Raw Opium: documentary trailer

[Video Link]

Raw Opium is a journey around the world and through time, where conflicting forces do battle over the narcotic sap of the opium poppy. From an opium master in southeast Asia to a UN drug enforcement officer on the border of Afghanistan hunting down the smugglers of central Asia; from a former Indian government Drug Czar and opium farmer to a crusading Vancouver doctor and Portuguese street worker who daily confront the realities of drug addiction.

Raw Opium: A feature documentary about a commodity that has tremendous power - both to ease pain and to destroy lives

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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fnc

‘..the first time I tried an opiate one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was “I feel normal now”‘

Interesting. I preach compassion for addicts instead of prosecution, but I have to admit that it’s hard, VERY hard to maintain sympathy for someone who seems to have willfully chosen (and I realize that’s a loaded assumption), sometimes after being given multiple avenues to a non-addicted life, to return to laying in a puddle of bliss while wasting away on the sidewalk. For a ‘normal’ person, making that particular choice is such an affront to the things we revere that the prosecution path seems almost, almost, to be a fitting punishment. I’m not saying it justifies the approach our society has taken, but I can see both glimmers of the other side on this issue (but if you get right down to it, the prosecution side is not being entirely honest about its reasons).

But your statement brings up an aspect that I’d never thought wonder about before. Is there a spectrum of response to drugs? What makes the difference between those people who use it to function, and the person who is completely changed into an empty husk that lives only to seek more of the drug? Is there a genetic aspect, personality perhaps? At any rate, it’s a sad tragedy to me that society’s response to this particular problem seems so one dimensional when there are as many catalysts and potential avenues of response as there are people involved.
- Wickedashtray
  
  Interesting. I preach compassion for addicts instead of prosecution, but I have to admit that it’s hard, VERY hard to maintain sympathy for someone who seems to have willfully chosen (and I realize that’s a loaded assumption), sometimes after being given multiple avenues to a non-addicted life, to return to laying in a puddle of bliss while wasting away on the sidewalk
  
  I make no excuses for myself or anyone else, as group, opiate addicts are probably some of the LEAST sympathtic group of folks to feel sorry for. Annoying, lying, ignorant, etc. Unfortunately the fact is that most addicts will claim the were initially given pain meds long ago and the doctor “got me hooked on them”. It serves two purposes: it makes them more of a victim thus more sympathatic and also makes them feel that they bear no responsibility for it. In fact, most get into it by means of having been a druggie growing up and Heroin was this dark monolith and its attracted ppl like me who simply thrilled at the danger but getting an equally thrilling pay off.
- krawll3r
  
  Not everyone who takes drugs or tries them and really likes them is an addict. Not every addict is “wasting away on the sidewalk” either. I can say it can be an ugly path, but you can’t preach it out of anyone.
Don

Oh I don’t think they want people to suffer, they just put a higher priority on the drug war, and the benefits it produces for them, than on the suffering of people they don’t know. Which, IMHO, is more monstrous than what you suggested.
Antinous / Moderator

For myself, the first time I tried an opiate one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was “I feel normal now”.

Definitely true for me, although in my case, it’s because I have Ehlers-Danlos. My first thought was, “Oh. Is this how everybody else feels all the time?”
Anonymous

I’m interested in watching this documentary. I have Crohn’s disease and it’s been flaring up more than ever in the past 6 months, requiring 3 hospitalizations. Until recently the symptoms have been under control, but I’ve been hospitalized 3 times in the past 6 months and have been in a lot of pain. My physicians have tried various drugs, the most recent of which is remicade, which is working for the most part.

But the pain keeps coming back. I keep feeling painful cramping, at times so severe it keeps me up at night or prevents me from focusing on my work during the day. The only thing that has helped me in those times of severe flare ups has been opiads. Specifically dilaudid intravenously while I was in the hospital and percocet orally afterwards.

I do not want to become addicted, but some of these drugs have enabled me to function as a normal human being where otherwise I’d be doubled over in pain.
- krawll3r
  
  I was trying to make this point exactly. The opium poppy is a “gift” from nature (or god if you like). It really helps those in need. Surgery? Child birth? Brain tumors? Migraines?
Dan Mac

Interesting trailer, particularly for the addict images in downtown Vancouver. It looks like the filmmakers have been read the riot act by the activists in the neighbourhood in terms of not being able to portray the addicts one on one in anything but a “dignified” or “heroic” manner. Nothing wrong with that but it is staged. There is one quick image of the most popular shooting gallery laneway which they shot at night, without focusing on any one individual, but I am pretty sure this was shot without their handlers being around.
Heroin in Vancouver is a political game as well as a law enforcement game. There are a ton of $80,000 public service jobs that depend on dealing with the addicts. Few of them are there to eliminate the need.
Current spending in the area (Downtown East Side)is a million dollars a day.
The Globe and Mail did a very good multi part series on it a last year:
http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/thefix/
- Anonymous
  
  The issue with how Downtown Eastside addicts are presented…well, these are people who have extremely limited means to defend themselves or advocate for their own rights and who are at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. And on the basic issue of privacy, well, you don’t want your face to show up on TV portraying you as an addict without your consent. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to be caught on camera going into InSite or something unless I was certain my face wouldn’t be in the shot. Who would consent to being portrayed as addicts if they WEREN’T sure it would be in a “dignified” way? The notion that these people have “handlers” is a bit strange to me… really, it’s a small number of activists working very hard to protect the few rights remaining to hundreds and hundreds of people who are extremely difficult to reach out to and work with.
  - Dan Mac
    
    @Anon #11 I agree with you in general on the all of those points,(except for portraying people onscreen as addicts without their consent. The companies lawyers would not allow it without a signed release as it exposes the entire film to litigation). My issue is with the sense of “documentary” being a defined way of shooting a film from spending time with the subject and finding them in their element to relay whatever is their reality, and making your own impressions as a viewer.
    When one films a staged interview, with a preset series of interview/presentation conditions in order to gain access to the subject, you should be honest with your viewers, and not simply present it as a found “truth”. Otherwise, it is slips into advocacy journalism, which bears a striking similarity to corporate information videos, and reality TV shows.
    There is not much difference between that and the prestaged reality of filming anything in North Korea with a willing but coached participant who will answer all questions, within “boundaries”, or megaoilcorporation showing us how green they are.
    In the trailer, a needle is shown in the gutter. Is this how it was found, or did one of the filmmakers put it there in order to get a what is a striking shot? The filmmakers have to be honest with us as viewers in order to be seen as documentary filmmakers. Credibility follows a certain path.
    - Anonymous
      
      Hi, Anon from earlier again…
      
      A needle in a gutter is not a difficult thing to find on East Hastings. I make sure to watch my step whenever I’m down there.
      
      In regards to your other points… I can’t help but feel that any documentary, no matter how neutral it attempts to be, will always bear a certain degree of bias; in how it’s cut and edited, what is included and excluded, what is the focus and the narrative, what music is used and when, etc. It’s impossible to totally remove the subjective aspect from a subjective medium like film.
      
      That said, I’m also suspicious of overtly manipulative films, and know there’s a point at which it crosses over into propaganda. I’m just not particularly worried about that happening in the case of discussing Downtown Eastside drug addicts, at the hands of activists. Propaganda tends to show up a little more in terms of maintaining public support for the drug war.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  “There are a ton of $80,000 public service jobs that depend on dealing with the addicts.”
  
  I agree with you, there ARE too many cops getting paid too much for ineffectually “dealing with” these addicts.
  
  Time to legalize the business and to distribute doses to the addicts, by the Government, at cost – in return for registration as an addict.
  
  Then we can finally lay off some of those high-priced police officers, and hire more nurses and doctors.
  Enough burning of public money to cruelly punish the sick.
  - Dan Mac
    
    @Ugly Canuck #12.
    I agree, and I am sure the cops would love to be free of the whole issue as well. They have come out numerous times stating that the drug problem in the DTES is a social and political concern, and saps too much of their budget and resources. Just looking on Google street view at the corner of Main and Hastings with the open air drug market in full bloom (across from the Police Station at Main and Cordova) shows they have given the streets over to the dealers and addicts under political pressure to keep their hands off and not get the City involved. Not a cop to be seen in any pics. City Hall is afraid of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU http://www.vandu.org/), even though they fund them, as they don’t want the political fallout of cleaning up the area.
    My issue with the whole structure, (echoed by others including addicts), is that an entire civic personnel structure is being built, with the option of getting off of drugs not being offered. More than one addict has voiced their concerns publicly that the structure is in place for one to continue on in addiction, and be assisted in terms of housing, food, and health concerns, but there is no option available if you want to get off H.
    At what point does the infrastructure become self serving, and needing a constant fresh supply of addicts, and a reluctance to let addicts get away with treatment?
    Again I refer back to the Globe and Mail series which shows City Hall pouring tons of money into the area, but a lot of it being spent on “professionals” and “advocates” and not so much on the addicts themselves.
    Or look this boneheaded film from a guy who purposely decided to get homeless and wend his way through the DTES using the services available to him as a homeless person until he was shooting up in INSITE:
    http://youtu.be/I6-1oo-b3Ds.
    He has got an odd agenda, but he does show a good portion of the services he is offered. Getting off drugs ain’t one of them.
noahveil

Why are they burning all that opium instead of turning it into perfectly legal morphine? We buy our opium from poppy fields in Tazmania. Why don’t we just buy it from Afghanistan?
Wickedashtray

I was a hardcore addict for over 20 years. There is nothing, in my mind, more wasteful than the US Govt. spending resources in an attempt to stop production of almost any drug but especially heroin. It often reminds me of the music industry’s laughable attempts at trying to stop piracy by either suing individuals or guilting people into paying via PSA’s. As a quote from the trailer says “we need to find out why people are using it”. For myself, the first time I tried an opiate one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was “I feel normal now”. For a very small percentage of people, this a common reaction. On the other side, 99% of folks who are given morphine hate it. The latter who have to take opiates to deal with long term pain usually go through minor withdrawal and don’t engage in drug seeking behavior to sustain it. Its been theorized that addicts may lack a certain chemical relating to pleasure/behavior and given my own experience plus speaking to other addicts I firmly believe this has some validity.

My point is that after 40+ years of posturing/grandstanding by politicians in regards to “The War on Drugs” its obvious that what they’re doing isn’t effective or efficient. It wastes public money at a time when we can’t afford it and criminalizes behavior that should be deemed a medical condition and not a criminal one. Perhaps we could start spending money on a little R&D to find out the WHY’s and perhaps come up with new treatments that don’t chain people to a draconian system of jumping thru hoops (Methadone) or cost more than many make in a month (Buprenorphrine)
- hassenpfeffer
  
  Pretty much what Wickedashtray and his/her posse said. If people *do* have low levels of natural endorphins/opiates in their system, what’s the problem with supplementing them? Is it any different from giving Prozac to someone who allegedly has low serotonin levels or Valium to someone with low GABA levels?
- Anonymous
  
  Re: “I feel normal now”
  
  Also seconding all of this.
  
  I have an extremely painful genetic disorder a la the elephant man’s disease that is slowly and agonizingly killing me and destroying my body. Opiates are the only thing that provide any relief and normalcy in my life. Of these, heroin is the only one that has been able to actually take the pain away.
- Tau’ma
  
  “US Govt. spending resources in an attempt to stop production”
  STOP production? US Govt. spends resources to CONTROL production. Raw Opium is a huge resource controlled by, and used for control by, the US Govt., IMHO.
hadlock

We’re spending over six BILLION dollars a month in Afghanistan. How much of the opium crop (i.e. the financial engine of the country) does that buy you? 10x? 100x? The entire GDP of Afghanistan isn’t even 15 billion dollars. We could buy off the country by February and send the insurgents on vacation to the Bahamas for the rest of the year, or build them all California-style McMansions (with modern utilities) and send their kids to 4 year western universities (airfare included).

The economics of the war are mind boggling. Forget the reason for it.

What would you do with $110 billion dollars?
- WizarDru
  
  “ The entire GDP of Afghanistan isn’t even 15 billion dollars. ”
  
  Does that include the illicit drug trade? Opium exporting was a major part of the Taliban’s funding and continues to thrive, even if it’s part of a Black Market economy.
Anonymous

” For myself, the first time I tried an opiate one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was “I feel normal now”.”
…
” Its been theorized that addicts may lack a certain chemical relating to pleasure/behavior and given my own experience plus speaking to other addicts I firmly believe this has some validity.”

I second these statements.
hassenpfeffer

As far as the lying/sniveling addict bit, do you honestly think people would act that way if there were an open market for opiates? What if cigarettes were available only by prescription? You’d see an awful lot of lying, sniveling smokers making constant trips to doctors paranoid to write prescriptions for them because the DEA is watching every. single. script. they write.
krawll3r

I would doubt that this doc has any focus on the medical implications. Opium creates many drugs to ease pain of severely uncomfortable, and dying individuals. Yes, they do have Opiods, but those do not have the same effect. You have to take the good with the bad sometimes. If you are going to do a documentary, all sides should be presented. My opinion.
Don

To meet the existing unmet need for pain relief, the world supply of opiates would have to increase 30%. I find that a staggering amount—particularly since I can vividly remember the last time I needed a couple of milligrams of morphine for pain. It’s easy to forget that opium is medicine.

The most memorable part of my college anthropology course was learning about some people in the hill country at the Thailand/Burma border, who grew opium as a cash crop. Opium was not particularly lucrative: if you grow opium on a given piece of ground, sell it for cash, and buy rice with the cash, you end up with less rice than if you’d grown rice in the first place. But the ground needs to rest about six years between rice crops, while opium can be grown on the same patch year after year. So people who are forced onto smaller plots of land grow opium because they must.
- hassenpfeffer
  
  I can only conclude that governments, particularly the US gov’t, *wants* people to be in pain. Every year they lower the amount of prescription opiates that can be produced or distributed here, even as the population grows and ages. Yet another way to keep us quiet and humble.
Anonymous

The spice must flow.