Drugs The American Trend Essay, Research Paper
IS IT TRENDY TO USE DRUGS
There is a great change in cultural trend between now and the old America. Some changes such as technology benefit society, and some such as drug use don t. The use of drugs is one of the negative cultural trends that we are experiencing right now. There are more people who use drugs now than ever before. Although there is a huge war on drugs, some people still use drugs every day.
There are many reasons why people use drugs now but not before. First some of the drugs were not developed in the older days like the 1900 s. People were not interested with drugs or using drugs. More young adults listen to the elders, so they were more disciplined. There was no pressure from friends to do drugs. Today America is totally different. America is almost opposite.
Young people seem to be more interested in drugs than adults. The reason why is because they are pressured to try, but once they try they get hooked to it. Some think is cool to do drugs. They are curious about the drug. Some do it for fun because they are bored. Some do it to escape from pain on family situations. Some do it to take a risk or thrill seeking. Some are mimicking inappropriate adult behavior. Some just lack the appropriate values. Young people often don t think of the consequences that may occur if they use the drugs.
The war on drugs never seems to win. There are several reasons why the war the on drugs never seem to win. First the resources require funding, and you can only fund to a certain extent. Some drug users tend to not listen and take advice. They don t care about the consequences that may occur. We can t just dedicate all our resource to fight the war on drugs; we are going to be behind in other important issues.
Another reason is we also have new type of drugs that were not popular in the old days. There is cocaine, which is one of the popular drugs. Cocaine is snorted or smoked as crack it s cheap and affordable so that makes it more addictive. Marijuana is a popular drug but it has been here for many years. More people use marijuana now more than ever before, it s even more popular with young adults. Young people start with marijuana then the go to the more powerful drugs. Marijuana is a starter drug. Almost every drug user has smoked marijuana before using any other drug.
Some people might argue that drug users only hurt themselves but the use of drugs is of course not good for anyone in our society. It affects every one of us. Drug users are careless and reckless. They also need money to support their drug habit, so in result, they might go steal, rob or do anything to get money. Drug use leads to all sorts of crime. Drug abuse drains society s resources by requiring that taxes be spent on funding enforcement agencies, educational programs, treatment facilities and on prosecution of drug dealers and users. We also get hurt economically because millions of American dollars leave the country every year to countries like Colombia and Turkey. The dollars leave the county illegally so there is no count on how much money leaves this country.
Many believe that legalizing drugs would lessen crime. They point out that the legalization of drugs would deter future criminal acts. They also emphasize and contrast prohibition. When the public realized prohibition could not be enforced, the law was repealed. From this, one may infer the same of legalizing drugs. Legalizing alcohol did not increase alcoholism, so why would drugs increase drug abuse?
Prohibition of alcohol can be compared with drugs. Just think about alcohol, almost every college student has once tried alcohol. So, if drugs were more accessible there would be more users than ever before, they would use drugs just because of the legality of it.
There are some musicians who glorify the use of drugs in their song. Especially the use of marijuana, some rap artist like Redman, raps about how high they get from smoking marijuana. The sing the song in concerts, in their CD s. They say you are not a real thug if you don t smoke marijuana. You have to smoke to be cool.
Some of the famous people who use drug in result some of them go in a downfall. Most young adults look at famous people as cool and they often want to take their place. Some of these famous people are known to use drugs so, the young people think its OK sense the musicians and movie stars are using drugs its trendy to use drugs. They think it s the thing to do.
We can ask our self who is to blame for the drug use in America? No one is solely to blame for this negative cultural trend. We should not blame any one for the problems we have which are associated with drugs. We get more crimes, which are associated with drugs. We can blame no one except the users themselves.
We can prevent the drug use by educating people and having stricter laws on drugs. Parents need to talk to their children about the use of drugs. We need to educate the young adults on the effects on drugs. If the parents don t educate their children the children would think that it s OK to use the drug. If parents don t educate their children the children won t listen to any one else. They are likely t o listen to their parents than a stranger or a person they don t know.
Drug use is a negative cultural trend, is bad for our society, drug use is a plague on our society, drug use increases crime, and drug use increases death. Drug use is associated with diseases like AIDS. Some people even think that they should legalize some of the drugs. Legalizing drugs would make drugs more accessible to people and that would increase drug use in America. If fighting the drug war was made our first priority, we could probably wage an effective war, through education and enforcement of laws, to stop drug abuse.