In the world today, people are constantly reminded that drug addiction is an occurring problem. People have been fighting against this issue for years and it has cost the lives of millions of people. The addictions have created an alternate reality for many people and they are stuck there by themselves unknowingly affecting the world around them. In current terms,” addiction is a condition in which a person engages in the use of a substance or in a behavior for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling incentive to repeatedly pursue the behavior despite detrimental consequences” (Addiction) and it has progressively become more of an issue in recent years. The way addiction acts as a necessity for people to live proves that drug addictions can cause more harm than good. For example, after recovering from a broken bone and getting prescription painkillers, a person can become addicted to the feeling even after the bone is healed. Addiction can easily stay within a person as long as they don’t have anything or anyone to depend on in their life. Drugs have a negative impact on the current society in specifically the U.S. Through the influence of the media, drug abuse and the usage of drugs has increased drastically over the years.
For hundreds of years, drug addiction and abuse has been affecting society in many forms. In ancient times, “There is no doubt that the ancient peoples used it as a remedy to relieve pain and induce pleasure or sleep” (HAMARNEH pg 226) meaning that drugs were only used for medical purposes and other needs to help people. However, drugs have clearly changed over time and are sometimes being used out of boredom and for fun. The first drug addiction to be noticed was alcoholism. Benjamin Rush was the first man to state “that alcoholism was not a matter of personal willpower but rather due to the alcohol itself” (History of Drug Abuse) and considered it a disease. Alcohol is just a small fraction of the worlds current addictions today due to the increase of new products and drugs. The most innocent items can become addictive such as sugar, caffeine, and even love. Over time, addiction has developed to the point where hundreds of drugs can be addictive. The age that people are getting addicted to drugs is decreasing throughout the years due to the influences of others and media.
Schools and colleges are known to be the places where drugs are used most often. People are easily influenced in doing them because they are very common these days. They are the popular thing to do and people want to fit in better which is one of the main reasons for teenagers to try different drugs. Since drugs affect people’s emotions and their brain, it eventually affects their education and learning capabilities. Most of the time, when students start to get addicted to drugs at an early age, the drugs start to control everything they do. Focusing in class becomes a big problem and they lose the sense of how important school is. Problems with their school work get put in the back of the line wear drugs are their number one priority. Family is also affecting in drug addiction early on because the drug user will tend to rebel against their parents. This can affect the whole family causing more issues to be brought about in the drug users life. Family and friends are the most important part of a drug user recovering, “if you have a crisis in your life, you’ll notice something. It won’t be your twitter followers who come to sit with you, it’ll be your flesh and blood friends who you have a deep and nuanced and textured, face-to-face relationships with” (Hari). However, when drug abuse becomes an everyday routine, the drugs start to be around the person more than their family and friends. The drugs eventually take over one’s life and they become part of the user. They can’t go day to day without using that drug and it slowly starts to destroy them. A specific drug that affects a person this way is heroin. This drug completely corrupts a user’s life and will. Many of the drug overdose deaths are caused from heroin because users eventually depend on it each day. Heroin becomes a necessity for people to survive the day, but it’s ironic that the drug that’s keeping them sane is also killing them. Many of the known addictive drugs today are seen and expressed through media. Movies and tv shows are a great example because when people do drugs in them, the person is mostly seen as popular and cool. When people in media are doing drugs with a group of friends, they always seem to be laughing and having a great time with each other. This could implicate that one should do drugs to have fun and fit in with the rest of the crowd. Overtime, the drugs begin to affect one’s work ethic and their social life as well. To relieve all of the stress that’s going on in their lives because of this, they turn to the drugs for comfort and help instead of the people close to them.
When people starting to look into the topic of drug addiction, they found something remarkable that changed the way people saw it. It was discovered through many experiments that drug addiction might not be because of one’s own mind, instead “what if addiction is an adaptation to your environment” (Hari). A person’s environment effects everything about that person including their personality, attitude, mindset, and influences. This means that growing up and a poor and broken town would increase one’s chances of getting addicted to drugs because that’s all they’ve ever known. They were raised and surrounded by people constantly using drugs causing them to see it as the norm. This is a perfect example of what Johann Hari discusses on his ted talk. He states that if one can’t bond with friends, family, or something positive in your life, then “you will bond with something that will give you a sense of relive” (Hari) which includes drugs and other harmful stress relievers. People born into poverty-stricken cities and towns have a much more difficult time experiencing those bonds that give a person a real sense of belonging. Drugs have always been in society to take away people’s pain but in return it affects everyone around them. This causes a chain reaction that corrupts the next generation and beyond that spreads like wildfire. Not having someone or something there to stop a person from making those choices is exactly what the origin of people getting addicted is about. Everything is connected between people’s choices and how they affect one another when it comes to the drugs on society.
In 2017, approximately 72,000 deaths in the U.S. were caused from drug overdose. The number is expected to go up as the years go by and as drugs aren’t dealt with properly in the U.S. More and more people are starting to get addicted to drugs causing more influences which leads to more death. In many cases, teenagers are able to get addicted so quickly because they have easy access to them. Drugs are distributed throughout high schools every day without adults realizing it and dealers get away with the supplies very easily. There are laws against drugs in many states, but they aren’t strong enough and effective to significantly decrease the amount of deaths and drugs being passed around. Strengthening the laws in states about the use of drugs and the age people are allowed to use them should make an impact on drug addiction in the American society. Making laws that drug users must be at least 21 and over to use certain drugs would greatly decrease the amount of deaths amongst teenagers. Since drugs are constantly used in media, the media should make more of an effort to show the negative effects of drugs. All of society should be more informed on the matter because it could reach out to many people no matter how old they are and how they’re affected my drugs or drug users. The U.S has already lost too many citizens from drug addiction and this problem can be solved by making better decisions with the regards to drugs.
Although drugs have caused a tear in American society, they have proven to be very helpful for many years. Drugs have been used and experimented with for medical purposes that have truly helped patients. Specific diseases can be reduced and even cured by many drugs today. They have made a huge impact on medical research, diagnostics, and overall treatment. One of the biggest contributions drugs have made to society are things such as chemotherapy. Cancer has been a major problem in recent years due to all the environmental hazards and chemicals we put into our bodies. People are basically setting themselves up to get cancer but luckily chemotherapy can reduce one’s chances of death. However, chemotherapy isn’t always the best option since “In contrast to conventional chemotherapy which acts on all dividing cells generating toxic effects and damage of normal tissues, targeted drugs allow to hit, in a more specific manner, subpopulations of cells directly involved in tumor progression” ( Giordano and Petrelli) meaning that specific drugs have been created to target cancer cells that begin to bundle up and form tumors. Even the most notorious drugs like cocaine can be beneficial when dealing with medical science. Cocaine can be used as an anesthetic for fast acting surgical procedures and also can help with uneasiness when patients are relentless.
When it comes to the topic of drugs and how they have an impact on our society, people see it as uninteresting and they don’t pay much attention to it. People are exposed to the negative side effects of drugs every day, they may not realize it, but the use of drugs has completely warped reality itself. Drugs have changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in a negative way causing death and emotional distress to not only them, but to the others around them. Influencing young adults to stop using addictive drugs and helping them creates a better environment for their peers. How many people are going to be influenced into doing drugs by the use of media?
