Health Resources

Drug abuse among teenagers has reached epidemic proportions. It Doesn’t matter how vigilant you are, your teenagers will definitely 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 teens view adults as old stupid people that have never seen the outside of a paper bag. Adults, try as they may, face an uphill battle in safe guarding their kids from the devastating effects of drugs.

The battle is made tougher by the fact that most of us have prescription medications in our medicine cabinets. When confronting the issue of teens and drugs, you have to present a sound argument that distinguishes between necessary prescriptions and street drugs. This isn’t easy. Some common prescription medications are being peddaled in schools as a way to get high. Kids don’t know that these prescriptions are issued in duplicate or triplicate, as a method to control the use of specific narcotics. Not having experienced a legitimate need for such drugs themselves, they may well come to the conclusion that their parents are experiencing and liking some buzz that they are somehow being forbidden.

Another problem with educating children on the issue of teen drug abuse is that our society does not differentiate between drugs. Some pharmaceutical drugs have a place, but when it comes to teens and drugs, we say that every drug is bad. This is incorrect. Some teens require medications for actual problems. Not used as prescribed, that medicine can get a teen high who doesn’t need it. Sometimes, that drug can have lethal consequences when used 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. Children don’t understand that this person doesn’t get high. That medication only eases the pain. However, in the world of teens and drugs, this potentially dangerous drug becomes an opportunity toenjoy a different reality. They don’t know the difference.

One huge deception that encourages teen drug use is the fable of weed. This street drug is posited as the first step to drug addiction, thrown in the same category as meth and crack cocaine. The second that middle school kid tries marijuana, the kid sees that even though it makes them feel good, they can hide this new habit from their parents and it doesn’t make them crazy. They come to the conclusion that the rest of the warnings about teenagers and drugs are lies. That’s why they fall into the trap of the insidiosly dangerous drugs.

As a world village, we need to educate our kids. Explain the effects of drugs. Mescaline, crack, heroin and drugs like ‘ecstasy’ can devastate their lives or kill them. Be honest. We can defend our children.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.