Why do kids take drugs?

The answer seems obvious

Every year in North America, thousands of young people die from opiod abuses, typically overdoses or fentanyl poisoning. There should be no one left on Earth who does not understand that drug use is risky and the presence of fentanyl makes it even more dangerous. Yet the demand for narcotics is so high that it supports a major if illegal industry - drug cartels and Chinese fentanyl producers, Canadian marijuana producers, black market drug dealers, and a plethora of others whose livelihood depends on continued drug use by people who often become addicts.

Why?

B.F. Skinner, a pioneer in behavioral analysis and psychology, developed the theory of “operant conditioning” as the process of learning through reinforcement and punishment. Addiction results from both chemistry and conditioning. In the case of drugs it is both, while in the case of gambling or sex it is purely operant conditioning. Behavior that results in positive outcomes encourages repetition of the acts and if the “benefit” occurs randomly (as in gambling) the behaviour becomes even more addictive than if the benefit is consistent and predictable.

Society has developed a massive industry that promotes the idea that well-being can be achieved through drug use. Have a headache? Take an Aspirin, Tylenol or Advil? Stomach uneasy, take some Pepto-Bismol. Trouble sleeping? Take a soporific. Overweight? Take Ozempic. Why bother with a healthy diet and regular exercise if you can buy the same outcomes in small bottles at your local druggist? I was the founder of the modern Rexall Drug Store chain in Canada and have personal and first hand knowledge of the efforts the pharmaceutical industry makes to promote their products regardless of the medical indications that warrant their use.

Every day on mainstream media we are bombarded with advertisements for prescription drugs that show attractive young people engaged in fun activities and avoiding the symptoms of diabetes, obesity, psoriasis or some other ailment by asking their doctor to prescribe the promoted “cure” with a rapid-fire recital of the “side affects” which can be manifold and even life-threatening. We teach our children that doctors are god-like and drugs are the answer to every complaint. The latest fad is Ozempic - another drug that nine million lazy people have had prescribed to combat the obesity resulting from their own lifestyle choices.

So we should not be surprised that our youth is attracted to cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, magic mushrooms, and even fentanyl laced opiods for the “high” that they hope will result from their use. Famous comedian Bill Maher promotes cannabis use and Canada made it legal a few years ago. The popular Jefferson Airplane lyrics of White Rabbit capture the concept.

We can blame China and the drug cartels for the opiod carnage, and punish the pharmaceutical companies that promoted opiod pain killers with large fines and judgments, but they are not the culprits in the drug abuse epidemic.

We are.

We encourage our kids to look to chemicals rather than music, art, dance, sports, study, community service, poetry or the company of friends for happiness and well-being. We can’t pretend to be surprised when they decide to try narcotics and hang out and party with others who do the same. The recent premature death of Matthew Perry, apparently from drowing in a hot tub, follows years of what leftists call “struggling with drug and alchohol addiction”.

Multimillionaire celebrities don’t “struggle” with their addictions, they choose the lifestyle they live and have the resources to afford it. They just make bad choices and by so doing effectively encourage our youth to emulate them. Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Prince, Janis Joplin, Lenny Bruce, Heath Ledger, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Anna Nicole Smith, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, Cory Monteith, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and a long list of other household names all but glorified their reckless lifestyles and died prematurely as a result of their senseless choices. Their deaths are called tragedies but should be described more accurately as stupidity.

Our progessive governments call for compassion for addicts but their “compassion” - which boils down to making it easier for addicts to feed their habit safely - is not compassionate - it just makes addicts more committed to an unsafe and unproductive life typically funded by taxpayer dollars or otherwise prolonged at the expense of the rest of society.

Until society returns to age-old values like hard work, personal responsibility, and healthy pursuits and hobbies, the drug abuse epidemic will continue and get worse. Society was better off when people’s response to pathogens was necessarily to rely on their own immune systems and avoid infections by little more than personal cleanliness and common sense. Instead, society has focused on making lives longer rather than better and paradoxically the outcome for many young people is having their lives cut short before they have really lived. The right measure for a healthy life is not how long it was but how well it was lived.