Drug Trends – Teen Issues

The world outside has not become less real just because the prisoner cannot see it.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Recently, several officers from the Sheriff’s Department of a large Georgia city talked with our staff concerning the drugs they were seeing emerge on the streets. As they spoke about what they were witnessing and how drugs were being made, I was struck by one of the officer’s comments: “We will never be able to do anything but play catch up. People who want to use drugs will always be ahead of us.” What a sad commentary, but how true it is that individuals who want to get high, will make every effort to do so, often with that which is most accessible.

So what is a parent to do? How are we to know what might emerge next or how can we protect our children? Think how each decade has represented a new era in drugs. In the 50’s it was alcohol, the 60’s marijuana, the 70’s psychotropic drugs like LSD and mushrooms, the 80’s cocaine and crack, the 90’s chemically made drugs like ecstasy (MDMA), and since 2000, it has been a litany of new chemically concocted drugs. A stimulant that is making much of the news lately is Crystal Methamphetamine. One of the officers, when talking about Crystal Meth made the comment that in the 80’s he had thought crack would be the death of this country. Now he would say that Crystal Meth has become far worse than crack ever was. What is even more disturbing is that people are now using fruit flavoring to entice and attract new users.

In looking back over the decades, we as parents must realize that this trend is a natural progression. The economic concept of supply and demand does an effective job of teaching us what we should expect would happen.

Think of it this way: There is a demand/desire to get high for the following reasons:

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By: Drew Read, Parent's Purpose