The National Red Ribbon Campaign is a program that brings awareness for drug prevention. Every October we set aside a week to teach youth the importance of saying no to drugs and alcohol. Some schools have days when they dress up to different themes. Schools have contests where students make posters with cheesy slogans about not doing drugs. My question for you; is this really an effective method?

Today, becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol is honestly an act of ignorance. We have learned from previous generations the consequences that they have on us, but we continue to do them. I feel as though if we teach from a young age the importance of morals and self-respect, we could have a decrease in the amount of young people doing drugs and becoming addicted. Children brought up in homes of addicts are “statistically” more likely to become addicted themselves. That’s because they don’t have anyone at home to teach them the ways of self-acceptance. As someone who grew up in such an environment, I didn’t receive that incite. It came from teachers at school or people at church. Although it is important to teach about the consequences, the way we come across brings awareness but not actions. Schools’ strategy is to stress the ways drugs and alcohol negatively affect us, but after over 30 years of the same technique, we still have a vast amount of youth involved in these dangerous activities.

In 2016, everything is a joke. If you placed a group of teenagers in a room with someone our age dying from these horrendous destroyers, they would probably pull out their phones and make it into the next meme. The youth aren’t brought up in homes where they are taught to respect themselves or others. Maybe instead of Red Ribbon Week, we create a week dedicated to the importance of respecting one’s self and others