The Epidemic of Teenagers Using Drugs

The Epidemic of Teenagers Ab recitation Drugs Krystyn Romualdo COM/156 November 18, 2012 Jackie Hudspeth Jr The Epidemic of Teenagers Abusing Drugs To have cognise so legion(predicate) people that have struggled with medicate dependance in their juvenile years it has become actually apparent what a indispensable judgment of conviction in ones life it is to know the dangers of abusing drugs as a teen. Even though non all teens evil drugs, it is an epiphytotic in the United States beca delectation more teens are turn to drugs to escape or role come to the fore of boredom.Take my younger associate for instance he has struggled with drug addiction from the time he was a pueriler into his early twenties. My brother Matthew started off smoking pot and drinking socially out of boredom. and so he undercoat the drug crack cocaine to escape from human race as his world came crashing d declare around him. Once he rear that drug he went all overboard and started stealing electronics and pawning them for money to buy his drugs. From on that point he would also beg people for money and obtain it to quiver his fix. He would clean up for about a week at a time exclusively would fall right back into it.He would dump his music in his room while he was high on drugs. He would also disappear for days at a time while on a drug binge. After stealing everything in my mothers house my mother finally committed him to a drug rehabilitation center. The first one failed. The second one failed. Matthew fairish could non touch on off the drugs. He to this day struggles with drug addiction, and he is now twenty four. However Matthew is just one of many an(prenominal) with stories analogous these. Let us look at how many others are a lineament of this vicious cycle known as drug annoyance among teens.A lot of teenagers abuse drugs for a variety of reasons, stress from school, social word sense or low self-esteem, self-medication, misinformation, and boomin g access to name some(prenominal). Seventy tierce portion of teens of teens report the number one reason for using drugs is to spot with the pressures and stress of school. This was done by the Partnership for a Drug-Free the States (2010). They have to deal with the pressures of being socially accepted, what clothes they are wearying if they are cool and the overall stress of their schoolwork. Self-medication being nother reason teenagers use drugs is huge. One self-medicates to deal with all types of stress that they feel like they cannot cut with. There was a study conducted in 2009 that reported an estimated seventy portion of teens suffer from undiagnosed clinical depression perhaps at any(prenominal) point in their life. Depression is a leading cause and belief of wherefore teens turn to drugs. Many teens are unaware that they have an underlying mental or mood disorder that is causing them to use vile or prescription drugs to self-medicate and cope with their symp toms.Teenagers abuse drugs due to misinformation with studies sho take ing that many teenagers do not know the effects of drugs. Most teens do not see any major risk with abusing drugs. Forty one percent of teens mistakenly believe that it is safer to abuse a prescription drug over a street drug. Teens also abuse drugs for social acceptance. They want to be accepted by their peers so they do drugs just to be part of a group or clique. Another reason is low self-esteem. muckle who feel down on themselves are more likely to abuse drugs to feel better about themselves.Easy access is one of the main reasons teenagers slowly get given up to drugs. Almost fifty percent of teenagers say it is easy for them to get marijuana seventeen percent say it is easy to get methamphetamine fourteen percent mention that it is easy obtain heroine and over fifty percent of teens say it is easy to get prescription drugs from their parents medical specialty cabinets. Let us explore how one teenager bec ame addicted to drugs by going through the music cabinets of his own family. This teenager was a football star and had made more wins for his team than he can count.But he started to have troubling pain in his hamstring. He decided at first to just walk it off instead of going to the doctor. This teenager walked it off until he could not endure it anymore. He remembered that his father had a surgery a while back. So he searched for the medication and implant a prescription pill nursing bottle that said Percocet on it. The bottle said to take every four to six hours for pain. Now Percocet is a strong painkiller that is highly addictive. This teenager was unaware of its high addiction level so he started to take them as directed.When he ran out of those he found more prescription painkillers from his brothers medicine cabinet because he had to win the big game. Once he found his brothers medicine he had enough to last him to win the big and final game. He won the big game but after wards he ran out of medicine. He started to get sick and began to hump hot and cold sweats and realized he was physically addicted to prescription drugs. He had to go through withdrawals to realize he was physically addicted to the drugs. But withdrawals are just one of many results of using or abusing drugs.There are many bad outcomes to abusing drugs. Some teenagers just pine international their lives. Others hurt the ones they love by stealing from them or treating them awfully when they are coming down off their high. Some teens become very violent and out of control towards everyone around them. Some teens run away and disappear for life. Other teenagers get raped not even cognise it unless someone tells them what happened unless they were awake during the rape. A rising problem among teens and drug use is teen pregnancy.Minimally, one million teenage girls become pregnant annually, reports the Womens International Network News (1992). One study of youth in three urban are as found that between twenty nine and xl two percent of the girls studied reported being pregnant at least once before the age of seventeen (Huizinga, Loeber, &038 Thornberry, 1993). The effects of this has caused a decline in furthering education and an incline in single line as most young men do not hold fast to support the child or even be there for the teenage girl during pregnancy let alone post-partum.Another bad outcome is teenage violence. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to violence and victimization. They are at a high risk for interfamilial emotional, physical and sexual abuse (Strom, K. , Oguinick, C. M. , &038 Singer, M. I. Page 3, 1995). They hear twice the amount of violence adults do. Some of the violence includes theft, assault, and rape. On a ten point scale drug abuse was at an 8. 5 for teens being at a high risk (Stephens, G. Page 2, 2010). It is not all grim as there is hope. There are many resources to jock teenagers overcome the use of drugs. One is in the schools.Knowing that school bedevil outs and failure in school are contributors to drug use it is exceed how critical it is to have an educational facility with competent, caring teachers working with parents and the corporation (Stephens, G. Page 3, 2010). However, most teens in this digital age, do better turning to press outs such as Above the see and below Your receive Influence. Under Your Own Influence was a campaign that started off in several schools and ran a campaign from 1992 to 1995. Above the Influence is a campaign that smooth continues today on a national level. Both were started to get kids to occlusive off marijuana butAbove the Influence has turned into a national campaign to stay off all drugs. Be Under Your Own Influence was found to reduce marijuana uptake in an earlier disarrange community trial. It was re-branded as Above the Influence by the Office of case Drug Control Policy (Slater, M. , Kelly, K. , Lawrence, F. , Stanley, L. , &038 Comell o, M. Page 1). Above the Influence not only serves as a television media campaign but has its own website with tons of information and table service such as testimonials, ways to help a friend and interactive communications to keep kids off of drugs and in a higher place the influence of them.Even though not all teens abuse drugs, it is an epidemic in the United States because more teens are turning to drugs to escape or use out of boredom. We have experienced my own personal account of penetrating someone addicted to drugs. You have seen the numbers of how easy it is for teens to get drugs and why they abuse them. We have seen how prescription drug abuse comes about. We have explored some of the outcomes of drug abuse and what resources are available to help teens overcome or abstain from drug abuse. If you know a teenager abusing drugs, help them help themselves and get them the help that they need.References (American psychological Association). Strom, K. , Oguinick, C. M. , & 038 Singer, M. I. (1995). What do Teenagers Want? What do Teenagers lease?. Child &038 Adolescent Social Work Journal, 12 (5), 345-359. (American Psychological Association). Lindstrom, M. (2011). incommode PILLS?. Odyssey 20(7), 30. (American Psychological Association). Stephens, G. (2010). Youth at Risk A New project for Saving The Worlds Most Precious Resource. Futurist, 44 (4), 16. (American Psychological Association). Johnson, A. O. , Mink, M. D. , Harun, N. , Moore, C. G. , Martin, A. B. Bennett, K. J. (2008). Violence and Drug Use in Rural Teens National preponderance Estimates from the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Journal of School Health, 78 (10), 554-561. inside10. 1111/j. 1746-1561. 2008. 00343. x (American Psychological Association). Slater, M. , Kelly, K. , Lawrence, F. , Stanley, L. , &038 Comello, L. (2011). Assessing media campaigns linking marijuana non-use with autonomy and aspirations Be Under Your Own Influence and ONDCPs Above the Influence. Prevention Sci ence The formal Journal of The Society For Prevention Research, 12(1), 12-22.