Station 11

The artist's comment

The setting is dark, secluded, and further hemmed in by a low-hanging ceiling with wooden beams; this element suggests the psychological oppression of the slavery of drug addiction.

In the half-light the protagonists are hardly identifiable, submerged into the shadows: drugs de-personalize, the users suffering the loss of their individuality.

Drug addiction is a social disease which strikes indiscriminately, both adults (in the background) and children (in the foreground). What light there is comes from a window and from an electric bulb hanging from the ceiling: the logic of nature and the logic of the intellect shed their light in the room. That is to say they commandeer it and condemn the scene by casting long shadows reaching deeply into the twilight of death (symbolized by the dark cloth handing on the wall to the left) and into the chasm of violence (symbolized by the red cloth in the foreground).

I didn’t have to travel any farther than my office to be placed face-to-face with this station, which substitutes needles and syringes for the nails and thorns of Jesus’ crucifixion. The telephone call was from a colleague asking if I could cover her responsibilities because she had to attend the arraignment of her two sons, arrested during the night for trafficking in drugs. The older, 20, recruited the younger, 15, to transport the contraband. The police had set up a sting operation. They each ended up with a four-year prison sentence.

The schools of my province, like schools throughout North America, spend enormous resources and energy reacting to the reality of students caught in alarming nationwide trends of adolescent drug use. No effective means has been yet found to keep students drug-free, alcohol-free, tobacco-free. Civil authorities propose mandatory random drug screening. Schools set policies to help those students willing to be helped. Drug rehabilitation centers proliferate, but recidivism is high. Drug dealers, on the other hand, unscrupulously keep exploiting the insecure adolescent with disposable cash.

Among the graduating class of 18-year olds in the U.S., more than half had used an illicit drug by the time they finished high school, continuing an upward trend from 40 percent in 1992. Half used marijuana at least once a year, up from 33 percent in 1992. For the same group, use of cocaine increased in one year from 7.1 percent to 8.7 percent, the highest rate reported since 1990. (cf. www.nida.nih.gov)

The most heartbreaking aspect of the adolescent drug plague is that, due to peer pressure, it recruits the very young through a sinister kind of initial formation. For twelve-year olds and younger, the use of inhalants, which include glues, aerosols, and solvents, is often the first fascination. One in five take the first whiff before the 8^th grade; then it is on to the other readily-available party and “boasting” drugs— alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana—before joining the ranks of more regular high school abusers.

We give voice to the prayer of young people addicted to drugs

Psalm 55

I can see nothing but violence and strife in the city. Night and day they patrol. It is full of wickedness and evil; it is full of sin. Its streets are never free from deceit. If this had been done by an enemy I could bear it. But it is you, my own companion, my intimate friend ! How close was the friendship between us. We walked together in harmony. The traitor has turned against his friends; he has broken his word. His words are smoother than oil, but they are naked swords.