Reflection Paper

Candice Larsen
August 1, 2019
Life Society and Drugs
In America the “war on drugs” was officially declared in 1971and it still currently taking place
today. Although today the war is not focused or centered around one specific drug. In the 1970’s
it was focused on heroin, the 1980’s were focused on cocaine. Today everyone is more aware on
the different uses and personal preferences. In the twenty-first century parents of young
teenagers must worry about the preset day drug taking behaviors that their children may have or
be around. Studies have given us results that give us the conclusions of, parents having a more
open mind and more acceptance of drug use verses the parents in older generations. Next we can
not prove there is any evidence that the use of marijuana by parents has anything to do with their
acceptance when it comes to their children. Illicit drug use is dominated by marijuana in college
students. If you ask high schoolers why they started using drugs, more then half would say it was
to have a good time with their friends, the next most common answer is, experimentation or to
see what it was like. Some risk factors that might make someone more vulnerable to drugs are,
anti-social behavior, friends use, perceived prevalence of marijuana use in school, individual
attitudes toward marijuana use, friends’ attitudes toward marijuana use. Some protective factors
include, sanctions against substance use in school, parents as a source of social support,
commitment to school, religiosity, extracurricular activities. Drugs are toxic, they are toxic to
one’s health. They can be dangerous or poisonous and can in a way interfere with a person’s
normal functioning. Toxicity is defined as the physical or psychological harm that a drug might
present to the user. Physical dependence is a model drug dependence based on the idea that the
drug abuser continues the drug taking behavior to avoid the consequences of physical withdrawal
symptoms. Psychological dependence is a model of drug dependence based on the idea that the
drug abuser is motivated by a craving for the pleasurable effects of the drug. Metabolic tolerance
is the processes that produce the drugs biotransformation in the liver. An example would be the
rate that alcohol is eliminated increases over time if alcohol is ingested repeatedly over an
extended period of time.
Depending on what mindset you go in with before taking drugs, what you think you are going to
feel and what the drug is going to do you are more likely to feel that way and have increased
chances that the drug is going to do that. The brain has three major division: the hind brain,
midbrain, and forebrain. The most recently evolved brain is the forebrain it is what will control
the most complex behaviors and processes the most complex information. All drugs will affect
all levels of the brain in one way or another.
The way that drugs enter the body can be of four ways, injection, inhalation, oral administration
or absorption. They all impose constrains on which kinds of drugs will be effectively delivered
into the bloodstream. The drugs will be eliminated though urinary excretion. The drugs are
broken down for elimination by the action of enzymes in the liver.
The production of drugs has a lot of ties on peoples lives, it all starts with whoever is producing
the drugs, whether it is the farmers growing coca to make cocaine, or those who grow marijuana
plants etc... all the drugs eventually end up with the cartels and are then distributed out to smaller
dealers who then sell to the buyers. Production of drugs is a chain; it all passes from one person
to another and each person is in charge of doing something different. Depending on who they are
and what they are doing will determine their power and how much money they will make off of
the whole thing. Drug cartels have the most power and are going to be the ones who make the
most money. Everyone else gets very small cuts even though the whole process would not be
possible without them.