Euphoria has led to a rise in young people seeking help for addiction problems, according to the UK Addiction Treatment Group (UKAT).
The HBO series wrapped up its second season last night (February 27), and throughout its run one of the main themes has been drug addiction, particularly shown through the perspective of Rue Bennett (Zendaya).
According to UKAT’s head consultant, since the show was released there has been a small rise in young people seeking help for addiction.
“What shows like Euphoria do is to raise the awareness of young people and children experiencing and in some cases, struggling with mature life situations like drug misuse,” Nuno Albuquerque told Metro.co.uk.
“Thankfully there has been a very small rise in the number of young people getting in touch with our support services asking for help and guidance.”
He added: “It’s naive of society to believe that our younger generation don’t use and abuse substances, or to think that we can always protect them. If shows like Euphoria manage to encourage even one young person to reach out and ask for help, then that’s wonderful.”
Despite the increase, the US Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) previously criticised Euphoria‘s portrayal of teen drug use, claiming it chose to “misguidedly glorify and erroneously depict” such aspects.
Zendaya subsequently defended the series, telling Entertainment Weekly: “Our show is in no way a moral tale to teach people how to live their life or what they should be doing.
“If anything, the feeling behind Euphoria, or whatever we have always been trying to do with it, is to hopefully help people feel a little bit less alone in their experience and their pain. And maybe feel like they’re not the only one going through or dealing with what they’re dealing with.”
The star also revealed: “I’ve had a lot of people reach out and find so many parallels from all ages, all walks of life. So many parallels with Rue and her story and Rue means a lot to them in a way that I can understand, but also maybe in a way that I could never understand, and that means the most to all of us.”
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