A Step You Don’t Need

Ольга Станкевич против наркотиков
Ольга Станкевич
Ольга Станкевич против наркотиков

Olga Stankevich took part in the “There Are No Soft Drugs” teleconference bridge, held by Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation and the biggest Russian media outlet “RIA NOVOSTI” on the 25th of January. The conference between Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tomsk was a part of a pan-Russian counter-drugs Internet-lesson “I Have a Right to Know”, and it was broadcasted on the many schools of Russia.

The composer’s participation in the counter-drugs events is not accidental. Being a classic music lover, Olga avoided getting in with a bad crowd of the St. Petersburg’s outskirts when she was a child. But she had seen her schoolmates and acquaintances, whose lives were ruined by the drugs. Now, when she has two kids, Olga is seriously willing to save them from destructive and deadly temptations. “If I can prevent at least one teenager from stepping across this line, I can call my participation in the counter-drugs events worthwhile,” Olga said.    

Dear Friends,

The subject of a drug addiction between young people resulted from their instantaneous, impulsive choice and loss of priorities or by misunderstanding of the consequences, or by the lack of belief in their future makes me feel a storm of protest. I wanted to say a lot about it on the conference, but it was hard to concentrate. The main idea I was trying to get over to the teenagers was that people sell their souls to the devil by pieces each time they are allured into doing something they must not do, or not doing something they must.  Once you make the first step, the evil stops being evil for you, it turns into something admissible and it will repeat again and again, destroying the humane, creative, beautiful parts of your personality. 

In the USA and Great Britain I’m represented by my friend. He is a most interesting person, a legendary transatlantic music manager Steven Machat. He knows the Hollywood’s show biz tails like nobody’s business. He worked with a great number of celebrities; among them are Leonard Kohen, Ozzy Osbourne, Genesis, ELO, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Seal. He released nearly nine hundred music albums and provided about a hundred famous movies with the music. In addition I can say that Steven is a great person to talk to, and we’d often discussed the world’s celebrity’s careers with him, and the tragedies the drugs brought into their lives. 

It is not a secret that artists are game for anything to stay popular and be on the top as long as possible. Once Steven said, that some of them created a style that was unnatural, conflicting with their character at the very beginning, and they have to live with it till the very end. But it is impossible to spend the whole life pretending. A life-time mask can never give any peace and satisfaction to person, especially when drugs are a very important part of this artificial personality.   

Some of those artists have to get knocked out again and again to create the new music, some of them use drugs to relieve their pain after the plastic surgery, and some need drugs to avoid stress. The more time passes like this, the less effect gives their usual fix, and the bigger fixes they need. Soon there are only their famous names and old hits remained of such musicians, because they can’t create the new music anymore. The new empty spaces appearing in the music industry could be avoided if the musicians were following their nature instead of trying to deceive it. 

Now we know drugs destroyed a most talented singer Whithey Houston, who tried to lose weight this way, and the greatest showman Michael Jackson, who used drugs to fight his pain and stress. Even if marijuana and alcohol help the creators make the unusual pieces of art by taking them somewhere beyond the reality – I believe the same creators could have given much greater things to the world, if they had found another way to withstand their fears and use their own sources.

Being in the center of the world music industry for already 35 years, Steven Machat had seen lots of ups and downs, connected with the drugs. When he heard of this conference, he made a video message, where he showed the danger of the soft drugs by the example of the gone pop-king Michael Jackson he’d worked with at the beginning of his career, and Steven’s own beloved daughter, suffering from drug dependence. He’d also showed the full extent of responsibility every member of our society takes in preventing this deadly poison’s outspread. You can see this video message in the conference record.

What about the popular belief that there are more drug takers among the people of art – it is not true, I assure you. Drugs are equally popular among artists and other people. Artists are just very much in evidence: people listen to them and are affected by them. It is nothing but natural that drug mafia can’t walk by such a great PR-ground that can make people buy drugs. If we see a character taking drugs in a movie – this is a Product Placement, a hidden advertisement of a deadly, but still very profitable for drug dealers good. This is how appears a handsome, strong and athletic superhero, who is taking drugs, cigarettes and alcohol to get some rest between fighting in the cause of justice!

All people have their own light and dark sides, but we all are beautiful. Every human’s soul is worth a poem, a piece of music. And drugs are crime against those who take them and especially against their souls. Inadequate people are not possible to arrange with about anything, they can not be relied on and therefore it is impossible to work with them. The words “alcoholic” and “drug taker” associate with “looser.” 

I’m absolutely positive that our life is what we think of it. We make ourselves and we all have a choice of who we are going to be – a successful person or a looser, try the drugs one day or to give them up forever.

 

With love,

Olga Stankevich