Kids moving to Rx drugs; what can we do to stop it?
A journalist asks: “Are prescription drugs replacing street drugs, especially marijuana, among youngsters? Why? What can society do to stop it?”
To an addict–and most of these youngsters have a predisposition to addiction–a drug is a drug is a drug. Yes, they seem to be replacing street drugs because they are so easily obtainable, but keeping the addict from his drug is as difficult as keeping flies off of horse dung. It ain’t gonna happen. At least using legal drugs takes the gun battles out of the equation.
The question is what to do about addiction, which I have written on for almost a decade. We’ll never stamp it out because almost everyone alive will experiment with at least one drug (alcohol) and those who are addicts will trigger addiction (just ask any recovering addict with ten or more years of sobriety when he or she became an addict; the response will usually be “during the first drinking episode”). Instead, how can intervene and quickly stop the use?
Intervention implies identification. First, then, we must learn to identify addiction, which in turn suggests that we need to debunk the myths of addiction that prevent us from identifying it. So, in order: debunk the myths of addiction, which allows us to more readily and willingly identify it, which allows us to assist the addict in experiencing consequences for misbehaviors, which sets the stage for intervention and sobriety. That’s what my books are all about: identify, intervene and prevent the tragedy.