This is an opinion paper about drugs that was recently submitted by one of my 7th grade boys:

Hello everyone. In this article I would like to raise awareness on drugs – what they are and what they can do to you. I am going to cover some of the main drugs like marjuana and methamphetamine. These drugs are the root cause of the many crimes committed in these times. They can also be the root of suicide, murder, and eath. A lot of people just think it’s a drug and you shouldn’t do it, but it’s more than that. It’s the next suicidal teenager, it’s the next shooting, and it could be the next death. People just don’t think about it like that. So now I’m going to describe some of the drugs and the effects they have on your body.

First, the most commonly abused drug in North America, marijuana. This drug comes from a plant called, Cannabis. This drug moves quickly through the bloodstream, affecting yoru brain and other organs. If you take marijuana at a young age, it can resutl in structural defects in the brain. This can cause weakened verbal and communication skills, lower learning capabilities, and a shortened attention span. This drug not only affects your brain, it all also affects your still developing lungs.  When you smoke marijuana it produces 50-70% more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke.

The next drug iso one of the most highly addictive drugs, heroin. Heroin is produced from morphine produced from the Asian poppy plant, so this is a naturally occurring substance people have learned to abuse. People can abuse heroin by injection, snorting, or smoking it. This drug enters the brain very quickly so it becomes easy to be dependent. It is very hard to know the actual purity of heroin because they mix it with other substances. This technique is also used in cocain or crack. This is called “cutting.” A risk you take while on heroin is that it does not easily dissolve. This means it can cause a blood clot in the heart, lungs, or liver which is instantly fatal.

Finally, meth, I call it the drug that messes with your heart. Almost all its side effects are linked to the heart: rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, and elevated blood pressure. This drug also affects the central nervous system which includes the brain and brain stem. This drug also causes you to become anxious and violent. It can cause you to hallucinate; the most common hallucination is that bugs are crawling under your skin. Meth users pick at the “bugs” which causes scabs to appear all over their body.

Okay, I am done describing these drugs and the effects they have on your body. If you did not notice, most of these drugs are naturally occurring. That just shows you that man is always looking for a way to destroy himself with that is around him. It also shows that these drugs cause death, maybe not always the users, but sometimes to the people around them. Well, thanks for reading.”

What more is left to be said?