Drug use among teens has reached epidemic proportions. It Doesn’t matter how on top of it you are, your teens are going to be exposed to drugs at school, the very place you believe to be a safe environment. Mrs. Reagan’s ‘Just say no to drugs’ campaign was a complete failure. The fact is that teenagers perceive adults as old fuddy-duddies that have never seen the outside of a paper bag. Adults, try as they may, face a bitter battle in safe guarding their children from the ravaging effects of drugs.
The battle is made tougher by the fact that most of us have prescription drugs in our bedroom drawers. When confronting the issue of teenagers and drugs, you have to give them a sound argument that differentiates between necessary medications and street drugs. This isn’t easy. Some well known prescription medications are being peddaled in schools as a way to catch a buzz. Teens don’t realize that these medications are issued in duplicate or triplicate, as a method to control the use of certain narcotics. Not having experienced a legitimate need for these drugs themselves, they may well come to the conclusion that their parents are experiencing and liking some buzz that they are for some reason being denied.
Another problem with educating children on the issue of teen drug use is that society does not show any differences between drugs. Some pharmaceutical drugs are needed, but when it comes to teens and drugs, we tell them that every drug is bad. This is incorrect. Some kids require specific drugs for actual problems. Used improperly, that medicine can produce a high in a kid who doesn’t need it. Sometimes, that medication can have disastrous consequences when taken as a ‘recreational’ drug.
Kids are not capable of making those distinctions. For example, a patient with severe pain because of arthritis or cancer, may be prescribed codeine or another opiate to manage the pain. Kids don’t comprehend that this person doesn’t get high. That pain killer only eases the pain. However, in the world of teenagers and drugs, this potentially dangerous drug becomes an opportunity toenjoy a different reality. They don’t realaize the difference.
One major deception that encourages teenage drug abuse is the fable of marijuana. This street drug is posited as the first step to drug addiction, thrown in the same category as meth and mescaline. The second that grade school kid tries weed, the kid sees that although it gets them high and they like it, they can hide this new habit from their parents and it doesn’t make them crazy. They conclude that the rest of the warnings issued on teens and drugs are lies. That’s why they step into the trap of the insidiosly dangerous drugs.
As a nation, we need to educate our teenagers. Teach them the effects of drugs. Ice, crack, heroin and drugs like ‘ecstasy’ can destroy their lives or kill them. Be honest. We can protect our kids.Addiction is a serious problem in our society today but with the “proper” education we can teach our future generations the realities of addictions and drug abuse.