Most people assume that adolescent start engaging in drug abuse at the age of 13. This assumption is always misguided by the fact that it is at this age that most drug related incidents within this age groups is registered. People tend to ignore the fact that children start engaging actively in the society from as early as ten years old (Johnston et al. 2014). Studies have found out that most peer pressure begins from as early as this age.
There are reports that by scientist that the most popular program (DARE) has not been effective despite the claims by most politicians and officers that it is. Part of the reason why the program has not been effective is because most of those involved with the program assumed that the age to focus on is 13. I don’t disagree with the fact that that the dominant grade where students or adolescents start using drugs actively is 8th grade. However, some incidences of age 10 and age 11 student caught with drugs is on the rise. The argument is that these drugs are readily available now than it was back in the 90s. Taking all factors into consideration, and using basic statistical skills and techniques such as mean and averages, it would be prudent or wise to set the age at 11 years (Harford et al. 2016).
The average age of adolescent getting into drugs, taking the recommended age of 13 and the other ages that have been found in recent analysis of 10 and 11, the number puts the best age to focus on at 11 not ignoring the fact that even those at the age of 10 should be engaged from time to time.
Studies on DARE have proved that ignoring the facts and relying on police report only may be misleading. Police report will record or cover those children known to be notorious and prone to getting into trouble (Nordrum, 2014). They will not have data on the younger population of adolescents who keep off trouble. It is important to go out into the community and engage with the children directly. The explanations above indicates clearly that it is important to implement the drug abuse resistance program earlier than the eighth grade.
References
Nordrum, A. (2014). The new DARE program—This one works. Scientific American.
Johnston, L. D., O'Malley, P. M., Miech, R. A., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2014). Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2013: Overview, Key Findings on Adolescent Drug Use. Institute for Social Research.
Harford, T. C., Chen, C. M., & Grant, B. F. (2016). Other-and self-directed forms of violence and their relationship with number of substance use disorder criteria among youth ages 12–17: results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs, 77(2), 277-286.
