Drugs are everywhere. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until fairly recently - about a year or two ago.
When I was younger, I watched the "You're a turkey!" commercials like everyone else and thought they were the most ridiculous things on television. I can honestly say that no one has ever walked up to me in school and tried to peddle their product on me.
However, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that although I have been lucky enough to not get sucked into the vacuum of illegal drugs and their inevitable effects, I can probably count on one hand the number of people I know who also have not either tried or do not continually use drugs. Nearly everyone I know uses some type of drug, a fact that sickens me.
People who I never suspected of using in my younger, more na??ve, days, have recently told me of their habits. I cannot even describe the loss of respect I feel toward them.
A friend recently told me that someone he knows has now been coke clean for 48 months, this after nearly failing out of college and throwing her life away. As someone who has never used, I obviously cannot comment on the attraction of snorting powder up your nose, although from this end there isn't one.
This same friend also told me of a recent experience in which he and his friends were in possession of marijuana while caught by police. The cops scattered the weed and gave one of the teens a summons for obstruction of a pedestrian walkway, a pointless punishment that only teaches teens that they can get away with whatever they want.
Fortunately, though, the 2001 Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, at the National Institute of Health, has reported a general decline in illicit drug use and attitudes toward drugs.
The study has tracked the drug use of 12th graders since 1975. Eighth and 10th graders were added to the study in 1991, a sad testimony to the deterioration of our society.
The 2001 study surveyed a sample of more than 44,000 students in 424 schools nationwide about lifetime use, past year use, past month use, and daily use of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
The study showed that the usage rates of marijuana, one of the most widely used drugs in my age group, have remained unchanged among all three grades. Although use of the drug is below its 1996 peak, usage among 10th and 12th graders has been stable since their high points in 1997.
The perceived harmfulness of regularly smoking marijuana, though, has decreased from 74.8 percent to 72.2 percent among eighth graders, marking a possible increase in usage for future years. Thirty-seven percent of 12th graders surveyed currently smoke marijuana.
MDMA, or ecstasy, runs a close second to marijuana use. The study shows that while the number of teens that are popping the pills is still increasing, the rate has slowed since its swift rise over the past two to three years.
The study states: "While increases were observed in all three grades, they were generally not as steep as in the past two years and were not statistically significant."
This statement, to me, represents something inherently wrong with our belief system. While the number crunching might not result in a "statistically significant" change in ecstasy use, the usage of these drugs by 12-year-olds clearly represents a significant problem. Masking this problem with statistics is not going to make it go away.
Luckily, the perceived "great risk" of trying ecstasy increased among 12th graders from 37.9 percent to 45.7 percent, indicating a possible decline in future usage. Perceived availability, however, increased drastically from 51.4 percent to 61.4 percent in 2001.
Cocaine use has also decreased from 2000-2001. Among 10th graders, an overall decrease of 6.9 percent to 5.7 percent was observed, while past year use declined from 3.8 percent to 3 percent.
While these results indicate a general trend of a decreasing drug problem, I am still bothered by the fact that there are 12-year-olds more concerned with where they can get their next hit than doing their math homework.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, there were 531,800 drug-related hospital visits in 1995, representing a slight increase from the previous year. Of these, almost 143,000 were the result of cocaine use. Marijuana-related visits increased by 17 percent.
Aside from taking the obvious health risks, I do not understand how eighth graders can even afford these drugs. When I was in the eighth grade, I didn't even have a job.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy conducted a survey that measured how much money was spent on illicit drugs between 1988 and 1995. ONDCP found that during this period, Americans spent $57.3 billion on drugs with $38 billion going to cocaine and $7 billion to marijuana.
This is only money that people spend using these drugs; it does not include money spent on treatment centers and rehabilitation. Obviously, there are ways this money could be better spent.
There is no logical reason to use any type of drug because with many drugs, there is no moderation. It often is a system of all or nothing, with people getting hooked and ruined.
Our efforts should be doubled at the elementary level to ensure that children as young as 10- and 12-years-old never start using drugs and therefore never have to struggle to quit. Furthermore, current laws need to be more severely enforced to deter older teens and college-age students from selling, buying, and using these substances.
