Youth? Pessimistic no doubt...

To the left, To the left!

I am very pessimistic about youth today because youth are self-destructive. Youth today tend to try anything and everything for self-discovery. The reason why I find youth pessimistic, is because they do forbidden behaviours like drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

Thanks to the survey done every year by NIH (National Institute of Health) we are able to see  the level of alcohol, cigarette, and illicit drug use by high school students. This survey is answered by an overall of 41,675 students in 389 public and private schools every year. As we see it here in the picture, the 12th graders are the ones who do the most forbidden behaviours. There is clearly a relation between the age and the forbidden behaviours.  Now although the alcohol and cigarettes consuming level is decreasing by the year, the illicit drug use level is increasing. The reason why the illicit drug use level is rising, is because marijuana is becoming more popular every year. Now the effects that marijuana has on a user's life is bad. According to the research done by NIH, marijuana may cause problems in daily life or make a person's existing problems worse. Also, heavy marijuana users generally report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, more relationship problems, and less academic and career success compared to non-marijuana-using peers.


I won't point out any names because this is a small world, but I have a couple of friends who have an addiction on marijuana. I grew up with those guys from the 1st grade till the 12th grade. I am the only person out of all those guys who never did illicit drugs or cigarettes. I have some alcohol from time to time with my football teammates after a win or something like that, but I never did any other thing else. I tell myself: What is drugs going to bring me in life? What positive effect can it give me? I will never do drugs.

All this to say that youth has a pessimistic future. Until I can see the numbers of illicit drug use drop, there will never be an optimistic future for youth, because consequences do come with the consummation of drugs. The connection between alcohol, drugs and crime is clear. That is a fact proven by the NCADD (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence).