What Can Drugs Really Do?

What Can Drugs Really Do?

Police say 18-year-old David Rozga, of Indianola, Iowa, "freaked out" and committed suicide last year after smoking the marijuana look-alike drug K2, this is only one example of the effect that drugs have on teenagers today. Teen drug consumption is on the rise in the United States after years of decline. Marijuana is the major substance involved, but use of the hallucinogen Ecstasy also has risen. And for some reason teenagers also have grown to think that smoking is something everyone does, and there is no harm in doing what everyone else does too. Michelle Lipinski runs a school in Beverly, Mass., for teens trying to overcome addictions, she quotes, "We have people walking past school every single day getting high," she says. "The public says, 'It's just weed.' If I hear, 'It's just weed' one more time, I'm going to stick a fork in my eye." Teenagers are not aware of what drugs can really do to their body and mind. The teen usage of marijuana smoking has been rising since 1992 and if someone or something does not do anything about it, the amount of teenagers using drugs will continue to increase, and kill more and more people every year.

No teens what to ask the question on what taking drugs is really doing to your body. Discussions about drug testing invariably turn to marijuana and the age-old questions: Is it harmful? Addictive? Does it act as a "gateway" to harder drugs? Marijuana residues stay in the body longer than other drugs, thus causing more marijuana users to get "caught" by urinalysis than users of other drugs. John P. Morgan, professor of pharmacology at City University of New York Medical School, says, "Drug testing is all about marijuana." He adds, noting that more people have been arrested for possession of marijuana during the Clinton administration than any other. According to a recent report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, teens 12-17 who use marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than non-marijuana users. So what should be the smart thing to do would be to stop teenagers from even trying drugs, because it can only lead to something bad. A recent increase in marijuana use among teens will translate into 820,000 more children who will try cocaine in their lifetime, of whom 58,000 will become addicts. More than 72 million Americans have tried marijuana at some point in their lives, yet in the over-30 population, only 0.8 percent of the population is continuing to use marijuana on a daily or even near-daily basis.

Its amazing how easy it is for teens these days to get there hand on almost any kind of drug. If you know the right people or your friends with people that can find drugs, most teens can get there hands on drug whenever they have money. These days not only are teens trying marijuana but they are also trying other things. Teens are exposed to drugs from all kinds of situations from who they interact with to where they hang out. For example, raves. Raves are popular venues for users of the euphoria-producing Ecstasy and GHB, two new and potentially dangerous "club" drugs. GHB, the so-called date-rape drug, is a potent depressant that can cause loss of consciousness and is sometimes slipped into unsuspecting young women's drinks by sexual predators who then assault them .Since 1995, the number of teens taking Ecstasy at least once in a year has grown from 5 percent to 12 percent. And