Drug abuse has become a common problem in the U.S. Data from the CD show that by 2018, 48.5 million Americans were abusing drugs ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , n.d.). Such a large number shows that indeed drug abuse is a big problem and measures should be taken to avert this trend. The drugs that are mostly abused include narcotics, opioids and alcohol. Drug abuse should be shunned because it is associated with poor health and premature deaths, poverty, failed social relationships and lack of progress in life.
One of the major reasons why drug abuse should be shunned is because it is associated with poor health that leads to premature death. Mental health issues is a common phenomenon among drug abusers. Drugs interfere with the brain neuro-chemistry leading to development of mental illnesses such as psychosis and depression (Schulte & Hser, 2013). Drug abusers are also at risk of contracting diseases that are spread through blood such as HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. This usually occurs when drug users share needles to inject drugs. Also, drug users are at risk of other systemic diseases such liver failure, heart diseases among others. These diseases lower the life expectancy of an individual leading to premature death.
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Drug abuse also results in poverty thus making the victims to lead a low socio-economic life. Drugs interfere with the ability of an individual to work since they affect their cognitive abilities rendering them unable to concentrate. Most employers are also reluctant to employ someone who is a drug user as mostly such people are unreliable. This affects their income and ultimately their socio-economic status. Addiction to drugs means that these individuals spend a lot of their money buying drugs to satisfy their addiction. As a result, these people have very little disposable income that they can spend on other meaningful ventures. Lack of income and heavy spending on drugs leads to poor socio-economic status.
Drug use also leads to poor social relations because drugs affect the way a person interacts with people. Some people become violent after abusing drugs while others become anti-social (Sloboda, 2006). This results in these people losing friends as most people avoid interacting with them. Without support, it means that these people lack adequate social support and this might make it hard for them to cope with issues such a stress which might sink them into depression. Lack of social relations means that these people also at high risk of lacking life partners and thus affects their abilities to start a family. Lack of social relations generally lead to a poor quality of life.
Drug abuse also leads to lack of progress in life. As earlier stated, drug abuse leads to lack of income and heavy spending (Sloboda, 2006). This means that these people cannot advance their lives since their ability to invest gets limited. It also becomes hard for such people to own a home. Poor social relationships that are associated with drug abuse affects the ability of these individual to start families. In comparison to their peers who don’t abuse drugs, drug abusers have very little or no progress in life at all which leads to frustrations and might lead to depression.
Drug abuse also affects the ability of an individual to carry on with their studies by affecting their ability to concentrate as well as their preoccupation with drugs. This ultimately leads to poor grades and with poor grades the chances of securing a job opportunity becomes a big problem. This leads to a vicious cycle of poverty, depression and a low socio-economic status.
In summary, drug abuse leads to numerous adverse outcomes such as poor health, poor social relations, and lack of progress in life as well as poor academic performance. They are, therefore, at a risk of premature death and depression from low socio-economic life. It is only prudent that youths shun drug abuse in order to lead a good productive life.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/pdf/pubs/2018-cdc-drug-surveillance-report.pdf
Schulte, M. T., & Hser, Y. (2013). Substance use and associated health conditions throughout the lifespan. Public Health Reviews , 35 (2). https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03391702
Sloboda, Z. (2006). Epidemiology of drug abuse . Springer Science & Business Media.
