In a friend’s back yard, at the age of 14, Anna Henley had her first encounter with drugs and became part of the 60 percent of young Americans who use drugs in their lifetime, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
“It becomes all you think about and you just want to have more,” Henley, a freshman majoring in education at Tyler Junior College said. “It was more of a peer pressure thing; you know, everyone was doing it so I thought ‘okay well let me do it too’.”
Marijuana, popular among college students and better known as weed, Meth (Crystal methamphetamine), LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide), alcohol, heroin and cocaine are just some of the preferred and most abused drugs in the nation. Drugs offer its consumer a temporary fix or escape from the social realities of everyday living. Which, according to Dr. Otis Webster, psychology professor at TJC, is behind today’s drug infested society, forming a new behavior.
“We are busy creating a drug infested society, and it’s gotten to the place where it’s normal everyday behavior,” Dr. Webster said. “Anything that can help them escape social realities, and drugs do that.”