It is the night after the NBA draft, and tonight is your big night. You initial contract offer is expected to bring you $16 million! So why not find a way to celebrate? You can afford it now. So, you have a friend to go out and score some crack cocaine, and you smoke it a few times as you party till 2 a.m. Then you fall sleep—or so your friends think. But in the morning your body is still and cold, and they can’t wake you. Fiction? No, this happened in1986 and this basketball player’s name was Len Bias. He had a brilliant future as a basketball player. But he was dead after he tried cocaine for the first time (Goldenring, 1993, p. 1).
We see and hear real stories like this every day on the TV News, Newspaper, and radio, and we believe that it is never going to happen to somebody in our family or our children. But are we just fooling ourselves? Maybe we do not want to accept the reality of this fast-paced world, where many parents seem to care more about themselves, and they forget about their children personal needs. Therefore, they think that it is the government’s responsibility to keep drugs out of reach of our children and not theirs. However, parents have the responsibility to inform and educate their kids about illegal drugs and to protect them from drug abuse.
Parents should ask themselves why do kids use drugs? Children use drugs, because it is an expression to rebel against society, and the influence of peers can be another reason why they use drugs, even though that peer pressure can sometimes be good for them, especially when they do academic activities in school. Children also use drugs, because they want to take risks, and enjoy what drugs do to their brains, whether they are chasing an excitement rush or seeking an escape from reality. They ignore the risk that this “excitement” represents, and this risk may lead them to commit suicide. When Art Linkletter’s daughter committed suicide, she was high on LSD, and she though that she could fly, so she...