Positive Peer Pressure (PPP)

Positive Peer Pressure (PPP)

Believe it or not the concept exists! I hear it every once a while and I’m always pleasantly surprised. What is positive peer pressure? It’s when kids encourage their peers to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing. As a teacher, I especially like to see it happen because kids will often listen to other kids before they will listen to an adult. Adults can come across as stuffy authority figures, far removed from what it’s like to be a teenager. The key to effective PPP is in the delivery. Peers need to get the message across without sounding condescending. So often they may mean well, but their message is lost in their tone. Just today I heard a few of my students encouraging another student to refrain from disruptive behavior. So often, society is quick to point out negative peer pressure that we fail to recognize PPP. Ask yourself this question: Are my friends enabling my self-destructive behavior, or do they have the guts to call me out? Do you have the courage to confront your friends when they are messing up their life? What if you don’t say anything and you later find out that they were seriously hurt or died because you failed to act? No one needs that kind of guilt on their conscience. One thing I have learned from teaching kids is that positivity can be just as contagious as negativity if you give it a chance.

The Gateway Drug

“The Gateway Drug”


When I was in middle school taking that D.A.R.E class that they make you take, there was a lot of talk about marijuana being the “gateway drug”. I always thought that it was just a scare tactic that adults used to instill fear in us kids about using drugs. Yet when you actually look at the statistics it is quite amazing how true the saying is that marijuana is a gateway drug. The statistics show that teenagers who use marijuana are 17 times more likely to move on to using harder drugs. Statistics also say that boys are 29 times more likely to use harder drugs after using marijuana and girls are 11 times more likely.

The reasoning behind this is thought to be that marijuana helps one develop curiosity for harder drugs as well as introduces them to the menacing subculture that may be attractive to them.

Dusters

Dusters

Huffing, or inhaling substances is common form of drug abuse among kids and teenagers, there are many products that can be bought legally at the local store. Some typical household products teens are using include glue, butane, thinners, paint, and a wide variety of aerosols. Huffing is on the rise according to research and can be deadly. Many teens huff because it does not show up on drug tests. It’s a cheap, two-minute high that causes an intense feeling of euphoria, loss of balance, slurring of speech, and some visual hallucinations.

One particular huffing agent known on the street as a “duster” seems to be broadly in use. Dusters are small aerosol canisters used for cleaning particulate matter and dust off of hard to reach places. Teenagers may ask for them to clean their computer, but they may be using them to get high. Huffing of aerosols can cause immediate damage to the brain and can cause heart failure. Long-term use of inhalants can cause liver and kidney damage. Studies have also shown that inhalants cause memory and hearing loss amongst chronic users. Many users have blackouts, and again, inhalants can be deadly.

How Drugs Effect Teenagers

How Drugs Effect Teenagers

A drug is any chemical that produces a therapeutic or non-therapeutic effect within a body. Teenagers may be involved with legal or illegal drugs in various ways. Sometimes, experimentation with drugs during adolescence can be common. However, teenagers generally do not see links between their actions of the present and their consequences of the future. Teens also tend to feel invincible and immune to the problems that others around them experience.

Using alcohol, marijuana and tobacco at young ages will increase the potential of using other drugs like heroin, cocaine or speed later down the road. Some teens might experiment and stop, or continue to use occasionally, without significant problems. Others develop a dependency, moving on to more dangerous drugs and causing significant harm to themselves and possibly others.

When teenagers use drugs, they will tend to have symptoms or signs of something being wrong. For example, as far as physical appearance goes, the teen might have a sense of fatigue, red and glazed eyes and/or a lasting cough. On an emotional level, the teenagers might have general mood swings, or irresponsible behavior, possible low self-esteem, general lack of interest in anything or could be generally depressed. In a family environment, a teen drug abuser can often be argumentative, or they become very secretive in movements. In school, a teenager could decline participation, drop in grades, skip certain classes, or generally accumulate a myriad amount of tardiness. These are some of the reasons why it is important to keep kids safe and pay more attention to all that they need. They (teenagers) are always in need of something one way or another.

Salvia Divinorum Appears in Teen Drug Treatment

The use of Salvia Divinorum by teens entering teen drug treatment centers is becoming more common. Salvia Divinorum is a potent hallucinogen. Its effects on teen drug abusers have been compared to LSD. Salvia is a member of the sage family, and is a powerful psychoactive drug. Salvia can be chewed but is most commonly smoked as it produces a stronger effect. When smoked its effects last from five to ten minutes. "This shorter high is attractive to a teen that is trying to get high between classes or while in their bedroom..." Says a teen drug treatment client. This is a much shorter time span than other hallucinogens, but the effect has been described as having the same intensity. The effects of salvia range from a mild sense of wellbeing to a full on psychedelic trip that can cause a complete disconnection between the user and reality.
The surprising fact about Salvia is that it is one hundred percent legal in every country except Australia. This includes all US states. Because Salvia is legal it is commonly sold in cigar shops, all natural stores, and over the Internet. Salvia is also fairly cheap.This makes Salvia extremely accessible to teenagers. Teenagers are able to walk into the smoke shop and purchase this strong psychedelic drug with no imposing consequences. Because of these factors Salvia is extremely appealing to teens that cannot legally buy alcohol or do drugs.
While it is impossible to overdose on Salvia there are still many dangers involved in using the drug. Most teenagers smoke Salvia with marijuana making the act illegal. Salvia has also been known to cause depression post use. This was most highly publicized in the case of Brett Chidester, a 17-year-old student from Delaware, who reportedly killed himself after using Salvia. Although these risks do exist there has been no legislation passed to make Salvia illegal. This makes a dangerous drug available to teenagers everywhere. Tt is expected that the cases of young people entering teen drug treatment will rise as long as this drug is so readily available to them.