The beginning of the book Tweak by Nic Sheff starts off bold and strong. The book is about Sheff himself. He starts out by saying he has his life together and can control his drug usage. Then, his drug problem gets so bad that he loses everything. At this time he is only a teenager and has become brutally addicted to drugs. He says, "It was like, I don't know, like everything else faded out. All my dreams, my hopes, ambitions, relationships- they all fell away as I took more crystal up my nose...my life unraveled" (Sheff 5). This shows that addictions really take over people's lives. Addiction makes people lose control because they will do anything to make sure they get whatever they are addicted to. Sheff described that at first he was hiding the bad things he was doing so he would not be a negative influence over his siblings and the next thing he knew he was arrested in front of them, watching them sob as he was cuffed by the police.
This book has altered my opinion about drug testing. In class we discussed several situations and argued whether it was okay or not to drug test students. Unless it was an extreme case, I pretty much disagreed with drug testing students. In Sheff's case though it would only be safe to drug test him. He was clean for a while but as he said he just could not stop. After his rehab, I think he should have been constantly drug tested so his parents could make sure he would not relapse. This would deter him from doing more drugs and keep him in the right state of mind. Addiction is powerful and was taking over Sheff's life. I am not against random drug testing or drug testing in schools if that is the measures that must be taken in order to ensure other kids and people don't have this same problem. It is too serious.
You say that having student drug testing would prevent drug use, but if someone is so addicted would having a drug test help anything? All a drug test does is prove that a person is on or has taken drugs, it does not do anything to prevent someone from using drugs now or in the future. Schools should educate people and find ways to help them not to use drugs instead of testing them which only shows someone is using. There are better ways to help drug adicts and drug users than drug testing them.
ReplyDelete