DARE is one of the most important classes a preteen and teenager will take. It stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. DARE is so important because it will help me to make correct decisions and therefore will help me be successful in the future. I have learned many things while taking DARE. Some of the subjects I have learned about are alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. Each one of these drugs effects not only your decision making but can ruin your health or cause death. Most importantly I have learned how to stay drug and violence free and how to handle peer pressure.
Alcohol affects your decision making as well as your health. The liquor runs through your bloodstream and throughout your body, including your brain cells. Your body only has so many brain cells and if you drink too much you can kill them and your body will not replace them. Some teenagers go on drinking binges and die from alcohol poisoning because they have drunk too much at once. Some people who drink daily over several years can ruin organs and eventually die.
What alcohol does to your health is bad, but what you can do to others while you are under the influence is even worse. When someone drinks a lot, it can change their personality. Some people can get violent while others can’t even remember their name. If you get mad at somebody while the alcohol is in your system, it could very easily end with a very bad injury or death depending on how drunk the person is and how mad they are at the other person. Many fights start because one of the individuals are drunk and don’t know what they are doing. Even worse than starting a fight because you are drunk is getting into a car and driving drunk.
Many innocent people die every weekend because someone gets behind the wheel after drinking too much. When you drink too much you can’t make the right and quick decisions you need to drive properly. Many of these alcohol related car accidents happen to teenagers who have been drinking. Drinking while driving has paralyzed and even killed many innocent people and the problem seems to be getting worse. DARE has helped me to realize how serious drinking alcohol is and the consequences it can have on my life. Another drug that is as serious as alcohol is tobacco.
Tobacco can be just as dangerous as alcohol but isn’t as obvious. Smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco can be bad for your health. Tobacco has been known to cause cancer. Not only lung cancer, but mouth cancer too.
Tobacco is a very large cause of cancer spreading rapidly throughout the United States. Since the drug is not illegal a lot more people try smoking and become addicted. Though those people know the drug is bad for you, they think it is less harmful just because it is legal. That is why tobacco is in many more things than it should be. The government is allowing chewing tobacco to be sold right along with cigarettes. Both forms of tobacco are addictive and a growing problem in the United States.
Chewing tobacco causes mouth cancer and smoking tobacco causes lung cancer as well as other health issues. Smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer in the United States. These are two very hurtful and deadly diseases. Even if smoking does not give someone lung cancer, it can create poor circulation and shortness of breath. Although it is illegal to sell tobacco to people under the age of eighteen, teenagers find a way to purchase cigarettes or chewing tobacco. Teenagers believe it is cool to smoke and become addicted to nicotine in the tobacco and have a hard time quitting once they start. Just like alcohol, tobacco is more harmful to the still growing body of a preteen or teenager than it is to an adult. Even though on the cigarette boxes and chewing tobacco cans they put warning labels for cancer, people don’t read those labels because they usually have small print so it is partially the companies fault for making the warnings very unnoticeable. Also tobacco ads make it look like smoking and chewing tobacco are fun and without risk. Tobacco can also damage your skin by giving someone wrinkles, and would most likely give someone bad breath and yellow teeth. A lot of times smoking affects your everyday activities by causing you to suffer from shortness of breath and dizziness. This affects sports play and something that almost everyone can relate too, shopping at your local mall. But smoking can also cause you to not be able to do these things, because smokers usually have more colds and upper respiratory problems. In addition to tobacco being harmful to the one that smokes, it also causes harm to others who are around the smoker and inhale it , this is called second hand smoke. This is becoming a huge problem in the United States because so many people smoke.
Tobacco has more than two-hundred known poisons in it. That means that a lot more people over the years die because of tobacco related causes. I know first hand what it is like to know someone who has smoked and had a very slim chance of surviving. Smoking and chewing tobacco is a very bad drug to consume, and I know that I will never smoke, or chew tobacco because of the dangers of it. Another substance I would never try is marijuana. It is also dangerous and it is illegal in every state except under certain circumstances for really sick people.
NO MARIJUANA
Marijuana is a very, very harmful substance to the person who smokes it. Just the same as tobacco it causes the person who smokes it a lot more colds and upper respiratory problems. Although marijuana is illegal everywhere people still import the drug from where it is grown, or maybe import it from another country and stow it away in a bag. Marijuana users have an increased risk of getting cancer, because marijuana has fifty to seventy percent more of cancer causing chemicals than in tobacco.
The same conclusion for tobacco smokers and marijuana smokers is that taking that drug causes breathing problems. Marijuana also can be addictive because of the nicotine substance within the product. Marijuana, like all the other drugs I have talked about is very harmful to your body. Since marijuana is illegal, you can tell if someone is or have been taking the drug by short term memory loss, for instance you could ask the person of whom you suspect to be taking the drug to say their name. If the person cannot remember their name you could very well take them as a user of the drug marijuana.
Other symptoms are blood shot eyes and a smell to them. A lot of the ways you can tell that a person is using the drug marijuana is that they cannot concentrate on anything. Another way is that they probably don’t have very good coordination and have very slow reflexes. So if you threw the person a ball they probably would not be able to catch it.
Marijuana is one of the worst drugs you can take, so I am going to stay marijuana free!
In conclusion I have learned a lot of information by taking the DARE class. The first item that I learned is that alcohol is bad for you. Not only can it make you have poor judgment, it can have an effect on your health. The second item I learned from taking DARE is that tobacco either in cigarettes or in chewing tobacco is very harmful to your body. Even though tobacco does not have an impact on judgment it is known to have killed many people or made them very ill. It is also very addictive because nicotine is in tobacco. The third item I learned was that the illegal drug marijuana is illegal for a reason. Unlike tobacco, marijuana influences a person’s judgment and can lead to accidents because it slows reflexes and decision making. It also contains substances that are bad for your health. Overall, DARE has been a very informative class that will help me to make good decisions as I become a teenager and am approached to try these substances. Without DARE I may have not been informed enough to know to stay away from alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.
Pledge
I pledge,
To do what is right,
To handle peer pressure well,
To not handle things with violence but to talk things out,
To encourage others and thyself,
To not do drugs,
Or drink alcohol,
I pledge,
To stay drug and violence free!
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