Drug Use Dealing the Straight Dope: The

Drug Use Dealing the Straight Dope: The Physical, Emotional, and Social Effects of Drug Use and Abuse Many different things might come to mind upon hearing the word, "drugs." The harmful effects of drug abuse and the positive benefits of life-saving and quality of life-enhancing drugs might vie for equal attention in one person's brain, while another clearly and instantly calls up memories or associations of one kind or the other more completely.

Every drug has both useful purposes as well as effects that increase the likelihood that it will be abused, and the potential for drugs to bring peace to individuals is just as real as their potential to ruin lives and tear families apart. It is thus of vital importance to understand what the effects of taking drugs and especially abusing drugs can be, and what factors tend to influence drug abuse, so that these factors and effects can be mitigated and controlled.

There are a variety of factors that have been identified in the literature as increasing the likelihood that people will abuse drugs. For example, family structure -- whether the family is composed of single parent or two parents, as well as the number of siblings and certain other elements of a family's composition -- has been shown to have a large correlation with drug abuse (East & Khoo 2005).

Research has also defined certain other factors surrounding the family that are a huge indicator in determining the likelihood of whether or not a child will turn to drugs in their adolescent years or possibly even sooner (Carson-DeWitt 2003). Having a parent or an older sibling that abuses drugs is another familial issue that can greatly increase the likelihood of drug abuse (Carson-DeWitt 2003).

There are also many other factors that can lead to drug abuse, just as there are many potential effects that drugs can have on all ages and generations of users and abusers. In both of these regards, however, younger generations are arguably more at risk.

With bodies that are smaller -- making them more susceptible to damage brought about by smaller doses of any number drugs, prescription or otherwise -- and still developing, the physical effects of drugs on adolescents and children can be very extreme and far more dangerous than the effects of the same drugs on adults.

This harm can also be more irreparable in nature due to the potential for interrupting or altering developmental processes, which are more complex and ultimately lead to more long-lasting effects than the processes that generally take place in an adult body. This is not to say that drugs do not present a danger to adults, but the physical dangers of drug abuse are heightened for children and adolescents. In addition, children and adolescents are.