M3A2

Drug abuse

Phyllis Lovering

Argosy Online

Sept.17, 2017

Drug abuse

There are many criminal behaviors. Some of them include drug abuse, status crimes, and juvenile offenders among others. The criminal act under consideration will be substance abuse. Substance abuse is the constant taking of illegal or addictive drugs (Espejo, 2012). Substance abuse results in independence or psychological addiction harm such as memory loss and hallucinations, mental problems or even death. Substance abuse is also referred to as drug addiction. The process of drug addiction in most of the people starts at the age of twelve or thirteen. Early abuse often begins with the abuse of substances such as alcohol, tobacco, inhalants and prescription drugs. Some of the prescription drugs which are commonly abused include anti-anxiety medicines and sleeping pills. These people under the influence of narcotics later graduate to taking drugs such as marijuana and other addictive ones such as marijuana. It is important to note that the abuse of drugs begins with these small drugs which later graduates to those which are difficult to do without.

The particular target area where I would want to address the problem of substance abuse is in Washington DC. It is well known of its residents being addicted to cocaine. About 3.04% of the residents use cocaine. Though other drugs are also used, they are not used as widely as cocaine. It is a simulative drug which is quite addictive. The source of this drug is the coca leaves. The targeted groups which I would want to focus on among those who are affected by the criminal problems are the adolescents or the teenagers'. The adolescents are usually in the teenage age and from various research drug or substance abuse begins during these years.

Drug abuse

There are quite some intervention ideas which one could take to prevent substance abuse among the teenagers.one of them is the introduction of programs which would bring counseling to them. The teens need to be taught on the need of self-worth and the need of taking care of themselves. Similarly, they need to be educated on whey they need to live their own lives and avoid peer pressure. The individuals with mental illnesses should also be advised to seek medical advice other than taking the anxiety pills for quite a long time since they result in addiction. Finally, another idea could be instilling strict rules on those who are caught selling these drugs and those who are found consuming them. Heavy penalties should be installed in them (Fradin, 2010).

The intervention ideas are likely to be effective .most of the teens engage in substance abuse since they did not know their worth. Hence the counseling programs will be very effective. From most of the research, it is clear that most of those who engage in substance abuse are a result of peer pressure. Most of these people want to feel how it is like when they take the drugs, hence during the counseling programs it is important that they are taught about avoidance of peer pressure. With this, it will be possible to achieve the intended target. Some of the drugs that are abused include the sleeping pills and the anxiety drugs; it is hence important that those who suffer mental problems should always seek spiritual advice from the doctors before engaging themselves with any drugs. Most of the people take sleeping pills so that their minds can relax. For the teenagers, some of them take them after studies or when they are under stress so that they can rest their brains. Such should not happen, they should instead seek other ways or psychological advice when they need to relax their minds. Implementation of the prevention methods will hence be efficient, and hence the target of the research will be met.

Drug abuse

References

Espejo, R. (2012). Drug abuse. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press,

Fradin, D. B. (2010). Drug abuse. Chicago: Children's Press.