Teen Prescription Drug Abuse In High School

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.

Years ago, the common image of an adolescent drug abuser was a teen trying to escape from reality on illegal substances like cocaine, heroin, or marijuana. Today, there is a great discrepancy between that perception and the reality of who is likely to abuse drugs. A teenage drug abuser might not have to look any further than his or her parent’s medicine chest to ‘score.’ Prescription drug abuse by teens is on the rise. Also, teens are looking to prescription drugs to fulfill different needs other than to feel good or escape the pressures of adulthood. Teens may be just as likely to resort to drugs with ‘speedy’ side effects, like Ritalin to help them study longer, as they are to use prescription

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.

Three decades from now, T.L.O., a student at a New Jersey High School was caught smoking in a school restroom, and was brought to the assistant principal’s office. The 14-years-old teenager denied smoking, so the assistant principal persisted in searching her purse and found cigarettes, and rolling paper which is associated with marijuana (T.L.O. vs. New Jersey). Nothing has changed since then. If you look a little closer, you can see teenagers lying around doing drugs here and there. They are no longer determined to succeed in life; instead all they can think about is where the next supply of cocaine will come from. What has our future come to? Research done by scientists and other professionals provide evidence that substance abuse by teenagers is an ever-growing problem due to teen’s poor judgement, it’s irreparable damage, and inability to compete with drug addiction.

Today drugs are considered to be an acceptable social phenomenon by many teenagers. If parents are involved with children on a day-to-day basis, they will more than likely know when the child starts to take drugs because of the big changes going on in their lives. There are many positive alternatives to drugs, so drugs are not the only fun and "cool" things to do (www.nodrugs.com 2).

The existence of a myriad of social problems among teenagers that both parents and states have to deal with is a factor whose weight ought not to be treated lightly. The increasing level of drug use among the adolescents constitutes one of the ever increasing situations in the society and may, as a matter of fact, be a representation other underlying issues. The level of the situation in the contemporary world, though not discussed as much as it ought to be, has reached alarming levels. There seems to be an increasing predisposition among the use to take the drugs as it's reflected in the escalating trends of drug abuse among this generation of individuals (spooner, 1999). The ever deteriorating levels of this situation coupled with the widespread permissiveness in the society and the absence of attention from appropriate caregivers at different institutions only means that the need to address the problem is paramount. Different avenues of solutions can be applied in reducing the level of the problem and averting the massive negative consequences that come with the phenomena. Dealing with this issue is not a matter of instance as the different parameters of the problems, its causes and possible workable solutions have to be discovered. As such, research on these dynamics is a mandatory undertaking.

In the last year over a million teens in America alone between the ages 12-17 met the criteria for substance abuse and addiction. Teens should be made aware of the effects of drugs. There are ways to teach teenagers the negative effects of drugs. Such as, fiction novels.

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).

Teens are highly affected by drugs around the world but training has begun to stop it. Along with brain damage and lung damage. Countless teens around the world use drugs for social advantages.The United States represents 5% of the world's population and 75% of prescription drugs taken. 60% of teens who abuse prescription drugs get them free from friends and relatives. Doctors are already trained to find ways to help.If teens smoke too much it can cause them to die or overdose.

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)

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

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.

Drugs at my old high school was something big. The school constantly did surprise inspections on random classrooms and lockers with trained dogs. When they conducted this procedure, they usually caught a couple of students. My school was considered a poor school, few were the students who didn’t face financial problems. So, many students would sell drugs in and outside of school, these students never forced you to buy they just went on to the next. This was a common practice at my high school. Luckily I don’t see this problem at UC Merced, in fact this is a tobacco-free campus that should speak for its self. If there are students who sell drugs at UC Merced they aren’t noticeable like in my old high school, but I doubt there is any. Having

Even if a student does not engage in any use, it is highly common that someone they know will at some point in their life. When teenagers begin this activity, it can rapidly escalate, leading to addiction or the use of heavier drugs. Teenagers are not able to fully comprehend how this will affect them mentally or physically, short term or long term. Attending a large school, I have witnessed many people I know struggle with addiction to pills, marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol. These people don’t realize that they are putting these things above everything in life, and they are struggling academically, as well as socially. It is hard for other teenagers to help since they don’t want to get their friends in trouble or they’re simply unaware of how severe the situation is.

Officer Reynolds informed this writer that many of the teens he has came in contact with have informed him thatAccording to a report from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, approximately one in five teenagers have abused a prescription painkiller and one in 11 has abused OTC products (Gara, 2005). Officer Reynolds also spoke about the different parties these teens have with the different drugs they are able to obtain. He stated they have “skittle” and “pharm” parties and who knows what else. This writer asked Officer Reynolds