Preventing Drug Use Among Young Teens Essay

Throughout schools in the United States, there is a growing issue in our elementary through highschool aged students. Drugs and alcohol have begun to overtake childrens lives as young as twelve years old. There are many types of drugs involved from prescription drugs, which is the number one drug, to alcohol, marijuana, meth, cocaine, heroine, or inhalents.

As a counselor in training and an advocate for individuals’ mental health and wellness, I chose to become an official member of the American Counseling Association (ACA) and create an advocacy project to enhance adolescent mental health and wellness by advocating for more available protective factor to reduce substance use and abuse among this population. The purpose of this paper/project is to address and improve the rate of substance use and abuse among adolescents in Pitt County, more specifically in Greenville, North Carolina. This paper goes into great detail of the description of the population (adolescents), providing statistical evidence of adolescents’ use of drugs in Greenville. An increase in youth involved community activities, community service work and parental involvement will be discussed as ways to create a healthy, anti-drug, and stable environment for adolescents in Greenville, North Carolina.

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.

Teenage drug abuse is an issue that can result from a wide variety of social influences, stressful events, and mental disorders. Drug abuse among adolescents is a troubling issue because it decreases focus, increases the chance of consistency in behavior during adulthood, increases the chances of developing emotional issues, permanently damages the brain, and damages tissues in every system that can lead to death. Previous scientific research has identified that social factors, including the media and peers, play an important role in psychological development and impact the adolescent's decision to start experimenting with substances (Botvin 888). Appropriate solutions for the teenage drug abuse issue already exist, but the only remaining

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

According to current statistics released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, “In the United States in 2011, there were an estimated 25.1 million adolescents aged 12 to 17. In the past year, more than one quarter of adolescents drank alcohol, approximately one fifth used an illicit drug, and almost one eighth smoked cigarettes” ("A Day in the Life of American Adolescents," 2013, para. 1). Substance abuse is major problem amongst adolescents. Some are experimenting, but some adolescents may become dependent on a particular substance. If one becomes dependent on a substance as an adolescent it could be detrimental to their future health and success as an adult. Spear (2003) stated in an article titled Alcohol’s

Research has proven that those under the age of twenty one are more likely to be heavy or binge drinkers and more specifically, twenty two percent of all students under the age of twenty one are binge drinkers. There are many beliefs on what is to blame for the irresponsible drinking habits of these teenagers. One popular belief is that because they’re not drinking with other adults or experienced drinkers they are not being guided into the proper direction to being responsible drinkers. However, the main reason is the lack of education on the topic. D.A.R.E. ® is a program executed through local Police Stations that does a Drug Abuse Resistance Education program for a large array of age groups. The program teaches the students about the decisions they have to make in the future and the harms of drugs and alcohol and they teach students in the elementary, middle, and high schools all across the nation. The problem with this program is that they only present their education program once through the course of every student’s public school experience.

Adolescence, usually defined as individuals between the ages of 12 and 20, is a period of transition, brain development and challenges1, 2, 3. Adolescence is the peak time to engage in risk taking behaviors2. Substance use is a common occurrence among adolescents. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has identified adolescent substance use as one of the United States’ top public health concerns4. In fact, an individual’s chance of becoming a cigarette smoker drastically declines if smoking is not initiated by the time the individual is 18 years old. Alcohol and Marijuana are the most commonly used substances among adolescents1,2,3. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Study, the Center for Antisocial Drug Dependence, Monitoring the

Understanding how to persuade people to not abuse drugs is not always simple. Teaching people to be abstinent is hard to do because you do not know what people are really going to listen to you after the prevention program has ended. When you are learning about drug prevention as a teen it can be hard

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

Executive Summary America’s most popular anti-drug program D.A.R.E. has created an uproar. The D.A.R.E. program had many issues the main one being its ineffectiveness. How could the most widely used drug prevention program in the United States be deemed ineffective? What went wrong? “The prevention of drug abuse is an especially salient topic for school psychologists and other educational professionals. Schools are the primary setting for providing education and information aimed at the prevention of drug abuse. Previous meta-analyses” (Ennett, et al., 1994; West & O 'Neal, 2004) indicate that one of the nation 's most popular drug prevention programs, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.), was not effective in reducing illicit drug use among youths. Current evaluations have produced an array of evidence showing the effectiveness of the new D.A.R.E. curriculum. Future studies must be conducted to determine if this new curriculum is effective. This analysis will show how this once prosperous program has proven to be so ineffective the D.A.R.E. program ranges from $1 billion to more than $2 billion annually. Despite questions about whether DARE works, it appears the cost will go up by millions even as the program is retooled. the following analysis would include a meta-analysis on why the program was so ineffective what could have been done.

The first, universal prevention focuses on preventing all students in a school from drug use. These types of programs are aimed to provide general information about prevention of drug abuse to youth and families. A major advantage to this type of prevention is that they are generally less expensive which is a reason they are the most prevalent type among schools. However the advantage to these types of programs is that many at risk families do not participate (Kumpfer n.d.). This may be because those families are involved with drugs and do not want to bring attention to the situation. The second type, selective prevention programs, are designed to target at- risk groups. These groups generally made up of impoverished children of alcoholics or drug abusers (Kumpfer n.d.). These programs can be much more efficient in helping since the individuals they are targeting are facing the challenges the program teaches about. When youth in the group see first hand how drug and alcohol abuse can affect someone’s life, they may only need a small push in the right direction away from a life of addiction. This small push is tailored for at-risk young adults, thus increasing its’ effectiveness. While appealing to and engaging at-risk students can prove to be a challenging disadvantage, it is well worth the time and effort to

Among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, 9.8 % are estimated to be current users of illicit drugs, with 4.9 % using drugs other than marijuana. Nearly three quarters of students have started to drink alcohol and nearly half (47%) have tried using an illicit drug (not including alcohol or tobacco) by the senior year of high school.” (Hassan, Harris, Sherritt, Van Hook, & Brooks, 2009)

School –based drug use- prevention programs such as DARE, Project Alert, and Life Skills Training program have been designed to keep kids from illiciting drugs. Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) is an educational program usually delivered by a police officer. The 17 week program components are learning refusal skills, teen leaders, making a public commitment not to use illicit drugs. Also, affective education components include: self-esteem building, alternatives to drug use and decision making. Research on the effectiveness of

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.