Victims of Drug Abuse

 A drug is a substance which may have medicinal, intoxicating, performance enhancing or other effects when taken or put into a human body or the body of another animal and is not considered a food or exclusively a food.(1) The use of drugs has spread a lot in America since 2011 especially among Americans aged twelve years or older.(2) Drugs not only affect the person taking the drugs but also that person’s family members.

I found an article in a newspaper, The New York Times, about a 73-year-old man from New York City named Pedro Marrero. Marrero talks to The New York Times about his family and states that since his grandsons’ father was in the jail as he was a drug dealer and their mother went on the streets after drugs, he had no other choice but to take his grandsons with him. This is because he knew that if he would have left his grandsons that time, then he would have never got to see them again. Pedro Marrero also talks about his other son who was shot to death during a drug deal and due to this incident Marrero’s wife killed herself. Mr. Marrero’s younger daughter is in jail, too, for drug felony. His elder daughter could not take any of the family’s shame and therefore, decided to move to Florida. In addition, Marrero spoke about the fact that there was help for drug addicts everywhere and no help for the drug addicts’ families. He came across La Bodega de La Familia, a new drug crisis center for families of addicts and not the addicts themselves that helped and comforted his family and him. La Bodega helps the forgotten victims of drug abuse. La Bodega helped Marrero’s grandson to get back to school and also helped take tests to check whether he had learning disability or not.

La Bodega de La Familia opened last October and serves 30 families. It has therapy sessions every Monday night for parents. The Director of La Bodega, Dr. David C. Lewis, feels that there needs to be more programs like this. He added that the health-care cost of the family members would decrease automatically as soon as the addicts undergo treatment.(3)

(1) Drug, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug
(2) “DrugFacts: Nationwide Trends,” National Institute on Drug Abuse: The Science of Drug Abuse and Addiction, http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
(3) Christopher S. Wren, “Drug Program Helps Forgotten Victims,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/25/nyregion/drug-program-helps-forgotten-victims.html

Medium: Spray and acrylic paint on paper