Have you ever thought about doing drugs? Many people have. According to reports from CNN and US News, in 2014 47,055 people lost their lives due to a drug overdose. From the ages of 14-24 there have been 5,856 people who have overdosed on cocaine, 10,863 people overdosed on heroin, 5,417 people have overdosed on oxycodone, 3,495 people overdosed on methadone, 4,217 people have overdosed on alprazolam, 4,200 people have overdosed on fentanyl, and 4,022 people have overdosed on morphine. 

Some think taking drugs will be fun. Doing drugs isn’t fun at all. Ninety percent of the people who do drugs relapse, and there could be short or long term affects (trips). Some start to do drugs and never stop. They start off with something small and slowly go towards higher/harder level drugs. 

It’s very important for people to know what they’re getting themselves into when doing drugs.

Have you ever walked around Boston and seen all those homeless people? Well, when you give them money, most of them use that money to buy drugs because they’re drug addicts and lost everything because of their addiction. 

Another reason not to take drugs is if you are not aware of your health history. You could severely damage yourself in many ways. You can go into a manic episode and never come back from it. If you’re on the younger side between ages 14-26, you could do yourself serious damage, because at these ages your brain isn’t fully developed and doing drugs can either stunt your brain growth or rewire it. This can impact your ability of judgement, decision making, memory, and learning. 

People who take some sort of prescription medicine, like ADHD or ADD meds, or even migraines drugs, can be affected very much when mixing them with alcohol. But they can be affected also if they stop taking their prescribed medicine to take an illegal drug. They might not go back to taking the one they need. For example, if someone who is bipolar doesn’t take their medicine and does a hard core drug instead, they can go into a manic episode. A manic episode is when they go into this kind of mood that’s very hard to come back from and they can’t control themselves. They get very irritable and this can be increased by the illegal drug and lack of taking the prescribed one. While someone is in a manic episode, they can get really bad mood swings or feel betrayed or distressed, which could lead them into bad decisions in their manic episode. 

If you have someone in your family with some sort of mental health issues, you might have them too. If it doesn’t show signs now, it can show up when you get older. So it’s better off not doing drugs at all if you’re not aware of your background or mental health history.  

So many people die each year just because they thought doing drugs would be cool or fun.  Just because the drug is taken in a “safe” or “fun” place doesn’t mean it is safe or fun; you’re never safe when doing drugs. If you’re dead due to a drug overdose, what would your friends and family think or feel?

Doing drugs doesn’t make you cool. They’re not fun, and it’s too dangerous to risk your life.