Three of the most popular choices of drugs are alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. These three drugs are familiar to all people. However, the videos on teen substance abuse showed just how addictive these drugs are. The common theme in these videos is that every one of the addicts knows that they need to change but cannot. The chains of the addictions are so strong that they are unable to break those chains without extreme intervention. Alcohol is a popular drug of choice at teen parties. It is often referred to as liquid courage because of the fact that it takes away your inhibitions. It appears to give you the courage to speak to that person that has piqued your interest. Most teens think that alcohol is fun and gives you a buzz. …show more content…
It is not viewed as a drug. However, tobacco is one of the most addictive substances today. It is more addictive than crack cocaine. Tobacco use does not only include smoking cigarettes. It also includes the use of chewing tobacco and dip. Teens will see their friends using tobacco products and think that it is cool. They are unknowingly being influenced to use this deadly substance. All it takes is one cigarette to become a tobacco addict for life. Once one cigarette is smoked, there is a craving, a desire to have the tobacco in your system. You do not just need a cigarette daily, you need it all the time. If a person becomes addicted to tobacco, they think about using it every minute, of every hour, of every day. People like to think that they are in control of their addiction and that they can stop whenever they want to, but it does not work that way. An addiction is a physical dependency and cannot be easily overcome. Many people feel that using dip or chewing tobacco is not as bad as smoking cigarettes but the truth is that it can be even worse. Smoking cigarettes causes many diseases with cancer and emphysema being the main two. However, using dip or chewing tobacco also gives your mouth direct exposure to the tobacco. This can cause gum disease and mouth cancer in addition to lung cancer. The physical effect of tobacco products on your lungs is …show more content…
They are all the same drug. Movies portray the use of marijuana as careless and fun. However, imagine being a young teen at a party being introduced to a substance that will make you feel lose and happy. You try this substance and love the way that it makes you feel. The next day the high is gone. You long for the feeling that you felt while high on marijuana. Before you know, you are using marijuana on a daily basis. Eventually, it is not enough and you begin to seek out other drugs. This is why marijuana is known as the gateway drug. Its use leads to further use and trying different drugs. You are on a path to destruction and have lost your family, friends, job, health, and in some cases the ability to ever have children. All the fun and carelessness is gone. The need to do drugs has set in as you feel that you cannot live without the drugs. Why is marijuana so addictive? It causes a decrease in your serotonin levels, which causes depression, so you use drugs to make you feel careless and happy. There are more suicide attempts from drug users because of the feelings of depression and hopelessness that come from long-term drug use. Marijuana is a hard addiction to overcome because it invokes a lack of motivation and gives users an “I don’t care”
The term addiction can be interpreted in many ways, concering both illegal and legal substances. Not only can one become addicted to a substance, but also activities like gambling, shoplifting, and sex. Prior to considering addiction, one must first understand what constitutes a substance. Levinthal (2002) describes a drug as a chemical substance that changes the functioning of the body when ingested (4). Although illegal drugs may come to mind when hearing this definition, alcohol and tobacco fit under this criteria as well. For the purpose of this essay, controlled and regulated (licit/legal) substances will be focused upon. Alcohol is a regulated substance that can be thought of as a social drug (Levinthal, 2002, p.192) and arguably tobacco
It has been said that addiction is the plague of the 21st century. In an age of unprecedented life expectancy and medical breakthroughs, people are dying from both disease and overdose that are self inflicted and the cure is currently out of reach. Implementing progressive ideas such as safe injection sites have been a battle, both for caring social workers and front line emergency workers looking to minimize the health risks associated with risk taking behaviors that inevitably occur with intravenous drug use. While the addicted population currently uses considerable government funding by way of shelter services as well as prison and jail time, safe injection sites are a necessary step in the battle against drug abuse as is a major prevention
Now is not the time for the United States federal government to decriminalize or legalize illegal drugs, including marijuana. However, nor can the government continue to do nothing about the financially, economically, and socially expensive domestic drug policy it currently follows. The United States Congress should pass legislation to remove mandatory minimum penalties from drug offenses, and the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons should add in-house rehabilitation programs for its incarcerated drug offenders. These policies would increase the cost-effectiveness of current drug policy and reduce crime and drug use, and do not face the political obstacles or have the uncertain consequences of decriminalizing or legalizing drugs.
Recently drug addiction in the United States is at an all-time high, especially among teens. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that teens who abuse prescription drugs are twice as likely to use alcohol, five times more likely to use marijuana, and twelve to twenty times more likely to use illegal street drugs such as heroin, ecstasy and cocaine than teens who do not abuse prescription drugs. Forty five percent of drug overdose deaths, in teens are attributed to the abuse of prescription drugs. The illegal abuse of prescription drugs starts at home in a teen’s own bathroom. Most teens get the prescription drugs from their own medicine cabinet or their unknowing parents. With such alarming facts
In the United States today, drug use, substance abuse, and addiction are consistently growing dilemmas! At a young age we are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Answers vary from doctor, police officer, astronaut, etc.; it is hard to image an individual saying, “I want to be addicted to drugs.” However, society witness’s individuals tumbling into drug addiction or other forms of addiction daily. This, in consequence, can cripple and prevent any person from accomplishing their childhood dreams.
Alcohol is a drink that is a common social norm in our society today. Alcohol is rising concern for not only adults, teenagers too. This is not a new situation and the concern has existed for years. Teenage drinking has become one of the largest social issues among young people in America today. There is simply no way of preventing underage drinking although it is illegal, there are ways to inform teenagers the effects and harm it does to your body. You simply can not tell college kids they can’t drink, it is unenviable, but again teaching the consequences and concerns can further their education with alcohol related substance and situations in which they encounter.
The world involving drug addiction is a taboo topic to many. However, drug addiction is a very real topic that occurs worldwide. The widespread use of drugs is not restricted to the United States, with roughly five percent of the world’s population using in the past few months (Mosher & Akins, 2014). Many scientists, doctors, and specialists study addiction and try to find an explanation for why so many become addicted.
In recent years, smoking has started to take over the lives of many teenagers. The number of teenagers smoking has increased dramatically in the last several years. This is a major problem because smoking can lead to sickness and major diseases that can lead to death. Teens tend to participate in this while out of the presence of an adult figure. Although teens should not be smoking in the first place, an adult figure should be around to help insure that their children are doing the right things, even when they are behind sealed doors with their peers. Teenagers as they mature become a model for younger children and when they set the example of smoking can ruin their respectable image to the children that look up to them.
Enfin, one of the most browbeating and frustrating things in the world is the disease of addiction. It is a progressive, chronic, and often fatal disease that takes control of life away from people. However, “drugs are here to stay, and...we have no choice but to learn how to live with them so that they cause the least possible harm” (Torr 116). Unfortunately, ten percent of all eighth graders and twenty percent of all tenth graders are using marijuana at least once a month (Torr 38).
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.
When a person is drunk they are no longer aware of what they can do, to not only themselves, but also to others around them. For one, why would you want to ruin a few brain cells that you will need later on in life, to just a long night of fun? Right now, speaking as a teenager, it may seem like it will be fine and the adults just say this stuff to scare us, but our brain is not fully developed yet so this is why the adults have to help us with these decisions because they actually do know better. Teen drinking leads to many serious problems starting with killing brain cells, also there is a high risk of academic failure, and it advances the physical consequences that a person under the age of twenty-one would make or do to put themselves in harm’s way, or someone
It has been discovered that most people who struggle with drug addiction began experimenting with drugs in their teens. Teenage drug abuse is one of the largest problems in society today and the problem grows and larger every year. Drugs are a pervasive force in our culture today. To expect kids not to be influenced by the culture of their time is as unrealistic as believing in the tooth fairy (Bauman 140). Teens may feel pressured by their friends to try drugs, they may have easy access to drugs, they may use drugs to rebel against their family or society, or they may take an illegal drug because they are curious about it or the pleasure that it gives them.
Smoking cigarettes is a very deadly addiction that, unfortunately, 42.1 million adults in the United States and 6.4 million children have. The reason why so many people get addicted to cigarettes because of nicotine. Medicinenet.com says that nicotine is “Made by the tobacco plant or produced synthetically. Nicotine has powerful pharmacologic effects (including increased heart rate, heart stroke volume, and oxygen consumption by the heart muscle), as well as powerful psychodynamic effects (such as euphoria, increased alertness, and a sense of relaxation). Nicotine is also powerfully addictive.”
Drug addiction is a very big problem in today’s society. Many people have had their lives ruined due to drug addiction. The people that use the drugs don’t even realize that they have an addiction. They continue to use the drug not even realizing that their whole world is crashing down around them. Drug addicts normally lose their family and friends due to drug addiction.
Drugs are something that has been prevalent in our society for many decades now. It seems that as our population continue to grow, drugs seem to continue to have a major impact throughout our society, then used by drug seem to have been influenced by many things, either through social or cultural factors and it have affected people in many different ways such as their behavior, their attitude and just basically their livelihood. Today our society is deeply infected with the issue of drugs, we look around our society and we see young kids are being consume by drugs, we see workers, and executive people are also being consumed by drugs. Drugs continue to play a huge role in our society because while most people