Never underestimate the influence and abilities of teenagers.
Years ago, before “teenager” was a word, kids began being treated as adults sometime after they turned 12 or 13. In the Jewish faith, they made their bar-mitzvah (or in modern times, bat-mitzvah for girls) and it was not unusual for a 15 year old to be married and bearing children. Immigrants sometimes came over to the USA at the age of 16, knowing no English, and found jobs and took care of themselves. It was not unusual in days gone by for them to be enlisted in the military, either.
Today we keep them pretty well enclosed inside of school buildings until they are nearly eighteen and then wonder why they often don’t know how to take responsibility for themselves.
Over in Conrad, Montana, there was a story about two high school girls who decided to do something to fight against the illegal use of prescription drugs. Brittany and Erica organized a “take-back” day for Conrad High School on the National Take-Back-Prescription-Drugs day on April 30, 2011.
"We have taken notice that it is a growing problem amongst teens in Montana," said Brittany Greyn, a junior at Conrad High School, "55 percent of teens can receive the drugs for free, just from...parents or relatives. When we heard about it we thought maybe we could do something to help out with it.”
Last year over 1200 pounds of unused prescription drugs were collected and destroyed. That’s great, because this “invisible epidemic” has kids ages 12 and 13 participating in it, without them realizing the danger they place themselves in."We're the third-highest in the nation [for prescription drug abuse,] 10 percent of Montana teens admit using prescription drugs within the last 30 days," said Cynthia Grubb, of the Pondera County Health Department. "It's the drug of choice for 12 and 13 year-olds. Some of those things are just things that the health department shouldn't ignore."
The teens know it’s happening, and it’s great to see some of them stepping forward to do something about it. Along with the take-back comes an opportunity to inform the community of the problem and to warn the kids that this is not something that they should play around with.
