Do Drugs Affect Mental Health In Adolescents?

An astonishing 50% of drugs involving adolescents are either used, bought, or sold at their school(Monitoring the Future). This startling statistic proves to many parents and adults how difficult it is to protect any child from drugs. Half of all adolescents access these harmful drugs such as marijuana, heroin, nicotine, and flavored pods to add to their vaping pens at school. Over 48% of twelfth graders, 34% percent of tenth graders, and a little over 17% of eighth graders are using any type of illicit drug. Though the number of adolescents using heroin has dropped in the past year by .10%, the percent of adolescents using crack cocaine has gone up .30% since 2015 (Monitoring the Future Vol. 1). Also, studies show that more teens die from

Schizophrenia is a mental illness in which one may hear voices in their head that aren 't really there, and they believe that other people are trying to harm or control everything they do (Drugs and Mental). Though drugs do not cause it to happen, teens are more likely to try or regularly take cannabis. When adolescents smoke cannabis in excessive amounts , it makes them have a spell in which they go crazy. Cannabis, contains a chemical called THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) which produces a ‘’high’’. It resembles a chemical found in the brain known as endocannabinoids and can overtake the chemical causing the brain not to function properly. This later causes a schizophrenic spell to occur (Drugs and

Crystal meth is highly addictive, and has more cons than pros. A terrible side effect of meth is that it causes the user to pick at the skin so much when high, that it causes sores and even scares to be left on the body. The reason for the self inflicted wounds is because “you think that bugs are crawling under your skin” (Just Think Twice). Meth also can cause users to lose their appetite, resulting in a thin skeletal like body structure. And finally, it causes body temperatures to rise at a drastic rate, causing major dehydration before the body can do anything about it because the brain had reacted so slowly (Just Think