[Drawings of young drug addicts]

Due to addiction being a complex process of illness, there are no available designatory aspects facilitating the pictorial illustration of addiction. To appreciate pictures of young drug addicts, therefore, it is necessary to know in which stadium of the addiction process (intoxication or treatment stadium, or detachment phase) the pictures were taken; when the addiction began (prior to, in the course of, or after completion of puberty), and how long the addiction is pertinent. Pictorial depictions of a 22- and a 17-year-old man, as also of a 15-year-old girl, who are polytoxicomane, and who were in the detachment phase, are demonstrated. The common quality of these pictures is to be noted in the earnestness with which these young people endeavour to recognise the problems of their lives (e.g., the threat to their inner existence); the confrontation of the so-called problemless world versus the problematic drugs world, and to express this pictorially.