I recently became aware of an anti-drug campaign coming out of Multnomah County, Oregon, called the Faces of Meth, which appears to have been around since 2004. In that time other programs have grown out of it including a documentary called From Drugs to Mugs, which documents the stories of those who have had their drug use lead them to jails and prisons.
It is part of an effort from the Multnomah County Sheriffs to make teens aware of the realities of chronic meth use in hopes of discouraging them from ending up in the same place. I have written in the past of my skepticism of anti-drug campaigns, but I think that these pictures show a stark reality that speak for themselves. This is a reality that I experience both during street outreach, and working on Haight Street, an area where many runaway youth show up and soon end up addicted to one drug or another (usually meth or heroin). I have watched women go from mildy thin and tired looking, to gaunt and sick looking in short periods of time, and the physical toll often has lasting consequences.
One of the striking images used in the Faces of Meth campaign
Rehabs.com has started a similar campaign called the Horrors of Methamphetamines that includes descriptions of what causes the physical deterioration caused by meth. At least one of the images appears to show a woman who has been severely scarred by burns, though they don’t explain, I am left wondering if they were caused by a meth lab explosion. These events are made common by the presence of amateur manufacturers who use over-the-counter drugs that contain pseudoephedrine to make crystal meth.
What I find most haunting about these images is the sadness in many of the faces portrayed. It reminds me how many of the people who end up addicted to these hard drugs have a history of abuse or mental health issues. I was even left with the feeling, that for some of them, the “after” pictures more accurately portrayed how they felt than their earlier visages.
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