Preventing Drug Abuse
Running head: PREVENTING DRUG ABUSE 1
Preventing Drug Abuse
Tina Brigitini
Argosy UniversityPreventing Drug Abuse
“Preventing or delaying use of psychoactive drugs, alcohol, and tobacco among adolescents is a critical, national public health goal. The simplest and most cost-effective way to lower the human and societal costs of drug abuse is to prevent it in the first place.”(“Preventing Drug Abuse”) Dealing with drug abuse issues after the fact is costly as well as painful for many people, families are subjected to loss of loved ones, relationships suffer, and we continue to produce more and more addicts as a result.
There are many effective strategies that have been implemented and have produced desired effects. There have also been many non-effective prevention strategies, however due to the inability to measure effectiveness in a relatively short time span, the ineffectiveness is not known for some time after implementing.
In consideration to the efforts to minimize cigarette smoking, considered to be the doorway to substance abuse, I would like to make mention of the media as a source to many drug abuse issues of today. People do not tend to differentiate a street drug from a prescription drug, particularly children. I have witnessed children referring to medication as the cure all for all pain; they regard medication as the appropriate treatment to all that ails regardless of what
behavior they may be doing to create the issue.
Our country took a stand and banned cigarette commercials aimed at getting children addicted for the sake of a profit, why then do we continue to allow the pharmaceuticals companies to profit by brainwashing children to the idea of drug use? “The first is that a coordinated approach using schools, parent and peer groups, civic organizations, police, newspapers, radio, and television can have a much greater impact than an isolated program that occurs only in school.”(Hart, Ksir, & Ray, 2009) Why would a child resist the temptation of a
drug in the school yard if their brains have been programmed to think that drugs are ok? This is an oxy-moron, similar to the idea of reducing gang violence yet our country goes to war and arms the biggest gangs to fight for our country. This is the example of the impact the macrocosm has on the microcosm. The child opens the medicine cabinet to see all the prescription drugs their parents are taking, with little understanding of the difference between a drug prescribed and a drug at hand. “Take this drug and you will feel better.” “As a result,
adolescents are more likely to exercise poor judgment, especially in terms of evaluating and appreciating the risks and long-term consequences associated with high-risk behaviors such assubstance use” (Hart et al., 2009) Don’t we all self-medicate? Cigarettes, coffee, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, all take the edge off.
The old adage, practice what you preach applies to all forms of self-medication whether it be prescribed or recreational. When we legalized alcohol we
basically gave all people the freedom to become addicts. If we want to be pro-active in preventing drug abuse we would need the media to educate children in ways to self-medicate in healthy ways, exercise, meditation, yoga, and bodywork. What if we ran a campaign aimed at getting our children addicted to relaxation techniques that produced euphoria, where drugs were not necessary for coping later on in life?
Educating our children through the school systems to the dangers has been effective, one such method is “Project Alert” which found that education in seventh grade with a booster in eighth grade and a follow up fifteen months later produced a four percent difference between controlled group and non-controlled group in relation to marijuana. “A Cornell University study of six
thousand students in New York State found that the odds of drinking, smoking, and using marijuana were 40 percent lower among students who participated in a school-based substance abuse program in grades seven through nine than among their counterparts who did not”. (“Preventing Drug Abuse”)
Other successful interventions include peers, parents, and communities, such as the YMCA’s or church organizations. These each have a strong capacity to influence children to discern what may be harmful to them while helping them to hold their power in a tough situation like being faced with the pressure of trying marijuana or alcohol.
One of the methods used in my neighborhood when I was a teenager was a parent holding a teen meeting at their house once a
week, the parents took turns. The problem was that parents were not educated to the types of drugs that infiltrated the school systems, nor were they educated to how to communicate with teens around drug abuse and the potential dangers. In the end, the meetings were fun and possibly effective as there were twenty-two teens in this neighborhood, of the twenty-two teens, all used both marijuana and alcohol and only five went on to experiment with hallucenogenic drugs.
Educating adolescents with a focus on prevention is one of the most effective methods of prevention; why not begin training them for the workplace while in school? Why not implement random drug testing for high school students?
We have identified adolescents as a group most susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse and yes, this is the beginning of creating a safe society for all.
Another group to consider is the elderly population, this group has gone undetected for a variety of reasons, and many of those reasons seem to coincide with the behaviors of drug abuse and aging making it difficult to differentiate. Implementing programs to assist the elderly population while educating to the
dangers would serve our society well. The major differences are the ability to obtain a recreational drug or a pharmaceutical drug. The doctors are writing prescriptions at an alarming rate, of course their job is to help the patient to alleviate the symptom of the complaint. The misfortune to this vicious cycle is that the elderly often fall victim to the hands of the medical field, they have not learned that they may have choices to which drug they say “NO” to. Why
not a campaign “JUST SAY “NO” to the pharmaceutical drugs aimed at the elderly?
Drug problems in our society are not solely the street user or the drug pusher; they are in it for the money as well, this is no different on some level as our doctors and pharmaceutical industries. We must look at this problem and treat all the root causes not just the issue of drugs.
There are many recovered drug addicts using their experience and their wisdom to share with the youngsters today in an effort to show them the alternatives to drug abuse. This is part of the community education, educate the children to understand the importance of education, of psychological well being, give them support groups where they can share their concerns. Keep kids off the street and create programs aimed at becoming productive contributing citizens,
programs like these will increase their self-awareness and self-esteem, the very reasons many adolescents turn to drugs to begin with.
References
Hart, C. L., Ksir, C., & Ray, O. (2009). DRUGS, SOCIETY & HUMAN BEHAVIOR (13th ed.). New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Preventing Drug Abuse. (). Retrieved from www.ncjrs.gov