Role of Opioid Education for the Youth
Role of Opioid Education for the Youth
Role of Opioid Education for the Youth
Discussion:Results
Opioid misuse is decreasing. For example, among high school seniors, the year past misuse of pain medication, heroine excluded, went down from a peak of 9.5 in the year 2004 to 3.4 percent in the year 2018. In the past year, the use misuse of Vicodin went down from peak of 10.5 percent in the year 2003 to a percentage of 1.7 in 2018, lastly the misuse of OxyContin has dropped from a peak rate of 5.5 percentage in the year 2005 to 2.3 percent in the year 2018. In addition, students in the 12th grade believe that it is harder to obtain opioid now than in the past. In 2010, 54% of 12th grade students believed that it was easy to access opioids as compared to 32.5% in 2018 (Hubbell & Reid, 2018). In this case this can be attributed to the awareness that has been created by educating youths about these substances and their effects towards someone. Commercials in the media also work very well in creating an awareness.
Adolescence is a critical stage of life for one to become addicted to a substance. This is due to a lot of factors that were mentioned by some students. This is a stage of self-realization and to some may be confusing and containing mixed emotions. This is due to a teenager trying to understand themselves and what they are meant to become in future, at the same time trying to keep up with the current trends as well as blending with his/her age mates. This can lead to a teenager to take the drugs to escape reality or to fit in with other teenagers who are using opioids for recreational purposes (McDONOUGH, 2016).
