Opiate Drugs in High School by Edwin

Opiate Drugs in High School by Edwin - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

I attended an FBI Teen Academy the summer of 2016, where I was given an exclusive look at the San Diego FBI Field Office. From that day forward I knew I wanted to study criminology and go on and join the FBI. During that experience I was introduced to the FBI outreach program where we promote safety and talk about popular issues in today's world. A very interesting topic we discussed was the use of opiate drugs increasing in high school students or older. I noticed such an importance in this topic that I decided it would be the perfect topic to give a speech to a school wide audience. Opiate drugs have always been around but with the excess drug use of marijuana and drinking of alcohol students are wanting to try new things. Opiate drugs are easy to get, containing of little substances but can cause so much harm and even death to some and that is why this topic needs to be talked about.

Opiate drugs are usually for pain and those include Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percodan. Drugs which are prescribed regularly to many patients with pain with easy refill requests. Because these drugs are not illegal and typically sitting in a bathroom shelve, they are very accessible to many kids. Kids usually get opiate drugs from close family and friends and that is what makes it even worse.There is hardly any need to purchase these drugs or get them from a dealer because they are in such a easy place to get. That is also why students are turning to opiates, they are cheap and fairly easy to get and you get the same type of high as if you were to smoke marijuana or do any other expensive opioid. Kids are becoming more curious in society. They are getting tired of the same old drugs and the same high. That is why many try opiates because it is something new and most likely has never been tried before. Little do they know these small drugs could get addicting and once you try it for the first time it becomes a habit that's hard to avoid.

Therefore, opiate drug use is an issue not really brought up in discussions on a normal basis such as marijuana and under age drinking. Marijuana and alcohol can lead to serious harm and on some occasions death but with opiate drugs it is certain if you try it and get addicted some type of harm will be caused. Addiction will occur because it is a pain medicine and many do not know that and that is why we as a whole country need to make it clear that opiate drugs are not good for you. In order to solve this problem we can limit the prescriptions given out, no refills on the drugs and for the ones that do need it make them aware that they should be the only ones using it not anybody else. Opiate drugs are affecting many people but they are starting to become used more and seen in a school environment and that is why this would be a great topic to speak about in front of a whole group of students.