Black Tar Heroin

Black Tar Heroin: The End of the Street

1. What drugs were used? How were they taken? How often?

The movie “Black Tar Heroin: The End of the Street” released in the year 2000 depicted five youths namely Jake, Jessica, Alice, Tracey and Oreo who were completely drug-addicted and their health condition started degrading during the span of three years. In the movie, their drug-related diseases and crimes have been clearly portrayed with utmost efficacy. Five of them were addicted to the Black Tar Heroin, one of the deadly toxin which might kill their lives. There are various scenes that revealed how the youths were shooting up the drug in their toes, necks, groins and many other places which have an unmined vein. They used to take heroin very often to let go their depression off from their lives.

2. What factors led to use/addiction?

The movie reflected the story of five ‘depressing parade of lost and wasted youths’ who have been severely addicted to the Black Tar Heroin. It has been picturised in the film that the kids or the five youths were completely lost and were absolutely spoiled brats. The depression has cropped up their minds as five of them find the middle and upper class junkies live nicely with all sorts of resources and facilities which they are deprived of as they belong to the suffering lower class of the society. Being homeless and poor, Jake, Oreo, Alice, Jessica and Tracey were living a much stressful life. This situation had provoked these youths to get addicted to one of the most deadly drug Black Tar Heroin.

3. What symptoms were portrayed to result from this drug use? To what extent were these symptoms predicted by the class materials? To what extent did these symptoms fail to comply with your expectations?

In the concerned movie, the five youths have been described in such a way so as to show their helplessness, poverty and deprivation faced for belonging to the lower class of the society in comparison to the middle and upper classes junkies. It has been perceived that due to the overuse of drugs, five of them had been driven into prostitution, male prostitution, AIDS, HIV, etc. Even they had been charged for burglary. In the movie, the drug-related diseases and offences caused by the five of them have been clearly reflected giving the viewers a picture of how the innocent youths had been transformed into criminals and prostitutes due to the influence of the social pressure. In context with the movie plot, the people belonging to the middle and upper classes of the society might not have predicted that they would go so far or become criminals due to the overdose of the drug. But on the contrary, the expectations or the predictions of the people had proved to be false in the due course of the film.

4. How was drug use integral to the plot of the story? Did it seem realistic? Why or why not?

The drug use is the climax of the story as it revealed how the five youths had been addicted to the Black Tar Heroin and committed several crimes and also undergone many diseases. The plot seemed very realistic and nowadays, the drug use of the poor and homeless youths is very predominant.

5. What happened to the main drug-using character(s) (e.g., How did they start off and how did they finish?) Did it seem realistic? Why or why not?

The youth were completely addicted to the drug. However, the main characters in the film tried to cope up with the drug use. Jessica had HIV who was raped by her grandfather at the age of 18, Oreo was situational homosexual, and Tracey spent 8 months in jail and ended up in getting engaged in an abusive relationship and returned back to dealing and using. Later all the main drug use characters tried to get rid of drug addiction thereby ensuring own well being.