EDITORIAL

With vaping and gateway drugs, hard facts are better given early

Posted 11/14/18

The middle school auditorium was filled with students who seemed much too young, given the topic at hand. Three former inmates were telling their stories, a journey from seemingly harmless drug and alcohol experimentation beginning at ages even younger

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EDITORIAL

With vaping and gateway drugs, hard facts are better given early

Posted

The middle school auditorium was filled with students who seemed much too young, given the topic at hand.

Three former inmates were telling their stories, a journey from seemingly harmless drug and alcohol experimentation beginning at ages even younger than their audience members, into trying the next more serious drug, and then the next, doing whatever they had to in order to get their next fix. Their journeys encompassed decades filled with homelessness, prostitution, incarcerations for theft, and even for murder.

They each acknowledged that they were the rarity, the success stories, people that lived and made it out of prison to tell their stories, to pass along the lessons learned to try to save another young adult from following their paths. They also each acknowledged that they didn’t think it would happen to them, that they thought they knew better, that they wished they’d been more informed, had been better listeners and heeded the warnings they’d been given early on. They knew, too, that if the drugs of today were available then, they’d most certainly be dead.

It seems like the eighth grade is too young for such hard facts, but ride behind any car filled with high school students passing around a juul, taking hits together and vaping just as school is letting out, and one realizes that the eighth grade may not even be soon enough, and high school is already too late, only time for reactive measures, not proactive. They’re already addicted.

If students are not able to “just say no” to this early experimentation and peer pressure, to the newest harmful, addictive fads such as vaping, what are the chances they’ll be able to say no to the next harder drug choice offered to them, or the next, or to underage drinking, and what will they do to get their fix once they’re addicted, once the drugs and alcohol are making the decisions for them?

When asked to raise their hands if they had tried juuling, smoking marijuana, or popping pills, or if they knew someone who had, a great number of hands went up in the middle school auditorium that morning. If they hadn’t tried it themselves, they knew someone who had.

Eighth-graders are approximately 13 years old.

It was the pattern of bad decision-making that was emphasized in the auditorium on that same morning. One bad decision can affect your life forever, and it can lead to another and then another until you’ve spiraled so far down, you can’t get out and you can’t make your own choices any longer.

According to Brian King, deputy director for research translation in the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, the number of teens using e-cigarettes has soared.

“High school students are using e-cigarettes at a greater rate than adults,” King is quoted as saying. This is despite the fact that the sale of e-cigarettes to minors is banned nationwide.

“Nicotine is a prime ingredient in these devices,” he says. “Studies show nicotine is more addictive than heroin and cocaine. And there’s a growing body of evidence that nicotine can harm the developing adolescent brain.”

At another recent local forum about the current opioid addiction epidemic, Rhode Island was listed as being among the top five states in the nation grappling with the problems of addiction and overdose. There were 323 deaths from opioid overdose in 2017, it that was a small victory, the number down from 336 overdoses in 2016. The leap from heroin to fentanyl is partly to blame for the epidemic.

Addiction hits all demographics. Addiction does not discriminate based on age, gender, race, or profession. Arming students with information at a young age can’t be a bad thing, and it could save them from a lifetime of addiction, incarceration, and even death.

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