Introduction
Drug addiction is an alarming issue affecting millions of people worldwide. The aftermath of substance abuse can be detrimental in all spheres of life. There are various methods of trying to combat this phenomenon, and one of them is informing people about the danger of drugs through cartoons. Nuggets is a cartoon that has a powerful and convincing anti-drug message. It communicates to the viewers the real aftermath of addiction through a metaphorical explanation of mental and physical health degradation.
Discussion
One of the most important consequences of using drugs is mental health deterioration. When the drug effect is over, a person experiences symptoms similar to depression, and the longer the addiction, the stronger the symptoms. The cartoon depicts it through the colors: the main character, a bird, lives in a black-and-white world. But as soon as it finds golden nectar and starts consuming it, its world becomes colorful. Every time the effect of the nectar passes, the real world becomes darker and darker until it becomes completely black (Hykade, 2014). This is an illustrative example of how drugs affect mental health.
Another drug abuse consequence is the loss of physical health. Substance abuse can lead to all types of health problems, a lot of them can be fatal. The cartoon illustrates this issue by making the main character a bird that cannot fly and can only walk. The golden nectar gives the bird the ability to fly, but every time the effect is over, the bird struggles to walk. In the end, the bird can neither fly nor walk (Hykade, 2014). This happens to humans as well: they believe that drugs help them to accomplish things they are not capable of accomplishing when they are sober, but in the end, addiction can take away even basic skills.
Conclusion
To conclude, the cartoon’s metaphor represents the gradual degradation of a drug user’s mental and physical state. At the beginning of the cartoon, the bird gets addicted to how it feels with the drug, however, as the addiction progresses, the character sees the world in darker colors and cannot walk anymore. The same can be applied to people who go through the same process after getting addicted. In the end, a drug addict loses their happiness and health.
Reference
Hykade, A. (Director). (2014). Nuggets [Cartoon]. Studio Film Bilder.