Substance Abuse And The External Factors Affecting Teenage Youth

A drug is a substance that alters the mind, body or both. Drug use is an increasing problem among teenagers in colleges today. Most drug use begins in the preteen and teenage years, the years most crucial in the maturation process (Shiromoto 5). During these years adolescents are faced with difficult tasks of discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independence, learning to cope with authority and searching for goals that would give their lives meaning. Drugs are readily available, adolescents are curious and venerable, and there is peer pressure to experiment, and there is a temptation to escape from conflicts. The use of drugs by teenagers is the result of a combination of factors such as peer

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

According to Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Study, conducted among high school students, over 70% tried cigarettes, 25% smoke daily for at least a month and over 80% of students have used alcohol at least once5. Many factors impact the likelihood of adolescent substance use. One risk factor for adolescent substance use is perceived ease of access to substances4. Also, the type of substances being used by adolescents varies by geographic location. Students living in rural areas report higher perceived access to alcohol, smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and steroids while students living in urban areas report higher levels of perceived access to marijuana, cocaine, inhalants, ecstasy, methamphetamine and hallucinogens4. Depression during adolescence is linked to substance abuse. Students who did not have many peers of the same racial/ethnic group in their school reported poorer school attachment, which in turn is related to depressive symptoms3. Positive relationships among peers tend to have an impact on substance use in

In this essay I will be discussing the topic of substance abuse amongst adolescent youth within Canada. I will be reviewing topics of interest revolving around various types of street narcotics, alcohol consumption, and psychoactive drug use. Although substance abuse is a global issue, I will be focusing primarily on studies, and research done on the effects and impacts on Canadian youth. Thought the course of this essay I will also be touching on the various effects, that come with the continuous usage of these illegal and legal substances which not only take a toll on the user but also the families, social setting, and community. Finally some pro-active steps to getting the information and required help if you suspect someone or yourself are under the influence of any form of substance abuse.

Drug abuse is an increasing problem in our society, and specifically among teenagers. This increased affiliation with substances is very detrimental to teens. It causes an inability to focus, increases the chance that you will continue your drug abuse through your adulthood and it greatly damages the brain and many other organs. Our brains are developing when we are in our adolescence, which is why it is very important to discourage kids experimenting with drugs.

Drug use is an increasing problem among teenagers in today's high schools. Most drug use begins in the teenage years, these years are the most crucial in the maturing process. During these years adolescents are faced with the difficult tasks of discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independence, learning to cope with authority figures and searching for goals that would give their lives meaning. Drugs are readily available, adolescents are curious and venerable, and there is peer pressure to experiment, and there is a temptation to escape from conflicts. The use of drugs by teenagers is the result of a combination of factors such as peer pressure, curiosity, and

The teenage years can be some of the most confusing times in a person’s life. During these years of life, one may begin to experiment with risky choices such as turning to drugs and alcohol for means of fun. What he does not know at that point, is this “harmless fun” can turn into a severe, life-long problem if he is not careful. Youth who are exposed to drugs and alcohol are not only susceptible to the health risks that come with using them, but are also put in a position to become addicted to the substances.

Most people that use these illegal substances go on to doing more serious crimes such as rape, murder, and suicide. Drugs and alcohol have damaging effects on the mind, body, and personality, it is advisable to stay away from them. Most of teens are getting help from family members to get drugs, which is a huge part of the problem. As stated in the article Drugs Even Affect Kids, 65% of drug addicts get access to the drink via there closes family and friends. This is causing teens to think that it is okay to do drugs, and this is also showing lack of parental support. If teens see that other people are doing something, or people they look up to such as parents doing something then they are going to think it is okay. Being in high school, you are opened up to some of the teens and parents that are doing this for their children, so you see it going on.

This source outlines substance abuse as a major problem within society, especially amongst adolescents. Adolescents who resort to substance abuse damage themselves and their surroundings, physically, socially, and economically. The source aims to battle these issues by preventing drug abuse with research and other strategies. It gives attention and importance to the histories of drug prevention and how drug prevention strategies of the future might work. It also discusses how the prevention of drug and resorting to different methods of help can positively effect a person’s family, school and community life, straying away from issues such as depression and anxiety disorders (Scheier, 2015, p. 294). This source is useful because it covers many

Family History of Substance Abuse, Having a Mental Health Disorder, Peer Pressure, Lack of Family Involvement and Taking Highly Addictive Drugs (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2016). You might think that some of these risk factors are foolish, when most of them can be prone to a substance abuse in an adolescent's life. Having a Mental Health issue is one of the most common factors to substance abuse, being depressed, having anxiety or being stressed can cause teens to feel hopeless and that is when they turn to drugs and alcohol to “support them”; Lack of Family Involvement also puts teens at a higher risk of abusing substances, when a teen feels alone when they are at home, they find ways to replace a family’s love with other things, substances. Lastly, I believe that Peer Pressure causes thousands of teens to do things against their beliefs. We can all agree that being a teenager is an abnormal time, we are finding out who we are and we want to fit in with “that group”, minors will do anything, including drugs to be accepted in society. The upsetting part is, us teens do not understand that we are who we are, we need to find friends who make us a better person, like us for our true selves; not forcing you into bad ideas that could lead you down the wrong road in your

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.

As most people know when you get into high school you are tempted to do more things and try a lot of new thing such as drugs or even alcohol. This is a serious problem for teens because most of the time teens are tempted to do things like this because they see their friends doing it. This problem needs to be solved because we know that drugs are not good for us and that it could even lead to worst things in the future such as medical issues or even death. Teens obviously do not think about how it will effect them in the long run sometimes because at that moment all they want to do is fit in with their friends. Teens are tempted to do these things because they want to fit in with everyone else.

In today's society nothing affects lives of teenagers more than alcohol,drugs or prescription medications. Teens use drugs and alcohol to help with problems they have in life. Those problems can range all the way to financial struggles all the way to something simple such as peer pressure. There are over hundreds of reasons why teens use drugs and alcohol to cope but the main ones are to help with peer pressure or bullying, household problems and relationships with family, and negative influences from family and friends. All of those are serious issues that teens are facing right now and to cope with those issues they are falling to an addiction of drugs and alcohol. Teens feel that using drugs and alcohol will help them ignore those

Drugs and alcohol are not only a current problem in the United States, but it has also been affecting many teenagers in the world today. Teenagers today use and abuse drugs for many reasons, some being stress,peer pressure,curiosity or just modeling their parents' behavior. Many teenagers know the effects of alcohol and drugs, but some don’t really know the real consequences of what can actually happen to them. Consequences to you and also the ones around you can be very serious, I don’t think school or parents educate their kids enough of what the actual consequences are of these substances.

Teenagers face many difficult decisions in their lives and have many people in their lives that influence them. One of the major groups that influence teens is their peer group. “Since teenagers are not yet comfortable with themselves, they have a strong need to be accepted by their peers. And to be accepted, they feel they have to be just like their peers” (Ruth Maxwell, p. 24). From Maxwell we learn that teenagers will use alcohol to be accepted by a group. As age progresses the number of alcohol users progress 73 percent of kids that are from the ages of 16-18 are drinkers. In addition, around 90 percent of high school seniors have experienced alcohol at least once in their life.