relate to Ben’s story a situation that helps get some of them to their senses. The aspect of picking a character who is a victim of the big discussion makes the advert effective. The young adults and the teens can see one of their own, a potential citizen whose life was spoilt by something he would have avoided. The fact that Ben is jailed for a crime he is not directly linked to, as we are not told that he probably injected the bereaved or he forced them to take the drugs makes one question their influence on others concerning this epidemic and one can correct where they have been going wrong.
As Ben is seen behind bars, the viewers realize that it is possible to spend a day without drugs. As reported by Prokupecz for CNN, This may lead them to take action against taking heroin or further step out and be equipped with an overdose-reversing drug known as Naloxone, which is injected into people who have an overdose of heroin. This will be of great importance in aiding those who have been victims of heroin abuse by offsetting the levels of the drug’s concentration in their body and may eventually assist the victims who may never take the drug again. Again, it will be a realization of a long-time struggle.
This ad influences the fight against heroin, an urgent public health crisis. This is by helping combat the increased rate of addiction. This is by increasing the efforts made through enforcement of laws and also the treatment of victims in a bid to keep citizens off the lethal drug as well as other measures have been taken by Drug Enforcement Administration and leaders from both the federal, state and other local leaders are out to fight the peril. This strategy will also put on alert all pharmaceuticals as well as non-medical suppliers who are highly thought to be behind the heroin menace. This will help fight heroin addiction increase by ensuring that the supply of medicine and other health facilities is in the hand of authorized persons and therefore the situation will be easily contained.
The government has been blamed for the increase in heroin abuse after legislation that governed the use of prescription drugs. The pain relievers better known as opioids are pain-relieving medications that reduce the pain intensity reaching the brain and are similar to heroin in terms of their pharmacological effects on the brain. Though they address pain, they have a euphoric effect and can stop breathing when taken in high doses.
This campaign has led to the reduction of illegal use of medicine and in turn, created awareness of what is causing death to many and pain to many families. It is however important that all of us, as citizens and people of the same will, stand up and challenge a common enemy. If we will not unite our hands with the government and together fight this menace, it will continue to hunt and haunt us. It will continue to kill our own parents, children, brother, sisters, and those who are dear to us. If you are victims of heroin addiction, it is time that you stopped and said enough is enough, am not going back to heroin sniffing, injection, or taking again. I stand up to be counted as one of those who overcame addiction. We all have a role to play. We must all stand up to be counted as one of those who joined hands and fought against heroin and all forms of drug addiction.
Works Cited
Ashery, Rebecca S, Elizabeth B. Robertson, and Karol L. Kumpfer. Drug Abuse Prevention through Family Interventions. Rockville, MD (5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville 20857: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Drug Abuse, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, 1998.Print.
Prokupecz, Shimon. “Attorney vows to fight General Eric Holder rising heroin deaths,” CNN. March 10, 2011. Web. 11 April 2014<http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/us/holder-heroin-overdose-initiative/>
Davis, Stephen and Bryan Polcyn. Convicted heroin dealer speaks out about deaths. Foxs 6 now, May 22, 2013. Web on. 17 April 2014. < http://fox6now.com/2013/05/22/fox6-investigators-heroin-dealers-speaks-out-about-deaths/>
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