by Ed Ostrom

Created on: May 19, 2009   Last Updated: May 27, 2009

drug ABUSE PREVENTION

We are living in an age that is rampant with drug abuse. many studies could be cited that show that more and more youth at younger and younger ages are experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Half a century ago when I was in my adolescent years drugs were just starting to infiltrate my high-school. Now they are common place in elementary schools. In my day, other than alcohol,teens were smoking cannabis and the occasional person might be experimenting with L.S.D.. Today the popular drugs of choice that are being abused include crack,cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, prescription opioids, plus cannabis and magic mushrooms and L.S.D.

The big question confronting society today is " How can we do Drug Abuse Prevention? The old adage is "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".If we want to prevent drug abuse what must we do? I believe that prevention begins with education. If we want to intervene successfully in the lives of young people and prevent the rampant drug abuse we must begin to educate our youth about the dangers and the great physical, emotional, mental and spiritual cost of drug abuse.

Secondly in the mode of Prevention I believe we need to do more research to ascertain the reasons behind why our youth are abusing drugs . We need to have grass roots surveys done that ask the kids the hard questions and seek out the extent of drug abuse among North American youth and the reasons for it, and what can be done in the way of prevention.

Thirdly not only do we need education and research to help in the Prevention of Drug Abuse, we also need new expanded age appropriate treatment modalities for youth caught in the web of addiction.We need to research the use of multi-media tools that are attractive to our youth and will catch their eye and capture their hearts to begin to deal with drug abuse and look at ways of preventing it.

Fourthly, to be successful in Drug Abuse Prevention we need to develop support systems for our Youth that will assist them to deal with the very real issues that they face in their daily lives. Issues around the areas of self esteem, all forms of abuse in their lives , and matters of resentments and rejection.

Fifthly, in order to win the battle against addiction I believe that we must become more readily equipped to deal with both addiction and mental health issues at the same time. For far too long clients having both addiction and mental health issues have fallen through the cracks because society

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