We need to inform people of the facts of heroin.

Preferred Family, who provides adolescent and adult substance use rehabilitation, believes that the younger people start talking to their family and friends about drug abuse, the better, because it will eventually become a more comfortable conversation. It is important to really emphasize the facts in these conversations starting around elementary school and continuing to college. Constant guidance is important because a person’s brain does not fully develop until they are 25. The more adolescents hear about the effects of abusing drugs, the better chance there is that they will understand why they should not do it. We need to nip it in the bud and start teaching young people about how their decisions will affect them in the long run. We need to teach more about this problem in our communities and talk about the issue more.

Family influence students in their decision making and knowledge of what is right and wrong. Parents need to talk to their students often about topics like drugs and get it in their heads that it has lasting effects. If parents talk to their children then it is more likely the family member will ask questions and truly understand the cost of this decision.

Friends should be a good influence on the student. If a person is concerned about a friend it is important they talk to them or get them help because at our age sometimes hearing a concerned friend might have a bigger impact than a parent would. Along with being a good friend it is important too that a person surrounds themselves with other good friends. If they make poor decisions that could lead to more harmful decisions, they probably are not the greatest choice.

FHN plans to have an assembly talking about this problem in March. All of the high schools in the country should have something comparable to this if they want to protect their students. Schools should have programs in place where students truly know all the facts and have places to go for help.

Each day, 120 people in the U.S. die from a drug overdose. Each day we don’t talk about heroin and opioids and learn more about them, another fellow student or friend or family member might become addicted.  Each day we don’t address this issue in our lives we could lose another member of our community from this fatal problem.  Students need to get the information before they experience it themselves.

Action needs to happen, and the school needs to take responsibility for their students’ welfare and teach them the facts. Have a person come in and tell their story. Have an assembly where professionals explain the effects on everyone who uses the drug. Have students watch videos of parents calling emergency services after they just found their child and they are not responding because they overdosed from heroin. The fact is that these simple actions could save a person’s life, so the school, friends, family and everyone individually should be doing everything they can to educate everyone to help this problem go away.