Drug Addiction

Today’s Saturday Short is “Drug Addiction” from the 420 series. It’s about Marty and his idealized addiction and equally idealized recovery.

Fun! Everyone’s having it. In the park, in their cars, at the burger stand, even working at the store, teenagers everywhere are finding fun all around them.

But some people have a different idea of fun. This boy has fun stealing a camera. Two Black women find fun in having a conversation and exchanging what appears to be a cough drop. Another boy thinks fun is beating up another, smaller boy with a length of pipe to steal his violin. These, the narrator tells us, are drug addicts who have no respect for The Law.

Look, dude. Just because that one woman gave the other a cough drop does not mean they’re drug addicts. Allergy season is all around us. Do you want them to have sinus infections? That, dear sir, is not fun.

One young man finds fun watching his cigarette burn to ash. Next to him is a table on which stands a glass of water with a knife in it, several pills, some sort of sickle-shaped device, and a wad of cotton. The camera zooms in on the pills.

“The cause of this living death,” the narrator intones, “is a white powder, innocent looking but deadly.”

Cut to an animation of a poppy. The dried sap of this species produces opium which can be refined into morphine used by doctors. This morphine can be further refined into heroin which is all kinds of bad. A cartoon man injects himself with this cartoon heroin from a cartoon syringe.

At this point I avert my eyes from the screen because even a cartoon syringe is too much.

Another drug is marijuana which is nothing like opium in either it’s use or effects. Cocaine is another drug which…QUIT WITH THE NEEDLES ALREADY! Jeez!

I heard MIT was developing a Star Trek-style hypospray. Can they get on with it already?

Men in overcoats enter a room. They are the Narcotics Squad and they’ve just caught them a junkie. You may think that people who use drugs are the lowest of the low, but people from all walks of life use them: homeless people, poor people, people in New York Brownstones, just anyone! Why, even people walking down the street are smoking cigarettes which are still a form of drugs even though no one in 1951 would believe you. There are old men who do drugs, rich boys in tiny bowties, even a teenage boy with a plaid coat that clashes with his plaid shirt. This mismatch of plaid causes the boy to associate with criminals and indulge in petty shoplifting. The shopkeeper chases him until a passing traffic cop snatches the boy up and finds his drugs. Time to haul him off to da pokey!

But first: the trial. The judge asks to see Plaid Boy’s arms. Why, they’re all bruised up! “How long have you been taking heroin?” the judge asks.

“About two years,” the boy mutters. Before that he was a pothead for about 4 or 5 months. How did this start, the judge asks, so we can use you as a cautionary tale? And so the Tale of Marty begins.

One of Marty’s friends was the first to get him all hepped up on the goofballs because addiction is contagious. They began with smoking joints in the void. Immediately they started acting like idiots. They smashed a bunch of soda bottles and smeared their faces with chocolate syrup because their weed was apparently laced with hallucinogens.

Later, another friend who had been watching too much Wheel of Fortune offered an H to Marty. What is that, Marty said forgetting everything he knew about the alphabet. It’s code for heroin, dummy. “Will it make me stupid like the reefers did?” Marty asks. No, it’s a different kind of high, the friend doesn’t say. He dared Marty to take the heroin pill because they’ve regressed to eight years old.

Heroin Friend, like a proper dealer, let Marty have the first taste for free. The next one will cost him $1.50 which is $18.44 in today’s money. Also, he’ll have to buy it from Mr. Sinister who keeps his drugs in the base of his lamp. Better than in the bottom of the birdcage, I guess. Marty buys his drugs while his friend begs for a cut of the profits so he can get his next speedball. Isn’t that what killed River Phoenix? Don’t do speedballs, kid.

Mr. Sinister tells Marty that he’ll get a better high from shooting up than pills and I once again depart the room until all the syringes are put away.

Now Marty’s habit is costing him $7.50 a day or $52.50 a week. ($92.22 and $645.57 today, respectively.) His salary from his part-time job won’t cover his drugs, so Marty begins to steal. His boss catches him and fires him. Now Marty sits in the stoop on the shady side of town tossing a ball in the air all day. His former friends shun him rather than turning him in to the police. His new friends are all on drugs like him.

Marty’s mother notices something is wrong. His pillow is often soaked with sweat in the morning. He won’t talk to her. He’s more sullen than usual. He pawned her pinking shears for drug money, which would have been a killing offense in my house. Mom’s only reaction is to fuss over Marty until he leaves the house. After stealing money from her purse, of course.

As he passes the gas station, Marty’s stomach takes the hint and starts cramping up. He goes inside to blow up the bathroom. The only way he can get enough money to pay for his drugs is to start dealing lamp heroin for Mr. Sinister. The narrator takes a moment to explain how the drugs got into the lamp. The original shipment of heroin came from a crate of South American fish. From there old men cut the heroin with milk sugar and resold it for more money. The heroin was recut and resold until the Crime Syndicate made millions.

At least they aren’t cutting it with fentanyl.

Marty gets a job cleaning windows, but quits because he has a runny nose. He gets more money from petty theft, anyway. And that takes us full circle to the courtroom. Mom speaks up for her son. He wasn’t a bad boy, really. It’s just this…poison…. The judge listens to her pleas and then pronounces the verdict: one year in jail. But, since Mom’s speech touched him, he’ll suspend the sentence if Marty goes to rehab. Next case!

Marty, being a sensible chap, goes to rehab. He goes through withdrawal under medical care in a hospital. Once he’s through the worst of it, he’s sent to a farm where he cuts corn and plays checkers and baseball. He also gets therapy.

Once he’s released he goes back home. Everyone shuns him now because he is a Former Junkie and the 1950s were not a forgiving time. If only they had a long-term community-wide program to help the recovering addict readjust. Why, this one does! And, for some reason, one of Marty’s drug friends is hanging around at the front door. Marty tells him to back off, he’s clean now, and goes inside. Former friend wipes his nose and shuffles off.

Meanwhile, a man examines a pile of peat moss on his desk. Other men smoke cigars, put lids on jars, and fill capsules. Once again, all of this is bad except the cigars. They don’t get you high, they just do long-term damage to your respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

Back to the Fun Kids from the beginning of the short. They’re all chipper and sober as they leave school for the day. One boy bumps into another around the corner. The corner boy offers the good boy a handful of joints. The good kid runs away to alert the cops that there are shenanigans occurring.

Cut to a group of teenagers chatting happily. All of these people are potential drug addicts. On that cheerful thought, the short comes to an end.