Jackson Stallsmith

Dear future president

About every teen ages 12 or older have had either first hand of seen drug abuse. Including myself. I've seen it all around me, but haven't gotten involved myself, because of the effects I've seen it have on the users . This represents the image of adolescents today. I mean almost 27 million people admit to having a drug problem. The drug problem among teens, is starting to lead into worse and worse things. Worse than just drugs itself. The younger generation should have more support for the prevention and addiction of drugs.

Teens in lower class towns/ states should have the opportunity to go to the rehab facilities that the richer communities have. They should have the option to choose between rehab and jail, if those are the two options. Because in jail, they don't have much support to stop their abuse. They are surrounded by veterans and users of illicit drugs. In an article written by “Heidi Splete”, she talks about the challenges and thoughts and/or worries the teens may have when seeking help. “Parents occasionally ask pediatricians or family physicians to conduct lab screens on their children. "I think the worst thing you can do is get a drug screen without informing the teenager," Dr. Siqueira said. If a physician conducts the screen and didn't get permission, it's difficult to help the teen because he or she will need to trust and work with a doctor to be properly treated.” She writes about how adolescents with drug problems in search of doctors and/or peers for help is challenging, because the teens need to gain trust within the person, along with working together with the person (which sometimes people with the drug abuse don't put themselves into rehab, their friends and family do, which can make the user upset, to the point to where the user doesn't want to comply with the doctor and/or peer that is helping in order to really come out with their problems in order to find the right help. Which trust today isn't the biggest thing everyone has within themselves.

Adolescent that have been supplied drugs by another peer., need to have more support. The percentage of women admitting to getting drugs from a peer is slightly higher than member (58%) which means that drugs don't only come from bad influences, they can come from close relatives. In an article written by “ Kerri Wachter “, it shows that women are more likely to get prescription drugs form a peer than men. "However, as soon as they start getting it from a peer or another source--like a drug dealer--or an unspecified source ... that's when we start seeing increased rates of substance abuse," said Dr. Boyd, director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The same pattern is seen in men, though they typically abuse substances at higher rates than women.” This shows that the drug problem that we say is coming from bad influences and activities, is obviously not a complete statement, because it is coming from our peers and relatives too, which we would think to be as good influences. This shows that drug abuse is being fueled by close peers, essentially the feeders of the abuse, to lead into worse things.

The drug problem in America is becoming an increasingly worse problem than earlier times. 5 percent of the world's population admits to using an illicit drug. In 2010, and 27 million were classified a “problem drug user”. Along with that , heroin and cocaine, etc. were responsible for 0.1 to 0.2 million deaths per year. So I think for America to really be great, those numbers shouldn't be anywhere close to where they are right now. In the article written by “Bharath Chakravarthy, Shyam Shah and Shahram Lotfipour“ it tells us how these numbers have really come to be. “Existing studies have found a high correlation between adolescent abuse and becoming a problem drug user in adulthood therefore, it can be inferred that many problem drug users start abusing drugs at an early age. Additionally, accidental and intentional fatalities that are associated with drug and alcohol use represent one of the leading preventable causes of death for the 15 to 24-year-old population. This tells us how drugs themselves have caused a huge epidemic in our nation, and it keeps increasing. Who's going to stop it? These numbers show that drugs are leading to worse things, and a good proportion of these numbers, are teens. Because based of the article, the drug problems start in teens at an early age, which greatly affects the user, and his/her surroundings.

Drugs have become worse and worse for the U.S. to this day, and they are still becoming worse. The addiction starts young, as teens. If we don’t stop it early in their lives, then the problem will keep growing, along with the numbers, the deaths. We need to put more action, support, and prevention out there for our younger generations, to stop, and prevent drug abuse.

Sincerely, Jackson 

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