Opioids In Schools

Every year thousands of people die from an overdose, leaving behind friends and family. Once someone starts using drugs they get addicted and they can't stop. They will go out of their way to get drugs and will do anything to use. People go against their family and friends and end up caring about themselves and nothing else. Being addicted to drugs is like having a disease that is very hard to get rid of.

There have been several news coverages on TV and social network about drug overdose of different cases recently and they have risen people’s concern about the problems of drug abuse national-wide. The drug abuse and opioid epidemic is not a new problem to the American society, actually it has been a serious problem for many years. So what is the situation of drug epidemic now, and how can we find effective ways to deal with this problem? A few writers who ponder this question are Nora D. Volkow, Dan Nolan and Chris Amico.

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

Besides this, many people are concerned because of the influx of hard drugs, especially heroin, to the mainstream rather than being hidden in the poverty-stricken inner cities. In recent years, crack, cocaine, and heroin have been more prevelant than ever, especially among the wealthy. Drugs are no longer something that only gang members and bad guys do, everybody is doing them. (Inciardi 1999)

All around the world anyone can find people that are addicted to some form of drug. Drug addiction is a huge issue that has been occurring for about thirty years now and is occurring to this day for many reasons. Some of those reasons may be that something is going on back home and they have had enough, or because of stress, peer pressure, biological reasons and the list goes on. However, there has been law enforcement due to drugs since the mid 1980’s. People have many viewpoints to when it comes to drug use and addiction. There are three perspectives people have that view the use of drugs and drug addiction which are structural functionalism, conflict, and symbolic interactionist.

ADD TITLE Illegal drugs has been a problem for many years in North America especially United States. Illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and others are dangerous towards the society because they comprise harmful chemicals and toxins. These drugs trigger certain behaviour in some which causes them to act in a way that has an effect on their family and community. Some go beyond just impacting their family and community, and fall in the hands of association with criminal activities.

In the US, according to CQ Researcher, the number of those that used heroin had more than doubled between the years of 2002 and 2004 and doubled again between 2011 and 2013. It is a growing issue especially due to

How an individual utilizes drugs is partially up to their culture, family, friends, peers, doctors, race, job, position in society, social class, and most importantly themselves. Drugs can be positive or negative, it depends on a person's demographics in society and personal views. It is true that illegal drugs are related to several negative components of society’s family problems, high prison populations, violence, health problems, deaths, homelessness and many other. To some people drugs are the only way, the only way to survive a life killing disease, mental health problems, physical health problems, depression, stress, and anxiety. It is true that drugs impact social problems, but if people changed their perspective on less harmful drugs and how they can help, there may be fewer problems that our society would have to worry about. Before 2010, sentencings for possession of crack, which is cheaper and mostly used by the poor and African Americans,  were much higher than the possession of cocaine which is predominantly used by the middle class and whites. “Drug laws criminalize the poor, especially people of color, who now fill U.S. prisons in disproportionate numbers” (Macionis, 248). Court fines and legal council are expensive and the average lower middle class family can not afford to pay these let alone the lower class. Poor Americans are almost certain to fall back into a life of drugs and crime when they are released from jail because there are few programs in place to help inmates successfully integrate back into society. Finding a job as a convicted felon is near impossible so many turn to selling illegal items to support themselves and their family. Enhanced policing and tracking in poor communities makes it easier for law enforcement to arrest new and repeat offenders (Macionis,

It might be surprising to many but over the recent decades there has been an increasing amount of opioid use among adolescents. Thus, increasing the likelihood of addiction and recently it has become a major health care epidemic. Pursuing this further, such problems often occur because well-meaning doctors, eager to make patients more comfortable, repeatedly increase a drug’s dose, inadvertently increasing risk. Furthermore, although opioids can be dangerous experts believe that patients using opioids are at a lower risk when patients are monitored closely to make sure they are still benefiting from the drugs in terms of pain relief and physical function.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program known as D.A.R.E has become a very widespread and popular program throughout the United States. The program appeals to all ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic lines, which is a large part of the reason why the DARE program has grown exponentially. The program’s basic premise was meant to introduce kids to the danger of drugs, before the drugs got to them. The implementation of the DARE program appeared to be what America needed to begin to put a dent in the war on drugs.

D.A.R.E. is “perhaps the most widely acclaimed ‘successful’ intervention of all ineffective delinquency prevention programs” (2003:130). Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a City of Los Angeles Government substance abuse prevention education program that seeks to prevent the use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. Founded in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint initiative of the-LAPD chief Daryl Gates and the Los Angeles Unified School District as a demand-side drug control strategy of the American War on Drugs. Students who enter the program sign a pledge not to use drugs or join gangs and are informed by local police officers about the government 's beliefs about the dangers of recreational drug use in an interactive in-school curriculum which lasts ten weeks. (www.dare.com, 2005). According Howell, 2003 D.A.R.E. is deterrence and the notion that giving school aged children educational information on the consequence of alcohol and drug use by police officers will deter them from experimenting and using these substances (Howell, 2003).  This popular program spread wide throughout the United States public schools, but the D.A.R.E. program has been put through many evaluations. Critics of the D.A.R.E. program point to the many studies which find no statistically significant short or long term effects on the key outcome variables of substance use among those who do and do not participate in D.A.R.E. (Drulak, 1997; Rosenbaum and Hanson, 1998;

drug that injures addicts, families, and our society. The population of heroin addicts is on the rise and younger individuals are getting hooked on heroin on a daily basis. Society is wrestling with a serious situation every day. Drug use is no longer limited to the poor and under privileged. There is no choice but for society to face it head on .

Drugs negatively impact user’s health, physical abilities, wealth, and social status. Despite all these reasons why would anyone even do these narcotics? Well according to NIDA there are three main reasons which factor into a person’s becoming addicted to drugs; firstly they state “The genes that people are born with accounts for about half of a person’s risk for addiction.” To summarize it states if you’re descended from a habitual drug abuser, you’re more likely to also become addicted to the substance. Another

Money is something that everyone wants to have. Everyone needs it to buy the basics: food, shelter, water. Being addicted to heroin compromises that. Heroin addicts usually will not save up money. Once they get money it goes straight to the addiction. They buy as much as they can afford usually. They forgo getting food or water just so they can get their drug of choice. This could put a strain on family relationships as well. Heroin addicts start off by asking their parents or family members for money promising they will pay them back. When the family sees that the addict is using it for drugs, the addict could get kicked out of the house and banished from the family.

Drug abuse is a serious issue in today’s society. Drug abuse is a pattern of using a substance (drug) that leads to a serious problems or distress. 7% of people experience drug abuse one point of their lives. Drug use doesn’t automatically lead to drug abuse, it depends on how much you use. There is no specific level to were drug using moves from casual to becoming a serious problem.