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SMACK: a junkie's perspective
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From: SharynN at aol.com <SharynN>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:06:46 EDT
I took the liberty of sending SMACK to an acquaintance of mine who is an exheroin addict (as is her boyfriend) and has written extensively about her experience. She's given me the permission to share her preliminary comments with you all:
"My boyfriend is English and read their version and was rather impressed by it. He's also an ex?dict (currently on methadone) and believes that for this sort of book, it is extremely well done.
My concern about all books of this type is that heroin use is inherently glamorous-- the people you want most to deter are those who are most fascinated by the puking and the drama and the intensity. Peter pointed out, however that in this book, there is disapproval of the main characters use
*from within the drug culture itself* -- which is probably one of the few ways to get an anti-drug message across.
So far, I also do like the fact that the girl comes from a middle class background and that the boy has abusive parents, which shows two different types of people getting into trouble.
I absolutely think that kids will find it appealing -- look at the success of CHRISTIANE F. in the 70's (early 80's?) which was similarly about a young, foreign, female heroin addict. the glossary was an important idea. But why was it called SMACK here when it was called JUNK there? [Marc has explained this -- sdn} SMACK is such a 70's term-- it's really not used much in the US or UK except by writers like me when they run out of synonyms, it's not a street term here anymore."
Any questions for her?
Sharyn November
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sharyn November SharynN at AOL.com http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4135
Received on Thu 18 Jun 1998 11:06:46 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:06:46 EDT
I took the liberty of sending SMACK to an acquaintance of mine who is an exheroin addict (as is her boyfriend) and has written extensively about her experience. She's given me the permission to share her preliminary comments with you all:
"My boyfriend is English and read their version and was rather impressed by it. He's also an ex?dict (currently on methadone) and believes that for this sort of book, it is extremely well done.
My concern about all books of this type is that heroin use is inherently glamorous-- the people you want most to deter are those who are most fascinated by the puking and the drama and the intensity. Peter pointed out, however that in this book, there is disapproval of the main characters use
*from within the drug culture itself* -- which is probably one of the few ways to get an anti-drug message across.
So far, I also do like the fact that the girl comes from a middle class background and that the boy has abusive parents, which shows two different types of people getting into trouble.
I absolutely think that kids will find it appealing -- look at the success of CHRISTIANE F. in the 70's (early 80's?) which was similarly about a young, foreign, female heroin addict. the glossary was an important idea. But why was it called SMACK here when it was called JUNK there? [Marc has explained this -- sdn} SMACK is such a 70's term-- it's really not used much in the US or UK except by writers like me when they run out of synonyms, it's not a street term here anymore."
Any questions for her?
Sharyn November
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sharyn November SharynN at AOL.com http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4135
Received on Thu 18 Jun 1998 11:06:46 AM CDT
