Introduction

Of growing concern to the society, has been the increasing incidence of drug usage among secondary school students and teenagers as a whole. This tendency to resort to drugs has slowly but discernibly gained grounds in Nigeria right from the end of the Nigerian Civil war.
In United States, thirty percent of all the deaths that occur are premature and are caused by alcohol and tobacco. Putting it simply it just means that 30% of all the Citizens of the United States die early because of tobacco and alcohol consumption. This figure does not include casualties from the newer drug which range from cocaine to marijuana and all others.

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What is a drugs?

It may be defined as any substance other than food, which when taken into the system of a living organism, may modify one or more of its functions.

A drug therefore is a kind of chemical which produces an extra-ordinary effect beyond the life sustaining functions associated with food.

A drug can be used to heal, to put somebody to sleep, for relaxation, for elation, to produce some mystical experience and so forth. The dependence on drugs occurs when a drug user gives himself virtually completely to doses of drugs without any medical prescription or supervision, until he cannot control his use of the drug. He develops a drug habit and later if nothing is done to check the trend, a total dependence on the drug or drugs.

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How drugs habit Begins

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It has been well established that the critical period of susceptibility to the accusation of the drug habit is between the ages of twelve and twenty. It is not quite common to start drug use before the age of twelve and after the age of twenty. The peak period is between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.

The drugs habit begins often with the process of experimentation and in a peer context. Others within the peer group, who have used the drugs, will tell the recruits that it is all right to try the drug. When a normal person start to use a drug, he has conflicting ideas in his mind: 'the drug is terrible', 'it can cause death', 'I can be imprisoned', 'I can become mad or terrible things can happen to my life'. All such thoughts May race through his mind. On the other hand, he feel that he can control it and that it cannot be a problem. He said 'it's okay, let's just try it, and see how it looks like', and so forth.

He may finally start an experimental use, then an occasionally use, a regular use and later dependent drug. As the processes go on, the drug he has selected becomes more and more important to him.

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The first set of drugs used by youth include wine, palm wine and beer, later he may decide to add cigarettes and hard liquor like gin etc.
He may still progress into other drugs like marijuana which come under very many nicknames. ( weed, speed, ikpo, ikon-ekpo, leaf, jump, wee-wee, etc). Still further on, he may use cocaine or heroin considered as hard drugs.

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Conclusion

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Thank you so much for reading to the end. Please visit my blog again for more update on this topic.
Next time I will be talking about various kinds of harmful drugs used by youth and why they turn to using those drugs.
See you next time!

Written by @udyliciouz