Spasmoproxyvon Film Project

For more information about Spasmoproxyvon, please visit the Spasmoproxyvon Advocacy Project website

Film Project Abstract:

“Look at the taxi drivers carefully, they’re obviously stoned on SP,” laments journalist turned activist Pema Wangchuck of the NOW! newspaper in Gangtok, Sikkim. It isn’t just the taxi drivers consuming, and injecting, this potent pharmaceutical. In the last four to five years, the abuse of Spasmoproxyvon has been rapidly climbing. Simply look around the Mela ground, public parks or nearly any area where people can freely congregate and the telltale silver package can be found. This drug is affecting youth even before they reach their teens. If you desire proof, walk through the wooded areas surrounding schools where multiple capsules and syringes can be found. For my project I sought to uncover the Spasmoproxyvon problem and its causes, and to eventually formulate possible solutions. I collected the stories and experiences of anyone I could find whose life or work related to the drug. I sought to fill out the whole picture, not simply concentrate on a single aspect, such as its production, use, regulation or societal impact, but to incorporate and approach them all from multiple angles. I expected to learn the facts and see a clear path through the trouble, a corrupt and morally decrepit body, an ineffective Health Department, a halted legislation; something that could be solved via an expose of sorts. The web I discovered was tangled; it included all of these things, but each with a perfectly defensible rationale, leaving a quick answer out of the question, and even the possibility of a solution unknown. Of course, awareness of the problem and civic participation by the greater public are required in order to formulate such a plan, but even those things are far from being as easy as they sound.

Documentary film may be released shortly, pending final cut approval by concerned parties.

This project has been supported by: Pitzer College Darjeeling, Pomona College and The Stonehill Grant in Media Studies

Bullet, SP, S-P, Maradona, Spaz, Spazmo, Spasmo