The freedom, prevention, and types of drugs on college campuses

Let's face it, drugs are on college campuses across the country. They have been a major problem for a long time. For students on many different campuses, drugs can be looked at in many different ways. Drugs can be as simple as an experiment or as a lifestyle for many individuals that are enrolled in college. How do drugs come into the lives of these individuals? What are the temptations? Well from research, the majority of it talks about how a student has a sort of new freedom when entering college. These students finally realize the freedom when exiting the confines of their parents. Whether it be moving to a college in another state, or in an individual's home town, these students obviously feel that they are old enough to make decisions without the consent of their parents. So, I am going to talk about freshmen. They are just getting out of high school where their lifestyle has been somewhat planned with activities and extracurricular situations not found in college. The college atmosphere brings out a new lifestyle.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 35% of the new freshmen population will comprise the bulk of new drug users and potential drug abusers on college campuses. This statistic shows that the incomers are prone to "experiment" with something that has not been available to them in years past. Drug tests are expensive but effective in my opinion. Just the simple fact of knowing that you might be tested will do good in the minds of these students. I can not imagine being a parent right now with a child in college. Just thinking about what he or she does and does not do in their spare time drives me crazy. So I would propose that Universitys somehow educate parents the preventions of drug use. This could be a start. Also, for any scholarship sponsored, greek affiliated students, student athlete, ROTC, and any other student that is apart of a program in college should be tested in some sort of way prior to joining the program or accepting of aid. Again, I know they are expensive but should be neccesary.

"And rightfully so considering the fact that 43% of the overall college student body has either tried or is currently addicted to at least one of the top ten drugs found on college campus.

I found the list of the types of drug abuse on college campuses.

Alcohol would be the widest known type of drug. "The most prominent effect of alcohol is dependency and according to national statistics 15% of college freshmen are alcoholics or enrolled in an AA program ending their freshman year."

"Stimulants or uppers are both abundant and widely used among college students and are probably of the most volatile of the drugs available on college campuses. Most college students who abuse stimulants do it to avoid sleep and study for long periods of time but other reasons can include increased energy, heightened sexual stimulation and to lose weight." The most serious conditions that rise from stimulants are strokes, convulsions, and heart attacks. The four main stimulants are ampetamines, methamphetamines, sexual stimulants, cocaine, hallucinogens, and marijuana.

"Aside from alcohol, nearly 65% of student drug abusers smoke or otherwise imbibe in marijuana. Marijuana can be mixed with other controlled substances also commonly used on college campus."

Finally, I wanted to say something about steroids on college campuses. I see this more and more. It is not hard to tell if someone has been using steroids. Being in athletics, I use to see it pretty much everyday. Even in high school. These drugs are usually bought from somewhere outside our country. Or, at least made out of the country. This was definately not something that I was interested in. However, it was very present. Again, I saw this early on in college which backs up these stats above. Mostly when I was a freshmen, I either saw guys in my class or sophmores doing it from my school or just guys I knew from other schools. They had their parent's money and nothing else to do with it but buy these things. Any how, this was about the time when tests were really starting to be enforced. This put the thought in people's minds they might actually get caught. This was a good start because I rarely saw it when becoming an upper classman. Testing works and should be started early in my opinion.