The list of reasons to determine the causes of drug addiction and the causes of drug abuse are endless. They can vary from economic status, to an escape from reality, to personality and behavior. There is not one single reason you can pinpoint as to the cause of drug abuse. We can’t just focus on the drug itself but rather the circumstances as to why the drug abuse. Was it peer pressure? Was it curiosity? or was it a need to feel good and escape for that moment in time. All we can do is theorize.
Causes Of Drug Abuse
What makes someone want to use drugs when the media and world is plastered with reasons why not to use. There is example after example of people’s lives shattered by drug abuse. Billboards and documents of the physical and emotional destruction. Loved ones pleading for the return to normalcy and away from drug abuse. Yet the numbers don’t lie. The number of drug abusers keep rising every year.
The drugs available now have more addictive personalities and it’s not the simple ones like mushrooms, LSD or marijuana. Its vicodin, pure heroin, meth and crack cocaine. Why are drugs addictive? Because these new classes of drugs mimic the chemicals found in your body to treat pain or cause euphoria. With all the new technology, we can create chemicals that can mimic endorphins. Prescription drugs that can replace chemicals in our brains that are deficient and cause mood swings. Along the way, drug abuse took it an extra notch up with the advances in medicine.
Effects Of Drug Abuse
The effects of substance abuse on a family and society can be brutal. From a societal point of view, it is an expensive burden to enforce drug laws and prosecute those who buy drugs. Those are resources that could be better spent on worse offenses. Communities break down due to drug dens. Family values deteriorate since the need to get high outweighs morality. Generations that understand the long term effects of cocaine use are helpless to stop it.
Leaders will talk about the War On Drugs. A war that is not winnable due to the large sums of money being generated. Drugs today are cheaper, purer and more abundant. Every time law enforcement takes out a king pin, another one rises. It’s a game of musical chairs. A game that requires more money to keep up.
Possible Solution
This is a solution that requires some out of the box thinking. Drug abuse will persist since curiosity will sway individuals to try drugs without any regard to the consequences. I think it is time to stop the charade. The only people getting rich off of drugs are the cartels and the king pins. I read a statistic that 70% of the illicit drug trade is marijuana.
It is time that we shift the population to the lesser of the evils: marijuana. Its time to stop wasting resources, money and law enforcement on unachievable goals. Tax it at 100%, make it legal, penalize heavily for driving under the influence, incarcerate the heavy abusers. In essence regulate it like alcohol with stiffer penalties. Have the government gain from smoking marijuana. Use the money for education, roads, energy independence or whatever else.
If drug abuse is to be a problem, make it one more manageable that does have the heavy side effects like cocaine. My assumption is, if marijuana was legal, there will be less of a desire for the more hard-core drugs. There will still be people doing it, but less of them. We can then focus our resources on getting those help.
What is your opinion?
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