The first thing our D.A.R.E. instuctor taught us was the D.A.R.E. Decision Making Model. D- Define, Describe the problem, challenge or opportunity. A- Assess, what are your choices? R- Respond, make a choice. E-Evaluate, review your decision.
One of the things that we learned in D.A.R.E. is that tobacco affects your body’s development. There are more than 200 known poisons in tobacco.
Over 400,000 people die each year from tobacco-related causes. Smoking can cause yellow teeth and smelly breath. It causes breathing problems, colds, and upper respiratory sickness, heart disease and cancer of the mouth, throat , bladder, lungs and kidneys.
We learned that marijuana affects your brain and body and can be addictive. It can cause short term memory loss, the loss of ability to concentrate, and it slows coordination and reflexes. Marijuana also affects your ability to judge distance, speed and reaction time. Users have an increased risk of cancer as well. Marijuana is illegal in the United States.
One of the final things I was taught in D.A.R.E. is that alcohol can damage every organ in your body. Too much alcohol can slow down the body and lead to coma or death. Also, mixing alcohol with medicine is dangerous. Alcohol affects the growing body of a teenager more than the body of an adult. Alcohol is illegal for anyone under the age of 21.
Over the past few weeks I have learned to “Just say NO to Drugs”. Tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol all affect your brain, mouth, throat, lungs, heart, and liver. Our D.A.R.E. Deputy taught us about peer pressure as well. There are two different forms of peer pressure. There is good, where people encourage you to do good things like doing your best in school. There is also bad, where people try to get you to do bad things like drugs.
I pledge to not do drugs and I will avoid tempting situations. I promise to live a clean, healthy, and drug free life. I am doing this for myself.
