The use of drugs has been plastered to society as something fun and something normal , when drugs are neither. It's actually the opposite…dangerous and toxic. About 1 in 16 high school seniors use marijuana every day. That's an extreme amount, the percentage has gone up 30 percent in the last decade. I'm extremely discouraged on how many kids my age are dealing with substance abuse or addiction. 

I feel like society needs to take a step back and look at what's going on. Most kids who turn to drugs are dealing with something much greater which causes them to turn to drugs as a coping mechanism. Most of the time when an adult hears a kid is using drugs they start to be very judgemental not knowing what could be going on and why they're doing these things.

Instead of being judgemental and handing out punishments, why don't we take the time to understand and to help those struggling. 

The effects of drugs are so dangerous and the worst part is that most of the time after drug abuse the person will never be the same again. Not only is this hard on the person themselves, it is hard for the people around them to process it and accept the loss of that person but even  though they are not actually psychically gone. 

Growing up I spent a lot of time with my grandma and uncle, when I was younger my uncle would help raise me , around this time he was a teengager turning into a young adult. We were very close , he was like my best friend. As I grew older I started to realize he was struggling with substance abuse but I thought he was just addicted to marijuana. But little did I know it was way worse than that. Unfortunately my uncle struggled with many other things such as having a bad relationship with his parents and family, being a college student, having to maintain a good image, etc. So the drugs were keeping him comfortable. Yes some people use marijuana and other drugs as a therapy but in his case it didn't end up going well for him. My uncle ended up going to college on campus where he was exposed to many other things including different types of drugs. I don't know the specifics considering I was younger when the situation occurred. But I know my uncle was laced and had to be sent to the hospital. After he was sent to the hospital his behavior started to change and it got worse progressively as the years went by. He continued to do different drugs as the years went by and that mixing with his trauma didn't go well. 

Ever since then our relationship hasn't been the same. He's not that same uncle that would take me to the library every weekend, he’s not the same uncle that would introduce me to a variety of music, and he’s not the same uncle that would be the reason I grew a love for cooking as a hobby. 

Our relationship is very rocky, he resents me and acts like he hates me. I have no idea why other than he started to do drugs and felt like everyone was against him. I always think to myself would he have been the same if my grandma just would've gotten him the help or instead of judging him, try to understand that he was struggling. 

Yeah so it's like grieving a person who is not dead… we live in the same household and walk past each other like we don't know each other and it's just like living with a stranger. 

Growing up he told me to always prioritize education and I always looked up to him because he was extremely smart. He got a full ride to college and so many scholarships, I thought that was amazing. So that's been my inspiration for a while. Now it just sucks because I will never be able to tell him I got into Uconn, a school he would've been so proud  of me getting accepted to. But unfortunately I don't think he would care…