PEER PRESSURE: THE GATEWAY TO DANGER

The Drug Deal

Here's the test. You're with a group of friends and one of them pulls
out a baggie with some unknown substance in it and promptly informs
you that it's the cool thing to do and says (here's the classic)
"Everyone does it." Now try the same scenario but with a bottle of liquor.

What do you do?

I ask high school students during presentations the question, "Are
you going to jump off a cliff because your friends say it's O.K.?" So
why use drugs?

Around 85 per cent of high school students don't use drugs and those
that do were most likely convinced to do so by friends. The
interesting thing is that those same friends usually don't have a
clue about the drug nor do they have the slightest inkling about the
health risks.

I have had to send a child off to the Janeway poison control center
from chugging hard liquor, take drunken youth home to mom and dad,
etc., the stories go on an on.

Kids out late drinking, going to parties parents thought were
harmless; the list of situations in which I have attended where
trouble has occurred is long. In most cases, the parents were
appalled by their child's behavior.

Funny, I have never had to take a child into custody that was home
playing scrabble.

It's when young people get in situations where the parental guidance
is missing that the bad decisions can creep in. Do they have to?

The answer quite simply is no.

If they are encouraged to stand up for themselves and given a firm
moral foundation to stand on, they will make the right decisions.

You cannot and will not be able to be there all the time. So prepare
them for those challenges. It's like an investment. The more you put
into it now, the more it will yield later.

Talk, talk and talk some more. Talk about school, aspirations, likes
and dislikes. Encourage and reinforce good behavior, discourage and
discipline bad behavior. The closer you bond with your child, the
less likely they will be to betray your trust when the crunch is on.

You have to let your child come to their own realization that the
group of friends they have might not be what is good for them if they
fit into the dope smoking/binge drinking crowd.

To be completely fair, there are those rebellious teens that just
won't listen despite the best intentions of the parents. Keep trying;
it's worth the effort. You have to emphasize goal setting that comes
from them, not you.

One thing that will not change is the peer pressure that teens
encounter every day. By nature, youth of all ages desire to be
popular, to be seen by their classmates as "cool." No one wants to be
labeled as a geek or to be singled out.

In this situation, kids will sometimes marginalize their efforts to
fit in when their potential is much higher than they are willing to
show. There will always be cliques of students that other students
want to be part of. Of course, students with like interests and focus
will naturally gravitate together, and that's healthy. Unfortunately,
that applies to those students that think it's fine to be out every
weekend smoking dope and getting hammered.

People who become addicted to drugs of any type do so for a variety
of reasons. Treatment of the addiction should examine a variety of
factors including environment, family, personal experience and
peers.Any one or combination of these factors can come into play.

Now to answer my first question at the start of the column, what do
you do when a situation like this confronts you?

Why not say, "No thanks, smoking causes emphysema and I like my lungs
the way they are", or "I'm not feeling so great right now, I got to
go." How about, "Hey buddy, are you crazy? It will look real sweet if
the cops roll in here and everybody gets charged... forget it!" You
can keep it simple and spare the lecture and say, "No thanks."

There are a million reasons for backing away and breaking from the
herd. You have to ask yourself what kind of friend would further
pressure you at that point. Not a friend that respects you, that's
for certain. Don't give in, say no to drugs.

Cpl. Keith MacKINNON is Labrador District Drug Awareness Coordinator