BBC to show heroin girl injecting in neck

Electronic Telegraph ^ | August 5, 2002 | Macer Hall

[gcruse]

A teenage girl will be shown injecting heroin into veins in her neck and arm in a controversial BBC film about the lives of drug addicts. The sequence is part of Little Angels, a 90-minute programme combining drama and documentary on BBC2 on Aug 13.It shows Michelle Pickthall, an 18-year-old heroin addict from Middlesbrough, preparing a syringe before tilting her head back and wincing as she presses the needle into her flesh.

Although the programme - to be shown just after the 9pm watershed - will not represent the first time that heroin injection has been shown on British television, it is expected to be the most graphic and harrowing portrayal of the act ever screened. The BBC claims that the film, a combination of fly-on-the-wall documentary techniques and drama, is a shocking portrayal of the reality of addiction that does not glamorise heroin.

Paul McGuigan, the director, said the film showed the grim reality of addiction. The decision to include the drug-taking scene had not been taken lightly. "It was something that shocked me when it happened but the cameras were rolling so we decided to include it. I am not a policeman, I am a documentary maker.

"We discussed it extensively with Michelle and her grandparents and among ourselves at the BBC. Michelle was positive that she wanted it shown.

"We decided to include it because it was the reality. It made clear the impact of heroin addiction on someone who started out with such high hopes and who demonstrates great qualities."

Rather than using actors, the film features genuine addicts - Miss Pickthall and 21-year-old Shaun Mann - re-enacting episodes of their lives for the cameras. Neither was paid for taking part in the programme.

The producers' original aim had been to show recovering addicts rebuilding their lives after being released from prison. However, when Miss Pickthall had reverted to drug taking, Mr McGuigan decided to continue documenting her decline.

At one point in the film, Miss Pickthall says: "Heroin made me feel warm, relaxed, snuggled up in 100 comfort blankets. It made me forget everything.

"Heroin never knows when to stop. It will take you to the depths and then go deeper until even death is a risk worth taking.

"And all for those moments, those rare beautiful moments, when all the pain and the ghosts disappear. It will strip away your emotions, including fear."

The way that the film merges fiction and reality, using improvised reconstructions alongside genuine episodes of drug taking, is bound to raise ethical questions about the role of the documentary makers. Drug campaigners have given the film a mixed reception. Rosie Brocklehurst, of the treatment charity Addaction, said: "One of the most important things that we do is to try to show addicts that it is possible to give up.

"It is not our view that shock tactics have no effect but we do believe it is only part of the picture."

A spokesman for Turning Point, a charity that works with drug and alcohol addicts, welcomed the film. He said: "We prefer this approach to the 'Just say no' one because it shows drug users as people."

	26 July 2002: Pupils as young as 11 are turning to drugs
	27 June 2002: Heroin-growing nations begin battle against drugs trade
	18 November 2001: Britain and US plan to stop heroin trade by buying Afghan opium crop

[Libertarianize the GOP]

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[petuniasevan]

documenting her decline

And it IS a decline.

Go all out, filmmakers. Show those strung-out junkies selling their malnourished and diseased bodies to perverts. Show them lying in the gutter convulsing on some tainted smack. Go to the morgue and turn your cameras on the end result of heroin addiction. Not pretty, huh?

Drug abuse is NEVER glamourous. It's for losers ONLY. And you always lose in the end. THAT'S the message the film should convey. Let's hope it does.

[gcruse]

I think by being overprotective of public sensibilities, we do ourselves a disservice. Executions should be public, for the deterent effect. If the state is doing something so bad that it cannot be done in public, then maybe it shouldn't be doing it at all. Ignorance may be bliss, but it fails to allow lessons to be learned from the mistakes of others. Every little druggie just has to find out for herself, because the truth has either been raped and put away, as in the case of marijuana, or it is too unpleasant, as in the case of heroin.