Some people say they are curious or bored and want to see how drugs will make them feel. But everyone reacts differently to drugs, and there is just no way to predict what your reaction will be. Some drugs (like cocaine, heroin, inhalants, and sedatives) can kill you with just one use — they can cause immediate health consequences like heart attacks, suffocation, and breathing problems — while others, like marijuana, can cause you to become paranoid or behave in ways that aren't you.
The real question is:
- By "trying" drugs, do you realize that you're setting yourself up for even bigger problems?
- What's happening to your passions, your future?
- What type of person are you becoming?
People who use drugs, including alcohol, do so because they like what the drugs do to their brains. All drugs of abuse, from alcohol to nicotine to heroin, cause a series of temporary changes in the brain that produce the "high."
One of these changes is the rise in available levels of certain neurotransmitters associated with feelings of pleasure. Key among these is dopamine: a naturally occurring neurotransmitter that some scientists now think is implicated in most of the basic human experiences of pleasure.
When a person takes a hit of crack cocaine -- or a drag on a cigarette -- the drugs cause a spike in dopamine levels in the brain, and a rush of euphoria, or pleasure. While it's not the only chemical involved in drug abuse, experts have come to believe that dopamine is the crucial one.
Drugs don't fix stress or fix problems
Other people say that they think they can make themselves feel "good" by taking drugs. They think that if they are unhappy, drugs will make them feel better. And some people say they think that taking drugs might help them to cope with stress in their lives. But drugs don't fix the problems that are causing the stress in the first place, and they don't stop the feelings themselves.
Most people don't use drugs
Many people have the misperception that "everyone is doing it." Not true. In 2007, the vast majority of tenth graders had not used marijuana in the past month, and more than half of all seniors (53.2%) had never tried any illicit drug even once in their lives.
It can be hard to relate to these facts if some of your friends are using drugs, but what you do need to realize, though, is that drugs could eventually become more important to your friends than your friendship. This is especially true when users become addicted because they grow so dependent on and interested in getting high that they no longer have time for friends.They think drugs will make them seem rebellious or cool.
There are better ways to get noticed
Sometimes movies, television, and advertisements use images of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes to make characters seem rebellious or cool to increase the ratings of a show or to sell products. Most people understand these are just images designed to sell products, and that these are not real people or stories. In reality, students who use alcohol or drugs are more likely to perform poorly in school and people who use drugs are more likely to get fired from work.
Alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs aren't the things that make someone grown up. What makes people "grown up" are constructive things like organizing a group of friends to do something that matters; figuring out how to use your talents to make the world a better place; making good decisions that are healthy for you, friends, and family; earning a good living; and being involved in community or sports groups.
Problematic drug use is not the rule but the exception, and neither recreational nor problematic drug use is likely to be significantly diminished by penal policies. Furthermore, the most effective methods for reducing the problematic use of drugs will combine accurate and impartial information with the analysis and targeting of its underlying conditions.
