Drug and Alcohol among College and High School Students Essay -- Drugs

Drug and Alcohol among College and High School Students In an era in which drugs and alcohol has become increasingly easy to obtain, its abuse has proportionally plagued American youth time and time again. In the past few years’ abuse amongst youngsters has reached an all time high. The effects of these substances, on students damage their mind and body; and in addition, has effected their academic performance, not only on the collegiate level but also amongst high school students. Since alcohol is the number one drug problem among young people and Marijuana, which is the most frequently used illicit drug in the United States. These substances are becoming more and more frequent throughout high school students and college students, the bodily harm the abuse causes takes action at a much earlier age. The problem of drug and alcohol abuse starts at a young age, were teenagers start to experiment with different substances. Peer pressure plays an enormous role in teenager’s decision to take a substance. Adolescence’s have almost always started drinking because of peer pressure, in an attempt to be accepted and included in the group. The pressures facing young kids in high school and college face to be â€Å"cool† is unreasonably high. Many people continue with the use of alcohol or drugs because it relaxes them in social situations and makes it easier to communicate with the people around them. In today’s society children are trying substances at earlier ages then before. Drug and alcohol among teenagers starts at the adolescence age; It is common among these teenagers to start trying these different substances. The trying of these substances is where the problem starts; when students take it to the next step toward o... ...the fifteen students we approached, all fifteen of them admitted that they use alcohol or drugs to escape from something. Whether from schoolwork, their friends, boyfriends or girlfriends or plain and simply from reality, they all abuse the substances to feel good for a few hours just to go back to reality and face their troubles the next day. The continued process of this makes it almost a routine for these students to continuously go out and get drunk or high to have fun and not worry about anything else for the night. Drugs and alcohol are going to continue to be used by high school and college students forever but there are many actions to take that can help decrease the numbers. Communities need to begin getting more involved, parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives and laws need to be more strictly enforced before these bad habits break.