Drug Addicts Receiving 'Real Help'

 

 

By Patrick Stalker

        Drugs are demons of the soul. People use drugs to get in peace of mind,

calm themselves down, and for recreational use. When highly consumed,

drugs either shut down the body or become addictive. Once a person becomes

addicted, proper care becomes essential. Even though some people may think

addicts cannot classify as a patient, studies prove addicts increasingly                   improve when treated slowly and correctly.

   

Many Boomers believe drugs are appalling, irrelevant, and a problem. However, the younger generations believe the opposite. Drug rates have already increased by 7.5% since COVID-19. Many use it for hanging out with friends, while others use it to get out of their heads. Either way, both are excessive. Due to the opinions of the boomers, young people feel the need to hide and sometimes overdo it before getting caught. Furthermore, having to hurry can cause increased overdoses and arrests. For example, in my first essay I wrote about a person who was one of the addicts who overdosed and almost lost his life. He was scared to come forward and ask for help, because he didn’t want to get into trouble or be treated different. “Addiction should be treated, not punished” (Volkow, 2018). Addicts are afraid to come forward for help knowing there is a chance they will go to prison. However, by treating addicts as equally as patients and people, their process of addiction can improve faster.

Inequality affects almost every living person on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, there is an even bigger problem with racial drug arrests. Black and Latinos have a higher chance of their charges staying on their records than white people for drugs, for example, "Black people were nearly four times more likely to be arrested for drugs than white people in 2018" (Volkow, 2021). Furthermore, some addicts are put into jail before their withdrawals and will die due to medical negligence. Without proper care it is more like a sickness, and can be fatal if not treated properly.

 

        Compared to White people, Black and Hispanic people are more likely to be imprisoned after drug arrests than to be diverted into treatment programs. White people are taken straight into rehab to get help, meanwhile Black and Latinos have to wait four to five days before getting in. That can increase the number of deaths and cause a lot of racial problems for communities. There are more problems in this paragraph than there ever needed to be for someone who is struggling. How is that legal, but becoming addicted to a product that can be reversed is not? Inequality is causing pain, problems, and hardship in communities. The coloring of the skin should not be a reason to be afraid to ask for help, but instead, receive an equal amount of help as any other would need. Drugs can cause many problems in the brain similarly like any other mental illness. Why treat it differently?

 

Mental illness is treated every day, including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and so on. However, many of these illnesses are dealt with pills. What happens if a patient gets addicted to one of these pills they were given? According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug addiction is classified as a mental illness because addiction changes the brain in fundamental ways, disturbing a person’s normal hierarchy of needs and desires, and substituting new priorities connected with procuring and using drugs. If the government is funding money for these drugs to help mental illnesses, then why is there no talk about a reverse therapy for getting addicted to a product. Drug addiction is a preventable disease. Research has shown that prevention programs involving families, schools, communities, and the media are effective in reducing drug abuse.

         

There are just a few steps into how addiction could be prevented if taken care of correctly. Anxious people do not go to jail just because they’re scared, so why would an addict go to jail for becoming addicted to a product? A person who is addicted should not feel scared to ask for help because of their color, their addiction, or reputation.

 

Fewer drug addictions would happen if more peace and equality were practiced. Even though some believe that drug addicts can cause harm to other people, this may be true. However, is there a time limit to when the side effects are “Too much?”

There are four stages of addiction: experimentation, regular user, high risk, and addiction. Furthermore, the high-risk and addiction stages are when the addict is relying on the product to function throughout the day causing irritation and anger if neglected.

In the end, there are multiple ways to help an addict without making them feel useless. Many drug addicts are afraid to come forward for different reasons, but none give justice for the extra harm that comes along with it. Drugs have become dangerous and misused, but younger generations can change just how much. Social media, equality, and understanding are all an addict needs to recover. Times are changing and Boomers need to realize its not what it was before.

 

 

Work Cited: 

 

"Is Drug Addiction a Mental Illness?" Coalition For A Drug-Free County. April, 2019.

 

Stalker, Patrick. "Mistakes." Narrative Persuasive Essay. February, 2019.