Switched-On Magazine

Drugs are not one of those things you just wake up one day deciding to do. There is not some drug epiphany that just hits you out of nowhere. Usually the idea to use any drug comes from someone else exposing the substance to the person. Regardless of how many after-school specials and drug talks teenagers receive, peer pressure continues to be a problem in their lives. Drugs are bad, harmful, and addictive; teenagers know this, yet drug use has not gone down dramatically for teens despite other people's best efforts. Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, LSD, and ecstasy are all words that teenagers hear and may even say, but do they really know what these words mean?

Drug use never ends well. Picturing a drug addict is never met with a pleasant or even happy image, so why even venture down that path at all? Drugs are offered to teenagers at school, work, on streets, and now the Internet. Usually the person offering them the drugs is someone they know and therefore might be more willing to accept the offer. A friend is a trusted companion that is looking out for you, and by using drugs, they then validate them for that person. A friend would never steer friends astray or harm them purposely in any way so by that logic any friend offering drugs is acceptable. This is the freak logic argument that exists between friendship and drug use, and this reason is obviously flawed but not completely surprising.

Drugs introduce uncertainty and murkiness in the relationship where many things come into question. Is this "friend” a dealer looking to make money off their friends? Do they have an addiction and want to pass it off to a friend so that they have company? Are they exposing a friend to a drug just so they will buy it for them? Was that friend also exposed to a drug by a friend and misguidedly passed it along? The introduction of drugs to a friendship can complicate it very much. Questioning the validity of a friendship is already a problem with high school students, and throwing drugs into the mix only exacerbates that problem.

If a friend is using drugs, there is a reason. Explore the reason and talk about it instead of passing it off as no big deal. Sometimes a person offering the drugs might need the most help and treating them as an offender is not the solution. Understanding the problem is better than attacking the person with the addiction. Instead of running from the problem, people should be addressing it. If a friend offers people drugs, talking about why they do it may be more beneficial than just writing off that person. Just because you may say no does not mean that the person will not just ask some other friend to join them. Being proactive in fighting the spread of drug use can be as simple as talking to a friend about why they feel they have to use drugs, and helping the person with the problem before they spread it. Peer pressure is a powerful tool when it comes to drug use, but turning it around to help promote good decisions within a group of friends can make all the difference.