Drugs mess you up. We’ve all heard it before. Yet the number of people getting hooked on drugs, especially young people, keep increasing. “Just Say No” doesn’t always work. An MSN news article about the shocking toll of drug abuse on one’s face shows another way of looking at this problem.

From Drugs to Mugs is a drug education program that attempts to decrease those numbers by showing the real face of addiction by showing the ravages of drug addiction in this visual collection of mug shots. These photos were taken of drug offenders at the beginning of their addiction and again at a later stage. You can see how their faces show the damage. Notice the slackness of their skin, the mottling, the withering that no amount of natural acne treatment can cure. For someone who is vain, this would probably be enough of a deterrent to keep them from ever experimenting with drugs. But what about those who think themselves infallible? They young, the confident, the brash? Would seeing these mug shots be enough from every trying drugs?

By examining these shocking photos, you realize that the changes can happen in just a few months (as in the photo above). We all think it takes years for the change to happen but this collection of shocking photos shows illustrate how fast the changes happen. If drugs do this much damage to your skin, can you imagine what it’s doing to your insides?