Pittsburgh Drug Abuse Programs Helping Adolescents

PITTSBURGH - March 29, 2018 - PRLog -- Schools in the Pittsburgh area are underlining the importance of drug abuse prevention programs directed at helping adolescents avoid the path of drugs.

In a January meeting that featured schools and several forms of local government, drug abuse programs were placed to help teach students about the dangers of drugs.

In 2016, drug overdoses were the cause of over 4600 people in Pennsylvania — a 37 percent jump from 2015, based on data from the University of Pittsburgh. People between the ages of 25 and 34 represented 30 percent of the deaths.

In Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh serves as the county seat, drug-related overdoses were the cause of 613, which was a big rise from the 424 deaths from 2015.

Diana Fishbein, who is the president of the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives, indicated that schools were the perfect place to intervene in a student's life to show them the path to take.

Schools in Pittsburgh have differed in their approach to drug abuse programs. There have been schools that have chosen to punish students who broke drug policy while others have decided that rehabilitation was the best course.

There have been school assemblies that featured guests ranging from police officers to addiction specialists. Naloxone was used in a large number of schools to combat the effects of an opioid overdose.

Dr. Thomas Brophy, who is an addiction medicine specialist in Pittsburgh, informed a class about how opioids arouse the middle of the brain. Eventually, the long-term thinking part of the brain begins to evaporate.

The presentation that Brophy illustrated was geared towards scaring youths into avoiding substance abuse. Janet Walsh, an assistant professor at Penn State, highlighted that the tactic does not work.

Hampton High School, located in Pittsburgh's district, has gladly instituted Brophy's strategies by fielding FBI agents and mourning relatives of people who died from substance abuse.

https://www.drugaddictionnow.com/2018/03/27/drug-abuse-pr...