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Peer pressure can lead to experimentation with drugs and alcohol, sexuality, skipping school, and various high-risk behaviors (Scott, 2007)
Peer pressure in causes of drug abuse
Does peer pressure influence the use of drugs and alcohol in adolescence? essay
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Once all our interviews had concluded we re-wrote all the questions that we had asked our four respondents comparing them by using a table. From this it was easier to compare and contrast answers, assisting us in our search for re-occurring themes or major differences. For the purpose of anonymity the sample will be referred to as W, X, Y and Z.
Themes and Patterns
There were a vast amount of themes and patterns that emerged during our analysis of the four interviews. Firstly, the living arrangements of our sample were similar. Three out of the four students had resided in the Stirling University Halls of Residence during first year and by third year all four were staying in privately rented occupation. Significantly the social habits of the four students were alike. Of the three students who stayed in Halls in first year all three ‘went out’ on campus at least three or more nights per week. The attendance of ‘nights out’ on campus fell to only two visits per semester for two of our sample, whilst the other kept to much the same pattern. All four of our sample attended the ‘Fubar’ nightclub in Stirling town centre every Thursday. Respondent X was the only subject whom started university with any friends from back home. All traveled home regularly to see friends in first two years of university, with the exception of respondent Z who had a significant distance to travel.
Of our four respondents only subject Z had no previous experience with illicit drugs. All three of the respondents who had taken illicit drugs before entering university had consumed cannabis and ‘speed’ by the age of 16. Subject X had also taken solvents, ‘magic mushrooms’ and ‘acid’ before entering university. Respondent W had consumed all the afore-mentioned drugs before coming to university but had also experimented with Valium and had smoked heroin. The location of drug consumption for all concerned was nearly always at parties or with older friends.
Since entering Stirling University all four had experimented with ‘ecstasy’ for the first time. Three of the four tried cocaine the first after entering university. The social setting of ecstasy use was nearly always club and music based, whilst cocaine use appeared to be restricted to post-club parties with friends. All respondents had suspicions that their families were aware of their ‘softer’ drug use but no one had actually been confronted on the subject.
2.) We began our study by interviewing a classmate, then interviewing another PLHS student for homework and recording our data. We then proceeded to fill out a Google form, which aided us in planting the anonymous data in a data table and combining it. Following that, we sorted and graphed the data by gender and ethnicity to see how different groups responded to each inquiry. Upon doing th...
Drugs and Behavior, Rebecca Schilit and Edith Lisansky Gomberg, Page 62, SAGE Publications, Inc.- 1991
Young people are using mood-changing substances at an increasingly younger age. Persistent substance abuse among youth is often accompanied by a plethora of problems, including school related hardships, health-related problems, poor family relationships, mental health issues, and run-ins with the justice system. There are also significant consequences involving the community, and society in general. Studies show drug use at a young age increases the desire to abuse as you get older. Society looks at drugs as being a taboo, which is the norm for our country. However other countries see drug use as a way of connection with oneself and others in another realm. Now whether drug use is harmless or harmful is a matter of your personal preference.
Macleod, J., Oakes, R., Copello, A., Crome, I., Egger, M., Hickman, M., & ... Smith, G. (2004). Psychological and social sequelae of cannabis and other illicit drug use by young people: a systematic review of longitudinal, general population studies. Lancet,363(9421), 1579-1588.
Kids of all ages are aware of and trying drugs. Most kids feel they have to join in to fit in, when a better solution would be to tell someone who can help. As children we are taught not to tell on one another or we are a tattletale or snitch. We need to stop the drug use before it stops our children. We need the kids to tell us where it is coming from and how we can help.
Marijuana may control the way people act, think, and even hurt their college academics. Marijuana is one of the most popular used drugs in America ranking about third after tobacco and alcohol. Marijuana is a substance that has become very much a part of American culture; many college students have either used it occasionally or regularly. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to find out about students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and their use of marijuana. In fact most students might not even know what they are smoking and what exactly makes them feel the way they do.
Social psychologists suggest that drug abuse patterns may also result from observation of parental drug use. Youths who learn that drugs provide pleasurable sensations may be most likely to experiment with illegal substances; a habit may develop if the use experiences lower anxiety and fear. (p. 279)
Since the early 1990s, the degree of students abusing controlled substances has dramatically increased; abuse of painkillers increasing by more than 300 percent, abuse of stimulants increasing to more than 90 percent, and 110 percent increase in proportion of students using marijuana daily (Califano, 2007). In the most recent years, this issue of abuse has become far too common with the rate of illicit drug use of 22 percent among full time college students between the ages of 18 and 22 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2013). This percentage of substance abusers continues to dramatically increase annually.
In America there is are an estimated 12.8 million Americans who use drugs. Out of the 12.8 million 6 percent of the population are kids ranging from 12 years of age and older. This number shows the number for people who have used drugs in the last 30 days. Th...
A drug is a substance that alters the mind, body or both. Drug use is an increasing problem among teenagers in colleges today. Most drug use begins in the preteen and teenage years, the years most crucial in the maturation process (Shiromoto 5). During these years adolescents are faced with difficult tasks of discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independence, learning to cope with authority and searching for goals that would give their lives meaning. Drugs are readily available, adolescents are curious and venerable, and there is peer pressure to experiment, and there is a temptation to escape from conflicts. The use of drugs by teenagers is the result of a combination of factors such as peer pressure, curiosity, and availability. Drugs addiction among adolescents in turn lead to depression and suicide (Shiromoto 12).
Drugs cause an overall disturbance in a subjects’ physiological, psychological and emotional health. “At the individual level, drug abuse creates health hazards for the user, affecting the educational and general development of youths in particular” (“Fresh Challenge”). In youth specifically, drug abuse can be triggered by factors such as: a parent’s abusive behavior, poor social skills, family history of alcoholism or substance abuse, the divorce of parents or guardians, poverty, the death of a loved one, or even because they are being bullied at school (“Drugs, brains, and behavior”) .
High school parties, sometimes referred to as “raves” have become extremely popular among teenagers in the United States. Crowds in such parties may even reach the hundreds and vey rarely the thousands. With such an amount of people in a crowded space, many situations are taking place. Kids as young as thirteen are injecting themselves with needles containing heroin, sometimes not knowing what they’re ingesting into their bodies. Others are rolling up marijuana and getting high without knowledge of what it can do to them, thinking that weed doesn’t kill you or harm you, wrong! A most common excuse in raves for not smoking but drinking is “Alcohol isn’t as bas smoking or injecting”, wrong! There’s kids that go to parties to not feel left out and most of the time these kids are taken advantage of and here’s where the peer pressure kicks in. They’re offered drugs and they get scared to say no thinking that they will be considered losers by everybody. They take the drug or alcohol. That is all it takes to ruin your life as fast as possible without even knowing you’re d...
Alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use among children and adolescents is a major public concern. Recent research on middle and senior high school students showed a reversal of previous declines in smoking marijuana and using drugs other than marijuana, a decline in students' personal disapproval of marijuana, and a high prevalence of alcohol use (Johnston, O'Malley, and Bachman 1996; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1996). Concern over this trend surfaced in the popular press, resulting in calls for measures to prevent teen drug use (Christian Science Monitor 1996; Friend 1996; Johnson 1996).
There are a myriad of cultural and societal risk factors that contribute adolescent alcohol and drug use. A risk factor is defined as “any attribute, characteristic or exposure of an individual that increases the likelihood of developing a disease or injury”. These risk factors can be identified through family history of substance use disorder, sense of inferiority, pleasure seeking, low self-esteem, unemployment, poor social support, desire to experiment and poor social support (Thomas, N. L., Naregal, P. M., Mohite, V. R., Tata, S. H., Karale, R. B., & Kakade, S. V. (2015).) Risk of drug abuse increases greatly during times of transition, such as changing schools, moving, or divorce. Additional peer risk factors include gang involvement or the reinforcement of negative norms and expectations within peer group, the lack of academic...
Drug abuse and addiction not only has negative effects in the lives of the people involved, but also in the lives of their close relatives, friends and immediate society. It leads to disintegration, failure in school, loss of employment and violence. Although intake of drugs is a voluntary and conscious decision initially, continuous intake of drugs changes the brain and challenges the self-control of the “addicted person” and inhibits the ability to resist extreme desire for drug intake.