Children and the Law
The Effect of Modern
Drugs on Today’s Youth
It’s nearing finals time and students across campus are beginning to feel the anxiety with exams over the horizon. While many students hit the books to quash this feeling, others search for something more. Whispers soliciting a need for Adderall resonate throughout the halls. These students don’t have prescriptions for their drug of choice, but this doesn’t deter them. They know that the risk in purchasing and ingesting this “study buddy” is far outweighed by the extreme focus and potentially high exam scores it may bring. It’s not that these students are ignorant of the law; it is quite the contrary. These situations are now so commonplace that today’s youth perceives the law to be a technicality in their search to find a means to an end. This pervading attitude should come as no surprise to most adults. For as long as human history has been recorded, drugs have defined and reflected the attitudes of their era. In the 1920’s, alcohol was placed under prohibition and Americans were looking to every which way to circumvent this federal regulation.1 In the 1930’s, reefer madness swept the country and marijuana was criminalized.1 The 1960’s marked the era of a rising counter-culture fueled by the psychedelic drug LSD.1 Even the cocaine boom of the 1970’s and 1980’s define a period of American history marked by high crime rates and an evolving nightlife.1 Today’s society is no different. In many ways, people, particularly teenagers and young adults, are quite literally fueled by drugs. They will take methamphetamines to study, depressants to fall asleep, and psychoactive stimulants to take a break from the norm and disconnect from reality. The purpose of this paper is to explore three modern drugs in particular and what their psychoactive effects say about the culture and attitudes of today’s youth. One of the most popular new drugs in the last
Drugs on Today’s Youth
It’s nearing finals time and students across campus are beginning to feel the anxiety with exams over the horizon. While many students hit the books to quash this feeling, others search for something more. Whispers soliciting a need for Adderall resonate throughout the halls. These students don’t have prescriptions for their drug of choice, but this doesn’t deter them. They know that the risk in purchasing and ingesting this “study buddy” is far outweighed by the extreme focus and potentially high exam scores it may bring. It’s not that these students are ignorant of the law; it is quite the contrary. These situations are now so commonplace that today’s youth perceives the law to be a technicality in their search to find a means to an end. This pervading attitude should come as no surprise to most adults. For as long as human history has been recorded, drugs have defined and reflected the attitudes of their era. In the 1920’s, alcohol was placed under prohibition and Americans were looking to every which way to circumvent this federal regulation.1 In the 1930’s, reefer madness swept the country and marijuana was criminalized.1 The 1960’s marked the era of a rising counter-culture fueled by the psychedelic drug LSD.1 Even the cocaine boom of the 1970’s and 1980’s define a period of American history marked by high crime rates and an evolving nightlife.1 Today’s society is no different. In many ways, people, particularly teenagers and young adults, are quite literally fueled by drugs. They will take methamphetamines to study, depressants to fall asleep, and psychoactive stimulants to take a break from the norm and disconnect from reality. The purpose of this paper is to explore three modern drugs in particular and what their psychoactive effects say about the culture and attitudes of today’s youth. One of the most popular new drugs in the last