We’ve all had viral cat videos find their way onto our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We’ll click, watch and continue with our day with a smile. But not all viral videos are cute, or uplifting. Lately, another kind of video is making the rounds. Instead of cute roly-poly pandas frolicking among bamboo shoots, they feature something very different: humans overdosing on heroin.
The viral images are truly shocking, showing overdose victims – often in the presence of little children – unconscious and near death. One featured a couple in East Liverpool, Ohio, who were passed out in their car. Their four-year-old boy sat in his carseat behind them. Another involved the mother of a two-year-old, who overdosed in front of her child at a Family Dollar store in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The latest shows an unconscious couple splayed in strange positions on a Memphis street – thankfully, without kids this time.
Police and others argue that posting these photos and videos will deter drug use. The East Liverpool police said on Facebook: “We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess.” The argument is that if more people knew what overdose really looks like, the epidemic of deaths would end.
Research, unfortunately, shows exactly the opposite. Studies find that the more coverage focuses on the ravages of addiction, the less likely the public is to support effective policies that favor treatment over punishment. These images also have a counterproductive effect on people with addiction themselves: they increase shame, which is associated with relapse, not recovery.
Many still think otherwise, though. It seems like a self-evident truth that no one would willingly choose to wind up in such a situation. And so, the thinking goes, if we can only show people how bad it really is to take drugs, that no one will ever misuse them.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of addictions begin during teenage years – a time in which the brain responds to risk in a quite different way than the adult brain does. While some data suggests that scare tactics work to stop adults from engaging in risky behavior, they do not work for teens. They may even backfire by making youth more curious about drugs.
And once people are addicted, fear and shame don’t work either. The data shows that treatments that involve confronting and humiliating people with addiction backfire. Greater confrontation is associated with increased alcohol and other drug use in four decades worth of studies reviewed here. Showing people videos of their own intoxicated behavior fails to prevent relapse – it actually increases use. Research finds that the more shame people with addiction feel, the less likely they are to recover.
But perhaps the most insidious effects of these videos is on the general public. Studies show that images and stories of active addiction, without information about recovery, cut support for help, like expanding drug treatment.
The problem faced by people with addiction is not that they are unaware of the negative consequences of their condition, but that they can’t see a way out. If we want to end the opioid crisis, we need viral videos of recovery, not overdose.