What do you know about drugs?

Australia is in desperate need of an educational update on the effects of drug use and demands for social change. Australia has begun to experience an increase in the use of illicit drugs and the misuse of pharmaceutical drugs over the past few years with 8 million, 42% of Australia, aged over 14 years having used an illicit drug, such as Ecstasy, Ice, Cocaine or Methamphetamines.

This web article is advocating for social change by providing a proposal for a website design based purely on Drug Awareness. Drug Awareness, as stated before, is an increasing and dangerous trend that demands for social change and through a website, I intend to inform and educate the general public about the negative effects that can be placed on the user, the family and others through drug use.

The website will have a homepage, this page will be the most captivating aspect of the website as it will have to immediately grasp the attention of its audiences. It will detail the main purpose of the website, incorporating images and a brief factsheet around the history of drugs, including the manufacturing, process and distribution as well as statistics, from ABS (Australia Bureau of Statistics), such as how many deaths per year and incidents of crime related drug use. The homepage will begin to incorporate its haptic interface aspects as it will demand the reader to scroll down at their own pace as well as, similarly to Snow Fall, have tabs at the top of the page that focus on different aspects of Drug Awareness.

Photo screenshotted from the New York Times Snow Fall: Avalanche

The ‘Tabs’ presented at the top of the homepage will include the titles of:

Commonly used illicit drugs
The long-term effects
The short-term effects
Drug in social situations
How drugs are made
How to make a change

‘Commonly used illicit drugs’, this tab will provide readers with a thorough and detailed factsheet about each of the common drugs including, Ice, Cocaine, Marijuana, Acid, Methamphetamine, Ecstacy and Heroin. Under the heading of each illicit drug the factsheet will provide knowledge on what the drug is, stating its origin and scientific name, the chemicals in the drug, including videos and images such as battery acid, rat poison etc, the modes of consumption including oral, injection and inhalants, as well as the forms that the drug can be presented in e.g. rock form, smoke, liquid. These fact sheets will provide an all-inclusive detailed report that will confront yet inform the readers. The idea behind this page is to open people up to the initial dangers of drug through a briefing of its origins.

‘Long-term effects’ and ‘Short-term effects’ will detail the effects of drug use, both long-term and short-term. It will provide an elaborate list with an extensive variety of effects. This tab will include multimodal aspects including interviews by former and current drug users and their friends and family to provide a variety of personal insights into the major damages that drugs can do to not only users but also to their other relationships. It will also display confronting images of before and after shots of the drug users that have abused a range of drugs.

Taken from ABC News

The ‘effects’ tabs will definitely be a confronting page but will be truthful and upfront in attempt to get the message across.

‘Drugs in social situations’ this page will state statistics of actually fatalities that have occured under the circumstances of social situations such as:

Harbourlife Festival, Sydney, November 2014: 1 person
A State Of Trance, Sydney, Feburary 2015: 1 person

The idea behind adding the news stories of the tragic fatalities at festivals, is to raise awareness of deaths that can be easily caused by drugs. This page will not only include statistics but will include, once again, the use of multimodality through adding photos and videos of drug users at festivals and drug related incidents at festivals. This page will mainly focus on the use of drugs in social situations but will also include the use of police prescence and the difference they make.

‘How drugs are made’ this page will focus on the process and the manufacturing of each individual drug. It will factually state each of the negative chemicals produced within the drugs as well as the shocking environments where they are manufactured.

The page will also include crime related information including the charges and jail time behind the manufacturing of drugs as well as drug related crime incidents to further show not just that damages behind drug use but also the dangers of getting involved in the production of drugs.

Taken from Four Corners — The Ice Age

‘How to make a change’ this is the final tab and the final page for my website design, as stated in the title of this page its purpose is to provide a range of ways to help decrease the drug trend and ways to help those who are troubled by the addiction of drugs. It will list a number of phone numbers and websites that are there to provide advice and help such as:

Therefore, after descriptively stating and briefing my proposal for a website design based on Drug Awareness, I intend to reduce the amount of drug users and the amount of drugs consumed in young adults in turn reducing the number of fatalities and drug related health issues.