First of all, I would love to mention once again how I'm loving how this class relates to some of my other classes. As I started my questions for chapter two this past week, I realized that it began with neurotransmitters, which is something that I am familiar with from last year's anatomy class. It was nice to refresh my memory on some ideas that we covered in class last year and also connect what we previously learned with something new.
As I began to read about the affects of drugs on the brain, I started to think how interesting it truly is. I read about the natural opiates that our brains make as pain killers for whatever pain we feel. Then, when I read how drugs destroy these opiates and bring in unnatural opiates, I thought that it was pretty much stupid. After stopping drug use, the body just feels more pain due to the lack of natural opiates. The body was just fine without the drugs in the first place! So, I think that it is very sad and unfortunate how little people really know on the subject of how drugs affect them before using drugs. The thought crossed my mind that if more people knew about this, there would be less drug use in the world. But, then i realized that no matter how much knowledge people have on the matter, drug use is addicting and would most likely not lessen that much. This just makes me very sad.
Aviva,
ReplyDeleteI am very sorry that you are sad. I hate to do this to you but what I am about to say probably won't help your disappointment. :(
Yes, I do think that drug awareness (especially in schools) is crucial, however, I am not sure that it can be a cure. It is good to know about the negative affects of it and how it 'works,' however I don't think this will stop people from taking drugs. I think that most people somewhat know that drugs are bad. However, when they see all their friends or even adults doing it, all of their previous knowledge on the subject is ignored. I'm sure for people who live in an environment where drugs are used frequently, it is EXTREMELY hard to say no. Probably one of the biggest problems of all is that people think, "okay I'll do this one time, nothing will happen, and I'll go back to my regular life." This is the mistake many people make. They are OVERCONFIDENT that they will not become addicted. This overconfidence leads them to smoke some pot and in a blink of an eye they are addicted.
Yeah, I know! I was saying that of course it would be nice for people to have a better knowledge but even the people with this knowledge also ignore it, and this is why it is so sad! I guess that is just how the world works
ReplyDeleteHello my aviva!
ReplyDeleteI’m going to just add on to what Alexa said with a few thoughts of my own. I do think that there is awareness almost everywhere about the fact that drugs are bad. Obviously not everyone knows as much as we do about drugs because they are not in our dandy psychology class. Nevertheless, I do believe that most people know that drugs have a negative effect on our body. The problem in our society is not the fact that people are not aware about what drugs can do to them, its mostly that they are stubborn. In order to elaborate on that point, let me tell you a swell little story. One time, I had this discussion with a person and he said to me: “Carmit, we all learn that drugs are bad for us. However, I do not believe one bit that that is actually true.” (aren’t you curious who that could be…)This person is very much aware; he is simply in denial and completely naïve. We have all seen movies in which drug dealers are portrayed as sad, homeless, dreadful and completely unable to function. Our problem is that we are in denial about what can happen to us if we do drugs because we don’t want to face the truth. Isn’t that pathetic and sad?!?