Drugs Dehumanize and Enslave Human Beings

Drugs Dehumanize and Enslave Human Beings The Foundation Against Drug Addiction has launched an ad campaign, inter alia, under the following slogan: “Drugs do not only damage those who consume them”. “Everything has a price”. This campaign aims to raise awareness about the sinister presence of drugs within society. This creative initiative rests upon the idea that the most dangerous aspect of drugs is actually forgetting about what they really are. Worldwide, the propensity of new AIDS infections has been reduced by 17 percent, due to the 15 percent regression of Sub Saharan Africa. About 77,000 people have died due to the AIDS virus, not to mention that about 7,000 children have been infected with the virus. The remaining group where the virus continues to thrive is among sex professionals and drug consumers. It is estimated that about 29 percent of the 2 million Hispano Americans that consume injectable drugs is infected with the virus. AIDS is a social disease that has a lot to do with groups of people who do not respect ethics, and tend to live rampantly. AIDS emerges as a warning, a warning to those who trespass an invisible barrier and lose humanity. The good news is that the effectiveness of antiretroviral treatment in Latin America is higher than the global average, which is 54% of those afflicted. However, although the risk groups are identifiable, few prevention programs aim to target them directly. Drugs are hustled around within marginal environments of misfortune and poverty. There are more than one thousand huts that house those clans who vegetate in brittle situations. In the suburbs of refugees, few are those who reach the fourth decade of existence. There are more than 2,000 clandestine huts and more or less 40,000 mortals of distinct nations. The weakness and fragility of these constructions, the lack of clean and safe water and lighting, as well as the meagerness of health conditions, in addition to the evident depauperation, are the routinely lived surroundings. It astonishes when one sees content, ragged and naked creatures being indifferent about their cruel reality and frolicking between the stocks of garbage piles. The spectacle is so shocking that it makes one’s heart shudder. A separate humanity is what appears upon its worn out dwellings, who have resigned the battle for their comfort and well being. With the stigma that drugs provoke, i.e. a hollow firmness, hardly without even maintaining such firmness, addicts creep about to prepare used up needles. Doesn’t the emptiness of God lead to hopelessness? Hopelessness leads to dehumanization. The human being without God dehumanizes and becomes the enemy of his or her own self. (Translated by Gianna A. Sanchez Moretti). Author and journalist Clemente Ferrer has led a distinguished career in Spain in the fields of publicity and press relations. He is currently President of the European Institute of Marketing. clementeferrer3@gmail.com