Drug Abuse is quickly becoming a popular trend in today’s society. This trend encompasses all ages of people, as younger individuals are becoming more rapidly attracted to drug abuse. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), it is estimated that 24.6 million adults aging twelve and older suffer from addiction, which amounts to approximately 9.4% of the United States’ population. This abuse is not limited to a single class of individuals. Houchins adds that “Drug abuse affects people from all walks of life and all socioeconomic statuses.” Some of the drugs included in these statistics are marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and bath salts to just name a few. In today’s society, drug abuse is a problem because it …show more content…
How would you feel if you or a loved one was a victim of a drug related crime? What if this crime resulted in your death or the death of a loved one? According to Sergeant, Watson, with a local Fire Department, which is located in the middle of drug territory to which they have a very high drug abuse rate:
On the firetruck we run all overdose calls. We’ve seen a substantial increase in the trafficking of meth in the recent months. We have also noticed that there is a spike in Heroin and pill use more often during exams in local schools. We’ve ran calls where a 16-year-old was having a stroke during a math class as a result of an overdose, and on another call, we found a female student unresponsive and barely breathing from opiate based drug use. We have also begun to notice a trend with middle schoolers beginning to experiment with weed due to their parents having it in their homes.
It appears that drug use is everywhere no matter where you turn. Drugs have even began to enter the schools. Drugs entering schools are putting kids at a higher risk of being exposed to the drug as well as giving them the option of getting addicted to them. Children are notorious for picking up habits from those around them. Therefore, if they are around individuals, specifically parents, that are doing drugs, they are more than likely going to pick up the habit for themselves, such as what Sergeant Watson noted about the middle
There is no doubt that there is a prevalence of substance abuse throughout several age groups. To a certain extent, a society is faced with the reality of controlling substance abuse. Or allow it run rampant throughout the community. Often times, we hear and read about the level of substance abuse among teen, young adults and mid-aged
Cocaine is one of the oldest, most powerful and most dangerous stimulants in the world. This powerfully addictive drug effects over 35 million people In the United States. Cocaine addiction prevents a person from being a productive member in our society. It also increases the cost for law enforcement and treatment facilities. It rapidly decreases the workplace, increases the homeless rate and needless deaths on a daily basis.
Non-medical drugs can affect everyone no matter what color they are, where they live, and even their culture. Heroin can affect anyone including young, old, male, female, wealthy, urban, rural, and most of all suburban. A report in New Mexico pointed out that over 60% of death rates have been between 2001 and ‘10 and 10 youths used drugs to get high.New Mexico’s Youth Risk and Resilillency survey said 1 in 10 youths have admitted to using opiate-based prescription drugs to get high.
The effects of drug abuse can relate in death, overdoses, and other emergency treatments. More than 1,700 young adults died from
I live in the small community of Pleasant Valley, New York. Pleasant Valley is in central Dutchess County and is a suburban-rural community north of New York City. Pleasant Valley is a quiet 3 stoplight town consisting of residential areas as well as farms. The town is quaint and its name reflects it. However, in recent years, drug use by adolescents is on the rise. Pleasant Valley has had a member of the community die from heroin overdose as well as multiple arrests for possession and distribution of illegal drugs. These drugs consist of heroin, cocaine, prescription drugs and marijuana. Knowing these drugs are available in this small community puts its residence at risk. The U.S. Census Bureau lists persons under 18 years of age 23.2% of Pleasant Valley’s population. This is almost one-fourth of the community. The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess this vulnerable population. According to Nies and McEwen (2015), “the primary concern of community health nurses is to improve the health of the community” (pg. 92). Education is the first step in raising awareness about the
Heroin, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, all cling to their victims. “Almost 70% of all offenders on probation reported using drugs sometime in their lifetimes. About 35% were abusing drugs at the time of their offense” (NIDA). Drug use is the fastest growing problem in the United States. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2013, there were just over 2.8 million new users of illicit drugs, about 7,800 of new users per day. Only seventeen percent of offenders get treatment for their drug use. Criminologists, psychologists, sociologists, and other criminal justice professionals try to determine how to stop this problem. We wonder why crime happens, who commits it, how to stop it, and more recently, what to do with the offenders after
During the year 1960, only four million Americans had ever tried illegal narcotics; today that number has risen to 74 million (DEAMuseum). The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) concluded that over the past thirty days, more than 20 million Americans over the age of twelve have used illegal drugs (NCADD). As one of the top health-related problems facing the nation today, the prevalence of drug abuse in society strains the economy, health care system, criminal justice system, and poses a major threat to public safety. This is because once they are hooked on a particular drug; addicts will do whatever it takes to come into possession of more of it. To illustrate that point, a 2004 study conducted by the Department of Justice (DoJ)
Drug addiction has always been a major concern in the United States. According to a survey conducted by National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in 2013, 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older had used an illegal drug including Marijuana, Prescription Drugs, cocaine, Hallucinogens, Inhalants and Heroin in the past month, that is the almost ten percent of the population. Given that this number is 8.3 percent in 2002, it indicates that illegal drug use in the United States has been increasing rapidly over the past decade. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in 2010, nearly 40,000 people died of drug overdoses, greater than the total deaths of motor vehicle accidents, homicides and suicides. Drugs cost the nation more
Drugs have been a very big problem in the United States and all over the world for centuries now. But, On September 10, 1996 the mother of Ian James Eaccarino found her son dead in his bed of an accidental heroin and valium overdose. He was a promising college student with everything to live for. He was bright, athletic, popular, and handsome. His mother was unaware that he was using drugs and thought the changes were just adolescent behavior. The death of James made her curious of why her son would do what he did. So, she went to a drug awareness program, which opened my eyes to what was really happening in her home. He was only 20 years old when this happened.
The goal for these drug dealers are mostly young individuals, who have a dispensable earnings of sorts and are effortlessly manipulated. If these young individuals knew entirely what they were inhaling, injecting or swallowing into their own bodies in the search for that mind and body change. That brief lived high of supposed joy or that short
From 2001 to 2014 there has been a 42% increase in the number of deaths caused by prescription drug overdose. Moreover, the national survey conducted on drug use stated that 27 million people who are aged 12 and over have used an illegal drug. Year by year, drug addiction has been growing immensely among citizens and does not seem to stop. The sooner people start to take action, the sooner drug addiction in America will decrease. Whether it be directly or indirectly, the abuse of drugs has affected every family in every community and needs to be stopped.
In today’s busy lifestyle world, there has been a number of rising cases of drug abuse. Illicit use of Opiates, especially heroin has dominated most parts of the world According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), in 2012 about 669,000 Americans reported using heroin in the past year of 2012. (1.)
Since 2000, the drug use rate in America has risen to the highest it’s ever been. In a survey done in 2009, 8.7 percent of people age 12 and up said that they used illegal substances within a month of taking the survey, a 9 percent increase since 2008 (Abuse, National Institute on Drug, 2010). This statistic alone is very concerning due to
A drug is a chemical substance applied into treating, diagnosing and preventing one from disease infections or a substance that is used by a person to enhance his or her physical and mental state in the perceived effect. Drugs used for different purposes and their effect depend on which cause for usage. It causes both positive and negative consequences directly to the user and in the long-run it affects the whole society or community. Drug addiction is the activity of uncontrollable dependence on a substance by the user no matter the harm caused by its usage. It is a habit that has been in many years hard to curb especially among the youths. “We must recognize that substance abuse and addiction is a disease, not a moral failing or easily abandoned self-indulgence,” (Califano, 2008).The cases of drug abuse have been on the rise over the recent years and resulted in crimes. The cases have a great effect affected the society in general since the reliable energetic youths have turned to drug abuse. However, some measures have been initiated to mitigate, curb and treat drug addiction in the society as outlined in the essay.
Drug abuse and crime is not a new concept and the statistics around the problem have continued to rise. According to (Office of Justice Programs, 2011), there were an estimated 1,846,400 state and local arrests for drug abuse in the United States. Additionally, 17 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs (Office of Justice Programs, 2011). Based on this information, we can conclude that our criminal justice systems are saturated with drug abusers. The United States has the highest imprisonment rate and about 83 percent of arrests are for possession of illegal drugs (Prisons & Drug Offenders, 2011). Based on these figures, I can conclude that we should be more concerned about solving the drug abusers problems and showing them an alternative lifestyle rather than strict penalty of long term incarceration which will inevitably challenge their ability to be fully functioning citizens after release.