Why Do People Use Drugs?

According to a 2001 survey, ages 12 and up, 15.9 million Americans had used an illegal drug in the last month. This of course is a very scary survey but you know what they say "there's a reason for every thing". To others, the reason people use drugs is they are depressed or they’re pressured into it, but it’s because of parental influence.

It’s hard to say what exactly causes the use of drugs, but we can narrow it down, to at least get an idea. For instance, a commonly stated reason is depression. Being depressed, some may use drugs to relieve stress or pain, which does make sense. Others use them just because “its cool” or they were pressured into using them. Some get bored and go out to find a drug dealer to flee from boredom. Which is another common reason for the usage of drugs.

Although there are many reasons, the main reason for drug usage is parental influence. To elaborate, a lot of adults these days use drugs, and when they have kids, that temptation or influence is naturally there. Children look up to their parents, and if they’re doing drugs the kids assume that it’s “the right thing to do” because “their parents would never do anything wrong”. This will cause problems because if the parents don't care at all, then the kids will just give in without any thought involved and before you know it they're addicted. Even though most surveys say that depression or peer pressure is the main cause, I believe that if the parents use drugs then the child will either just grab a bottle from the fridge or when they are pressured it'll be easier to say yes because their parents did and "Heck, why would they care!?".

To be knowledgeable of this information is essential because if we can control our influence over our children, the future will be looking up! To summarize, even with peer pressure and boredom (etc.) playing a part, parental influence is the main cause for drug use.