Drug Education In The United States

These numbers reveal that teenagers face an apparent exposure to drugs, and have little trouble getting a hold of some if desired. This article concludes that drug use and its consequences are not stressed enough in the current high school curriculum. The statistics prove that more needs to be done to identify and educate students at risk for drug use.

Children, starting as early as elementary school, are being educated on substance abuse. As of 2013, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, D.A.R.E., administers a school-based substance abuse, gang, and violence prevention program in 75 percent of the United States school districts. Since 1983, 70,000 police officers have taught the D.A.R.E. program to approximately 114 million elementary through high school students in the United States alone ("Is the D.A.R.E. Program Good for America's Kids K-12?"). This program is aimed at preventing drug use in elementary, middle, and high school students. A needle-exchange program implicitly encourages the exact opposite message, condoning immoral and illicit behavior. Governments should focus on discouraging drug use, providing more productive treatment for recovery, and punishing drug users instead of supplying the materials to continue their addiction. Young children have the potential to take more risks and must receive a clear message on drugs, which should coincide with the no tolerance policy they are being taught in school with implementation of the D.A.R.E. program. A needle-exchange program is more of a hopeful harm reduction campaign that sends the wrong message to young children and society as a whole. If there is to be a positive change in America regarding intravenous drug use, then the government and school programs all need to be on the same page; we

Drug abuse is a worldwide problem and one that has plagued the United States for decades. Drug abuse negatively impacts not only the individual user, but also our society as a whole. The fight to prevent the manufacturing and trafficking of illegal drugs into the country has made very little impact on its accessibility to those that wish to partake. According to the National Drug Control Budget Report for 2015, the President of the United States request $25.4 Billion in Fiscal Year 2015 in order to reduce drug use and its consequences in the U.S. (National Drug Control Budget, 2014). In addition to the enormous amount of money the federal government has pledged to fight this social problem, there are numerous organizations and institutions committed to keeping people off drugs and rehabilitating those fortunate enough to have survived their use. Two organizations working to do solve the problem of drug abuse and the associated destructive behaviors are the Drug Abuse Resistance Education also known as D.A.R.E. program and Narcotics Anonymous.

Those who were never educated on the effects of drug use are most likely going to be the ones to fall victim of peer pressure and eventually get into drugs themselves. In other cases, it is hard to avoid and can be picked up as a child, seeing family members or other individuals doing drugs. We should educate everyone, as well as having no tolerance laws when it comes to hard drugs and giving longer sentences to those who are caught with the drugs, instead of letting them off on probation or parole. Many people would completely disagree with allowing marijuana to be legal, but if you think about it, it could eventually cause the drug violence to end around the world. Marijuana has the least effects out of all the drugs in the world, and although people take it to the extreme, it is honestly a harmless drug and should not be causing this many people to have their lives taken over

Many think the program D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) which was created in order to have a long term effect for drug abuse prevention actually works. But does it actually help prevent kids from using drugs? Solid evidence shows that the program doesn’t work.

One profound way of combatting drug usage is to continue educating the youth and public on the fatal risks of utilizing drugs. Another aspect that the film did not touch upon is the drug policies and issues in other countries. Most of the world’s narcotic painkiller market is based in the United States, so there could be stronger laws introduced to limit who is able to access these strong pills. Moreover, countries such as Spain, have legalized most drugs, and have since seen a decrease in the usage of these drugs. These measures could be applied in the United States, and the black market where profit is made on these drugs would dissipate. Furthermore, these substances could be highly taxed like cigarettes, and made limited so that they become less accessible to the public. While recovery is a lifelong process for those already addicted, America can save the lives of tomorrow by getting the drugs out of the hands of first time

The official “war on drugs” was declared in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan and many government assets were put into play among all facets of society (Bagley, p. 1). The US military’s role in interdiction efforts increased, Congress approved tougher legislation against drug offenders, and public schools across the country were saturated with anti-drug educational materials from Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign (Bagley, p. 1). In spite of all this, drug

America is wasting money on campaigns that don’t work. D.A.R.E, a program that goes to schools in America, hasn’t made any more progress than giving five dollars to a psychopath murderer. (Vance 1) D.A.R.E. is a program that schools use to explain what drugs do to you, and how they affect your life. A national survey on Drug Use and Health led made by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services says; “Drug

Prescription drug abuse among college students have increased over the past few years and is now a national problem. College students are abusing stimulant prescription pills just to stay awake to study and they will abuse the prescription pills just to stay awake to socialize with friends. According to the journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, they have come up with a new term called Generation RX, which is known to the rising group of young adults who are abusing prescription medication. In 2008 the National Drug Survey on Drug Use and Health had found an increase of 21.1% in the general population in the use of nonmedical prescription between the years of 1992-2003 and 15% of people ages 18-25 reported the use of prescription pills. Research showed that in the past ten years prescription stimulants has passed the abuse of other drugs on college campuses. The only drug that research says that prescription pills did not pass for being used more commonly was marijuana. College students have reported saying that they use prescription stimulants for both academic and recreational. To be more specific, college students said, "Alcohol, marijuana, prescription barbiturates, and cocaine were used mainly as "have fun" drugs. While ADHD medication was used for "getting good grades". (DeSantis et al., 2008, p. 317).

According to Mathea Falco, “Many schools rely on programs which have not been evaluated, or worse yet, have been found to have no impact. In 1988, a review of 350 different school programs found that only 33 had any valid evaluation data, while just three programs reported reductions in tobacco, alcohol or drug use” (qtd. in Rosenbaum). One of the most prolific abstinence based education programs is DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). The program, founded in 1983, places police officers in classrooms to provide training to help youth recognize the dangers of drug use, resist peer pressure to try drugs, and focuses on the importance of avoiding drug use of any kind. In 2002, a study funded by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that 48% of the teen population has tried illegal drugs (United States). Abstinence based education programs ultimately imply and teach false information: that a single use of any number of drugs can kill a child or leave them addicted. Once these children enter their teen years, the numbers presented by the Partnership imply that it is likely they are going to be exposed to drugs. Once they try drugs or see others try them, if they do not see the outcomes taught to them as immediately evident, they become mistrustful of all the other information that was taught to them. This renders the entire

Policy should not be focused on trying to combat the drug cartels but rather at fixing drug dependency. Since the 1971 War on Drugs declaration, the U.S. government has thrown money in attempt to combat the supply side of the drug issue. President Reagan increased funding for drug interdiction from $437 million to $1.4 billion but decreased drug awareness and treatment programs from $386million to $362 million. President Clinton allocated $7.8 billion to combat supply and only $5.4 billion for the demand side. Money needs to be allocated in the right place which means investing in the demand side through “education, prevention, and rehabilitation.” Funds need to be allocated to restructure educational programs, such as DARE, in order to deeply impact the minds of America’s youth. Like alcoholism, drug dependency needs to be viewed as a disease which requires a rehabilitation process. The focus needs to be shifted from imprisoning drug users that are in desperate need of help to keeping society healthy. This can be achieved by decriminalizing (not legalizing) drug use. A great example is Holland’s decriminalization of drugs which has led to a significant decline in hard drugs. Additionally, by building up rehabilitation programs, past drug users will be able to enter the workforce and become productive members of society as well as capable and attentive parents. The National Institute on Drug Abuse

Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs are the most widely used drug education programs targeted towards elementary children in the United States. Since the 1980’s over a million children across the United States have been introduced to the D.A.R.E’ program. The program began implementing there curriculum into school system to educate children on drugs and gangs. The common goal for this program is to deter students from the hard life of drugs and gangs and help them steer on the right path.

So for those of you who don’t know about the program, it’s a program that goes around schools presenting the phrase D.A.R.E. D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. According to D.A.R.E., it teaches effective peer resistance and refusal skills so that adolescents can say “no” to drugs and their friends who may want them to use drugs (D.A.R.E. America). So basically it provides children with the information and skills they need to live a drug and violence free lives. Most people would agree that D.A.R.E. is an effective program for all ages, but studies have shown that in the long run, the D.A.R.E. program does not help prevent or reduce the use of illicit drugs in elementary, middle, or high school students.

If the United States is serious about winning the war on drugs, it will have to face some hard facts about the failure of its drug policy to date. Since Reagan introduced the war on drugs in the early 1980s, the focus of anti-drug legislation has been on incarceration and eradication, not on drug education and treatment. Drug use is viewed as a crimethe same way that burglary and murder are viewed as crimeswithout examining the social and economic causes behind drug use. This categorization of drug use as criminal misrepresents the nature of addiction. Drug addicts do not abuse drugs because they are deviant or even because they consciously desire to cause harm to themselves or to those around them, they abuse drugs because they are

In order to effectively reduce drug use, a combination of intense enforcement, rehabilitation, and drug education should be used; all three strategies go hand in hand with each other. Drug education programs aim to stop drug use before it even starts by preventing it from ever occurring. It is key to a long term solution of the reduction of future drug users. It works to intervene and redirect early drug users to more positive and healthy activities. Essentially, education programs allow the prevention of first use from becoming regular use.