Summary Of Drug Prevention In The 21st Century By Alexia Erickson

Alexa Erickson wrote an article titled “Drug Prevention in the 21st Century: Why we need change & the program that may help.” She stated “Children aren’t receiving drug prevention messages, and 90% of the youth suffering from a drug problem don’t receive the help they need. Federal funding for these programs is largely overlooked, despite the fact that, in 2014, 47,055 people died from drug overdoses, which was 1.5 times greater than those killed in car crashes.” When looking back on her D.A.R.E program, she didn’t seem to remember much about it. These programs are supposed to instill the theory that drugs are bad and doing them will ruin your life, but research shows that the public antidrug programs like D.A.R.E are mostly ineffective. Erickson …show more content…
She pointed out that 90% of adolescents suffering from drug addiction aren’t receiving the help they need. Clearly, federal funding for drug prevention programs, treatment, and recovery services isn’t a priority to Congress members. Although some research shows that D.A.R.E. is effective, other research might show that it is ineffective. Today, it’s very difficult to make any conclusions about its effectiveness due to insufficient research evidence. In an effort to improve drug prevention programs Erickson started researching a new antidrug program being tested in Europe, Australia, and Canada. The program is called “Preventure,” and it acknowledges that different personality traits can lead to different paths of addiction. This article describes the program in detail starting with how it begins, the training given to school staff, the steps the program takes to identify children with outlying personalities that could ultimately lead to drug abuse, and the workshops that are set up to target each child’s most troublesome trait. In these workshops, the students are taught cognitive …show more content…
People use drugs for a variety of reasons; however, not every user develops an addiction. In recent years, drug use by adolescents and young adults has increased significantly due to many new “designer drugs” hitting the streets. These drugs are synthetically produced by chemically modifying molecular structures of controlled substances. Bath salts, K2, spice, and molly are all classified as designer drugs. They have become increasingly popular because they are cheap, easy to obtain, and can’t be detected on a drug test. However, using these drugs can lead to serious health risks. Between 2010 and 2015, 456 cases of poisoning from the use of spice were reported, along with three deaths. Although drug prevention programs like D.A.R.E., have proven to be effective, adolescents still don’t seem to get the message. The members of Congress need to focus on more efficient drug prevention programs and approve the proper federal funding for them. Instead of just telling children “drugs are bad for you,” we should focus on targeting youth who possess personality risk factors that lead to addiction. Adolescents and young adults are at the prime age when drug use usually begins and reaches its highest level; something needs to be done in an effort to help the rising drug problems in