Drug Education in High School: Creative Writing Essay
Argue the thesis. Not every thesis is arguable. In order to write an argumentative essay you have to choose a topic that has multiple perspectives.
Choose one side of the argument and argue that side on the basis of evidence, NOT personal opinion or assumption.
Find academic sources to support your argument. Academic sources are those that are found in peer-reviewed articles or books. They are not found on popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Wikipedia is also not an academic source. Locate sources that include studies, experiments, etc., that you can use to SHOW your reader that your argument is valid.
Integrate quotations in your paper in such a way that the sources you use to support your thesis statement are explained. It is not enough to just drop in quotations without clarifying how they provide proof of your argument. Keep in mind that sources are used to demonstrate the validity of the argument.
Develop topic sentences for each of your paragraphs. This will be easier to do once you have filled in the outline. The outline will assist you in developing the thesis statement which will indicate what it is you have to prove and the kinds of evidence you will require in each paragraph to show proof.
Provide a counter-argument to your argument. This is an important part of any argumentative essay because it indicates to your reader that you have carefully analyzed the argument and your point of view is the most logical one based on the evidence provided.
Papers that do not meet the 1500 word count are penalized 3% for every 100 words short; late submission results in the loss of 3% and no opportunity to rewrite. Extensive use of one and two letter words and direct quotations will be taken into consideration when assessing the quality of your essay.
Drug Education in High School
March 15, 2021
Drugs and drug abuse have been in existence for centuries and society has suffered a great deal of time due to the prejudicial implications of substance abuse. Drugs and drug abuse are not only a psychosocial menace but also have some severe health hazards, calling for a substantial effort to cut short the bad habit. Attempts of all sorts have been put forward to act as a preventive measure to drug and drug abuse among the young population, the DARE program and the Just Say No Campaign at the forefront. To some extent, these programs have borne some fruits, while others have come up with all sorts of accusations against the effectiveness of these programs, some of which are valid (Schultz, 2018). High school, with much of its population being teenagers, curious about trying many things, and having the ability to learn quickly, is the most suitable developmental stage to implement the drug prevention programs. The incorporation of drug education in the high school curriculum is of the essence in the fight against drugs and drug abuse among teens and young adults because it can enhance the previous prevention programs, can spread awareness on drugs and drug abuse, and can address the prevalence of drug abuse among teenagers.
Drug education in high school can enhance previous prevention programs. Some programs have been initiated in the past to prevent drug and drug abuse among children, some of which are still in effect to date. The introduction of drug education in high school will help complement these programs by introducing an additional alternative to the initial preventive measures. The Just Say No Campaign and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) programs of the 1980s were introduced in a bid to curb the widespread abuse of drugs, in particular, crack, a form of cocaine that is known to be highly addictive and was prevalent at the time (Pardo & Reuter, 2018). These two preventive measures focused more on educating young children, as young as elementary school kids, and have been lauded by many that they were subservient in ensuring a larger population of the country is void of drugs and drug abuse (Department of Justice, 2017). Attorney General Jeff Sessions' remarks regarding the D.A.R.E. program confirmed the significant inputs of the intervention: “I believe that DARE was instrumental to our success by educating children on the dangers of drug use” (Department of Justice, 2017, par. 9). While the D.A.R.E. program and the effects of the Just Say No Campaign is still in existence to date, an introduction of drug education in high the school will go a long way in boosting its effectiveness.
The Just Say No campaign faced some significant criticism. Critics came out with all manner of unfavorable judgments against the strategy, terming it a complete failure in the fight against drugs and that brought about polarization in the country by dehumanizing drug addicts (Schultz, 2018). Soon after the Just Say No Campaign, the D.A.R.E. program was initiated in 1983 (Schultz, 2018), spearheaded by the police departments and school districts. The program was also criticized and it failed due to the excessive use of exaggerations and scary remarks about drug and drug abuse that even made students more curious (Tremblay et al., 2020). Such approaches with unsubstantiated claims derail the effort to curtail drug and drug abuse. Therefore, a proactive approach such as incorporating drug education into the high school curriculum backed with scientific evidence and expressed with absolute honesty would help further enhance the preventive measures against drug abuse while reducing the skepticism among the critics of early initiatives.
Drug education in high school will spread awareness about the legality of different drugs. Drug education courses in high school will prepare teenagers, soon-to-be young adults to handle responsibly some of the legally permitted drugs. Alcohol, for instance, has remained part and parcel of the American culture for over four centuries, except for the prohibition era that imposed stringent measures against the production, transport, and sale of alcohol (McGirr, 2017). The prohibition era lasted for only thirteen years before the act was repealed (McGirr, 2017), a sign of its ineffectiveness. Marijuana has often sparked contentious discussion in the recent past, with an estimated of two-thirds of the American population is arguing in support of its legalization (Daniller, 2019). Some states in the U.S. have already legalized marijuana while others are still contemplating doing the same owing to the growing support of its medicinal use (Daniller, 2019). Alcohol, marijuana, and many other legal substances can be hazardous to health and social life when used in an uncontrolled manner. Incorporating drug education into the high school curriculum will equip them with a lot of cautiousness on the use of some of the substances that are legally permitted for use yet could be very hazardous.
Drug education should be there in high school also because of the prevalence of drug use among teens. The high prevalence of substance abuse among the adolescence, most of whom are high schoolers, calls for an immediate remedy to prevent a further surge in substance abuse. Despite an acute decline in the use of alcohol and cigarettes among youths in the recent past, marijuana vaping and the use of the e-cigarette, often regarded as less harmful have surged to alarming levels according to a new survey (Besaratinia & Tommasi, 2020). The National Institute of Health [NIH] monitoring recording a little over 10 percent increase in the use of e-cig among teens for the year 2017-2018, sufficient for the institute to term it a silent epidemic (Besaratinia & Tommasi, 2020). The notion that vaping marijuana has no detrimental health impacts has contributed immensely to the rise. This idea is ill-advised because, in retrospect, there have been numerous health concerns, claiming that vaping and e-cig causes lethal lung injuries (Cirulis et al., 2020). The alarming trends in vaping and the use of e-cig coupled with the health impacts call for an immediate preventive measure capable of educating the masses on the health impacts of the use of drugs. The number might be significantly low but due to the dire health impacts, it is a call for alarm. A federal survey by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] as of January 2020 indicated that 2558 patients were hospitalized while 60 people succumbed to e-cig, vaping, product use associated with lung injuries (EVALI) (Werner et al., 2020). Strict penalties on drug use among high school kids and widespread awareness programs have been lauded for the sharp...