In 2014, the University of Michigan surveyed 8th and 12th graders on the top drugs used over the course of the year. In the 8th grade, 11.7% of the students used marijuana, and 35.1% of the 12th grade used it as well. Being only the age of thirteen or fourteen, 8th grade students shouldn’t be taking part in that.

Drug addiction is considered a mental illness. “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 the drug,” according to NIH (National Institute on Drug Abuse). Drug abuse gives the user short time feelings with long time side effects. It’s not worth it.

As someone who has witnessed someone under the influence of drugs, I’ve seen what it can do to someone, I’ve seen the risks, and I’ve seen someone go through rehab and how hard it was for them. It not only hurts the person abusing the drugs, but also the ones closest to them. It’s horrible when people result to drug abuse after a terrible indelible moment. In certain situations, the parents are to blame for their child’s choice to abuse drugs, but not always. Parents can basically lead their children to drug abuse by their actions as a parent reflecting on to their kids. This being said, it is not always the users fault if they grow up not seeing a problem with it.

Drugged driving is also extremely dangerous. Some people may say marijuana doesn’t kill so there isn’t a problem with it, and that’s their opinion. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case based on statistics. The NHI says, “Marijuana can slow reaction time, impair judgment of time and distance, and decrease motor coordination. Drivers who have used cocaine or methamphetamine can be aggressive and reckless when driving. Certain kinds of sedatives, called benzodiazepines, can cause dizziness and drowsiness, which can lead to accidents.” Marijuana should not be legal anywhere because of this side effect.

In 2009, nearly 4.6 million drug-related ED visits were recorded nationwide, 2.1 million being drug abusers. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) estimates that of the 2.1-million drug abuse visits 27.1% involved nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals, 21.2% involved illicit drugs, and 14.3% involved alcohol, combined with other drugs. “ED visits involving nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals (either alone or in combination with another drug) increased 98.4 percent between 2004 and 2009, from 627,291 visits to 1,244,679, respectively,” according to NIH.

With how much death that has been recorded from the abusing of harsh drugs, the federal government should see that these numbers combined with the number of deaths from alcoholism is much higher than it should be. I understand there are rehab centers for drug abusers. What some people fail to understand is a drug abuser is only going to go to rehab and not relapse if they truly want to go for themselves. The government needs to see that some sort of action needs to be taken to prevent the number of deaths from increasing another time.