In response to the widespread use of nitrous oxide, the Hauts-de-France Addictions association is launching a new prevention campaign, aimed primarily at young people. A special campaign, since it is the fruit of a collaboration between artists and prisoners.
As the use of nitrous oxide becomes more widespread, particularly among young people, the Hauts-de-France Addictions association has launched a new awareness campaign, called Prototips, against the consumption of this substance, also known as laughing gas. For some ten years now, nitrous oxide has been misused for its euphoric properties.
"We've gone from recreational use to commonplace use".
This gas, which is inhaled with a balloon, is sold mainly in small cartridges, but is increasingly available in large cylinders. This is what prompted the association to take up the problem. The starting point for the project was the realization that containers were becoming increasingly large," explains Isabelle Chatelain, project manager at Hauts-de-France Addictions. We've gone from using them for recreation to using them in a way that's commonplace and potentially very dangerous for people.
Hauts-de-France Addictions therefore decided to launch a prevention campaign, but with a particular approach: it would draw on the experience of people in prison. " We were sure we were reaching a population that had either experimented with or consumed nitrous oxide", says Isabelle Chatelain, " so we were sure we weren't making a mistake, or at the very least we were sure we were, if not right, having a message that would resonate with people who live with this product.
Comics created with the help of volunteer inmates
Workshops are therefore organized with volunteer inmates at the Annœullin penitentiary in the Lille area. Objective number one: to create four comic strips and a flyer. Each inmate contributes his or her own ideas and experiences, to create the stories. All with the help of Céline Lefèvre, author and scriptwriter.
"For example, there's a comic strip about a girls' night out. The one who's organizing her birthday party says she's brought back some proto, and offers it to the others, saying it's cheap and has no side effects. But the next day, one of them has mouth ulcers, another has burnt thighs, one is nauseous, and another whose boyfriend has had erectile dysfunction, so she's had a really bad evening", she recounts.
All the comics, once drafted, are finally given shape and color by freelance illustrator Liiame Surmont.
A rap song
Objective number two of the project: to create a rap song. And here, artist Ismaël Métis is in charge. "I first asked the inmates to write about nitrous oxide, their relationship to it, what they wanted to see in a song. Then I went to meet them and discuss it with them, taking lots of notes. Then I went home, wrote a song and proposed it to them. They corrected and modified it before approving it."
Ismaël Métis then went into the studio to record a track entitled B-12, named after the vitamin that inactivates nitrous oxide, which some consumers take at the same time as the gas in an attempt to limit the risks. "It's a song about a young man who uses nitrous oxide, who makes balloons as they say. Except that, of course, a few things happen to him. He ends up handicapped, as in the case of one of the authors, one of the inmates, who is now in a wheelchair because of nitrous oxide".
This song, along with the four comic strips and the flyer, are already available to associations or social centers wishing to provide further information on this theme. If we save one person, it's madness," says Ismaël Métis. Obviously, we're going to try to save a lot of them, or at least inform a lot of them, and help them. In any case, that's why we're doing it...".
Link to article: Nitrous oxide: a new awareness campaign created by prisoners and artists from Nord-Pas-de-Calais - France Bleu
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