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Speech on Drug Abuse in English in Simple and easy Words

speech on the topic drug abuse

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Speech on Drug Abuse: Drug abuse has become the most common thing these days and many youth are destroying their lives by getting addicted to drugs. It’s very important to sensitize our youth on the subject of drug abuse. They are ruining the lives of our youth and putting their future in a great darkness. The use of drugs is making their lives vulnerable and prone to destruction. Therefore, it becomes very important to raise awareness about it amongst our youth and prevent them from succumbing to it. The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is celebrated annually on June 26th it serves as a significant platform for raising awareness and addressing the critical issue of substance abuse. You can even prepare a speech on drug abuse and deliver it on various occasions and platforms.

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Speech on Drug Abuse

Long and Short Speeches on Drug Abuse in English

For your help, we have posted below some short speech on drug abuse as well as long speech on drug abuse, which will give you a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter and help you create an impressive brief to impress upon your audience and bring a change in society.

Speech on Drug Abuse – Speech 1

Dear Students – Warm Greetings to all of you! I welcome everyone to the school seminar hall.

Today, we are here to discuss about the fatal consumption of drugs and how it is destroying the lives of our youth. But before the discussion begins, I would like to deliver a short speech on drug abuse and would like to enlighten our students on this sensitive subject matter.

Drugs, as we all know, are an illegal matter which some people drink, smoke, inject or eat for the mental as well as physical effects that it leaves. There are several students who consume drugs out of fun or for various other reasons. People who deal in the selling of drugs create a network and mainly target students in order to make them addicted to drugs. Initially, the drugs are sold to the students for free and gradually when they get addicted to it, they start buying and consuming it. In fact, the students also eventually become a part of their network and start dealing in it.

It is observed that students start consuming drugs out of stress or unfair expectations of their teachers as well as parents. Lack of emotional support and disorder in their families make them vulnerable and increase their dependency on drugs. They use it in order to calm down their state of mental agitation. Other than this, it is poverty that compels some students to become a part of the selling and dealing network of drugs and derive their pocket money. Therefore, it becomes like a vicious circle of the drug addicted students from which they seem to find no escape unless the society comes for their rescue.

Sadly, the students fail to realize that the consumption of drugs has a severe impact on their physical and mental health, such as they start experiencing mental disorder, their intelligence level decreases, experience deadly diseases and untimely death. When one completely succumbs to the temptation of drugs, it gets very difficult for him/her to recover from its impact except in the centers for drug rehabilitation where they gain a new life, but which involves a high cost. In fact, there are many cases too where even rehabilitation centers fail because of the worst condition of the patients.

I, therefore, request all the students to refrain themselves completely from the consumption of drugs before it destroys their health, future and takes away their lives. Don’t even try to touch or come close to them. Drugs can even destroy a complete generation. So think wise and act smart. Shape your future which seems bright and full of achievements. The drugs that doctor prescribes to his/her patients must only be taken in order to combat a specific disease otherwise the government must take strict measures to ban its illegal trade in the market and save our youth from destruction.

I want to conclude by saying that drug abuse should be an absolute ‘No’ for all and I sincerely hope that our students will never ever try to consume drugs and will completely stay away from its use. Remember that our country needs you as you are its future and harbinger of progress.

Also Read: Essay on Drug Abuse

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Speech on Drug Abuse – Speech 2

Good Morning Friends – Welcome to the 77 th campaign for drug addiction ban.

It feels extremely great to see how the members of our organization are working hard in order to make every day count and reach out to the masses for spreading awareness about the drug addiction or drug abuse. Since day one and today it’s the 77 th campaign of our organization – we haven’t really ever thought that we will grow this big, i.e. currently we have more than 200 people working for us and have gained a mass appeal. The response so far has been really good and we have been able to transform the life of the people for good, who earlier have been living under the influence of drugs.

So today I would further like to appeal to the masses to refrain themselves from using drugs and live a healthy life. Drug addiction or drug abuse is described as an excessive dependency on a substance, which inevitably becomes the compulsive need of the person using it. This need becomes so compulsive that without that substance the person cannot live his life like a normal person does. And, when such a substance is stopped being available in the market then that person is believed to be suffering from substance withdrawal.

The addiction of drugs has become one of the serious social problems in many developing as well as developed countries and it undeniably proves to be the principal obstruction in the all-round development of the people, society, country and the world at a large. Our country is a progressing country and it is already afflicted with so many other grave problems, such as unemployment, poverty and illiteracy that the problem of Adolescence and Drug abuse makes the situation even worse here as it further makes our economy regressive by destroying the lives of its youth.

Even sadder is the fact that several drug addicts cannot afford to make a purchase of expensive drugs so much so that in the end they have to resort to such activities as theft in their homes. These people are not born thieves, but their addiction to drugs makes them heinous and propels them to commit crimes in order to feed their body with drugs.

People can become addicted to drugs because of various reasons, some of which are mentioned below:

1. In order to de-stress themselves

When a person is under the influence of drugs, he/she forgets everything and enters into a trance-like state. However, it is only later that people realize that the use of drugs is only aggravating the problem and not really helping them in getting rid of the stress.

2. Out of peer pressure

Many times, people start taking drugs because their friends are addicted to them. However, once they start taking it, it becomes really difficult for them to get rid of this habit.

3. Style Statement

Many teenagers these days think that the habit of drinking, smoking and even drug addiction is what helps them look cool and create a style statement in the front of others. However, it’s only when these people get trapped in its vicious circle that they realize the irreparable they have caused to their lives.

Teenagers and every person for that matter must understand that the habit of drug abuse not only greatly affects their body and mind, but also finishes their bright future. So we should strictly say ‘No’ to drugs and save our lives as well the lives of our loved ones by spreading awareness in our surroundings.

Also Read: Speech on Adult Education

Speech on Drug Abuse – Speech 3

Respected Principal, Vice Principal, Teachers and My Dear Fellow Students – Warm Welcome to all of you! Today, standing in the prayer hall I would like to take this opportunity to deliver a brief speech on Drug Abuse.

I request our principal and teachers to kindly allow me to speak on this subject as it is a high time to enlighten our youth about the dangerous habit of drug abuse. In the present times, there are many factors that push a man to resort to drug addiction and make his/her life miserable. The most glaring factors are rapid industrialization and urbanization, which have given birth to a new kind of behavior among the youth of today, i.e. individualism and permissiveness. People these days prefer nuclear families and in many cases both parents are working, as a consequence of which they become less forbearing in comparison to their previous generations. People are living their lives in isolation and avoid getting social because the stress in the modern times has become way too much to make them withdrawn figures in their personal lives.

In the end, such people become involved in the habit of drinking, smoking, drug addiction, etc. Besides, when a child doesn’t feel satisfied at home or when he/she is deprived of love, affection and care of his/her parents, a feeling of discontentment comes in and such children become prone to drug addiction and ruin their lives completely. What is more painful to see that if the drug addicted people are not allowed the use of drugs, then he/she suffers from bouts of depression, painful and uncontrollable convulsions as well as vomiting!

It is an obvious fact that the addiction of drugs is ruining the path of progress of many individuals and our nation as a whole so much so that proactive measures need to be taken in order to keep a check on this destructive habit of our youth. The most significant step in this direction would be about spreading awareness amongst the people on a national scale.

Our Indian government has in fact formulated various campaigns and even has been able to gain success in this direction. The individuals whose family and friends suffer from the addiction of drugs are requested to approach the rehabilitation institutions and camps in order to provide treatment to the addicts.

Drug abuse should not be tolerated and be completely banned as a taboo. However, it is not advised to torture the addict or treat him/her inhumanely for this habit because if you try and convince the person about its treatment then he/she may willingly choose to opt for it and get rid of this addiction by admitting himself/herself at the rehabilitation centers.

A person who has become the victim of drug abuse is forced by his/her bodily conditions to carry on with the addiction, but sooner they realize the bad impact of this habit. All that these people need is a helping hand and therefore we should provide encouragement as well as support to these people in making these addicts come back to their normal lives and lead a healthy life.

Speech on Drug Abuse – Speech 4

Hon’ble Principal, Vice Principal, Fellow Colleagues and My Dear Students – Warm Greetings to one and all!

Firstly, I would like to extend a note of thank you to our respected Principal and Vice Principal for gracing this speech ceremony with their presence and giving their approval too. And, to all the fellow teachers – as without your support this event wouldn’t have been possible. I would also like to congratulate our dear students for making the desired arrangement on a short notice.

The topic for today’s speech is Drug Abuse! I have chosen to speak on this topic because these days I observe many campaigns being run on Drug Abuse in order to teach the people about its ill effects. As a teacher, it also becomes my responsibility to help them spread the message wherever we can and most importantly beginning from our very own school.

Drug abuse is considered one of the banes of our so called civilized society. It has affected all the sections and regions of our society. People with the illicit use of drug are found everywhere, i.e. in urban and rural regions, among men and women, among rich and poor. But it is exceedingly practiced by our young girls and boys living in hostels in nearly all technical and educational institutions.

The grave situation of drug abuse is prevalent across the world and unfortunately our very country India is more strongly affected by it. Our country is a transit country because it is placed between the Golden Triangle consisting of Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, including Golden Crescent consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran – the places where most of the drugs, chiefly heroin and opium are produced. Pakistan is undeniably the nucleus of the world when it comes to any unlawful activity and as far as the drug production is concerned – it is the hub. In fact, a big proportion of drugs go by India in order that it can be exported to other countries.

This happens through the network of drug mafia who further has connections with formidable smugglers as well as terrorists. In the process, unfortunately several young men as well as women become victims to this diabolic activity. Pakistan with the help of ISI is involving itself in a proxy war in the region of Kashmir against India through money earned with the help of drug mafia. Thus, terrorism and drugs share very strong connections.

This addiction to drug is so deadly that people fall prey to its use and become almost a slave. If a person doesn’t get its regular dose, then that person starts feeling a lack of it and becomes depressed with severe pain which even leads to a lack of sensation in arms and legs. Drugs are of various kinds, such as heroin, opium, charas, ganja, etc.

There are some injections too which lead to a state of severe drowsiness. In case, a drug-addict is not able to receive the required dose of drug when needed, then he/she would be ready to do anything for it even by resorting to unfair means, such as theft or may be hurting someone physically, etc.

I therefore request everyone to strictly say ‘No’ to drugs and get such people admitted to rehabilitation centers where their conditions can be improved before it gets horrible and proves fatal for that person.

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Speech on Drug Abuse Faq’s

What is the topic of drug abuse day.

Drug Abuse Day focuses on raising awareness about the harmful effects of drug misuse and addiction.

What is drug abuse in the English language?

Drug abuse in English refers to the harmful and improper use of drugs, often leading to health and social problems.

How can we say no to drugs?

We can say no to drugs by staying informed, making healthy choices, and seeking support from friends and family when faced with drug temptations.

How to write an essay about drugs?

To write an essay about drugs, start with an introduction, discuss the impacts, causes, and solutions, and conclude with your viewpoint on the topic.

What is drugs summary?

A drugs summary is a brief overview of key information about drugs, including their effects, risks, and uses.

What is drug abuse in a short introduction?

Drug abuse is when people misuse drugs, causing harm to themselves and society. It's a serious problem that needs attention.

What are a few lines on addiction?

Addiction is a strong, harmful craving for something, like drugs, that can be very difficult to control. It can lead to serious problems.

We can say no to drugs by being strong, confident, and making choices that keep us safe and healthy.

Addiction is a powerful need for something that can be harmful, like drugs or alcohol. It can affect a person's life in many negative ways.

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Address to the Nation on the Campaign Against Drug Abuse

September 14, 1986

The President. Good evening. Usually, I talk with you from my office in the West Wing of the White House. But tonight there's something special to talk about, and I've asked someone very special to join me. Nancy and I are here in the West Hall of the White House, and around us are the rooms in which we live. It's the home you've provided for us, of which we merely have temporary custody.

Nancy 's joining me because the message this evening is not my message but ours. And we speak to you not simply as fellow citizens but as fellow parents and grandparents and as concerned neighbors. It's back-to-school time for America 's children. And while drug and alcohol abuse cuts across all generations, it's especially damaging to the young people on whom our future depends. So tonight, from our family to yours, from our home to yours, thank you for joining us.

America has accomplished so much in these last few years, whether it's been rebuilding our economy or serving the cause of freedom in the world. What we've been able to achieve has been done with your help -- with us working together as a nation united. Now, we need your support again. Drugs are menacing our society. They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions. They're killing our children.

From the beginning of our administration, we've taken strong steps to do something about this horror. Tonight I can report to you that we've made much progress. Thirty-seven Federal agencies are working together in a vigorous national effort, and by next year our spending for drug law enforcement will have more than tripled from its 1981 levels. We have increased seizures of illegal drugs. Shortages of marijuana are now being reported. Last year alone over 10,000 drug criminals were convicted and nearly $250 million of their assets were seized by the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And in the most important area, individual use, we see progress. In 4 years the number of high school seniors using marijuana on a daily basis has dropped from 1 in 14 to 1 in 20. The U.S. military has cut the use of illegal drugs among its personnel by 67 percent since 1980. These are a measure of our commitment and emerging signs that we can defeat this enemy. But we still have much to do.

Despite our best efforts, illegal cocaine is coming into our country at alarming levels, and 4 to 5 million people regularly use it. Five hundred thousand Americans are hooked on heroin. One in twelve persons smokes marijuana regularly. Regular drug use is even higher among the age group 18 to 25 -- most likely just entering the workforce. Today there's a new epidemic: smokable cocaine, otherwise known as crack. It is an explosively destructive and often lethal substance which is crushing its users. It is an uncontrolled fire.

And drug abuse is not a so-called victimless crime. Everyone's safety is at stake when drugs and excessive alcohol are used by people on the highways or by those transporting our citizens or operating industrial equipment. Drug abuse costs you and your fellow Americans at least $60 billion a year.

From the early days of our administration, Nancy has been intensely involved in the effort to fight drug abuse. She has since traveled over 100,000 miles to 55 cities in 28 States and 6 foreign countries to fight school-age drug and alcohol abuse. She's given dozens of speeches and scores of interviews and has participated in 24 special radio and TV tapings to create greater awareness of this crisis. Her personal observations and efforts have given her such dramatic insights that I wanted her to share them with you this evening.

Mrs. Reagan . Thank you. As a mother, I've always thought of September as a special month, a time when we bundled our children off to school, to the warmth of an environment in which they could fulfill the promise and hope in those restless minds. But so much has happened over these last years, so much to shake the foundations of all that we know and all that we believe in. Today there's a drug and alcohol abuse epidemic in this country, and no one is safe from it -- not you, not me, and certainly not our children, because this epidemic has their names written on it. Many of you may be thinking: ``Well, drugs don't concern me.'' But it does concern you. It concerns us all because of the way it tears at our lives and because it's aimed at destroying the brightness and life of the sons and daughters of the United States .

For 5 years I've been traveling across the country -- learning and listening. And one of the most hopeful signs I've seen is the building of an essential, new awareness of how terrible and threatening drug abuse is to our society. This was one of the main purposes when I started, so of course it makes me happy that that's been accomplished. But each time I meet with someone new or receive another letter from a troubled person on drugs, I yearn to find a way to help share the message that cries out from them. As a parent, I'm especially concerned about what drugs are doing to young mothers and their newborn children. Listen to this news account from a hospital in Florida of a child born to a mother with a cocaine habit: " Nearby , a baby named Paul lies motionless in an incubator, feeding tubes riddling his tiny body. He needs a respirator to breathe and a daily spinal tap to relieve fluid buildup on his brain. Only 1 month old, he's already suffered 2 strokes.''

Now you can see why drug abuse concerns every one of us -- all the American family. Drugs steal away so much. They take and take, until finally every time a drug goes into a child, something else is forced out -- like love and hope and trust and confidence. Drugs take away the dream from every child's heart and replace it with a nightmare, and it's time we in America stand up and replace those dreams. Each of us has to put our principles and consciences on the line, whether in social settings or in the workplace, to set forth solid standards and stick to them. There's no moral middle ground. Indifference is not an option. We want you to help us create an outspoken intolerance for drug use. For the sake of our children, I implore each of you to be unyielding and inflexible in your opposition to drugs.

Our young people are helping us lead the way. Not long ago, in Oakland, California, I was asked by a group of children what to do if they were offered drugs, and I answered, "Just say no.'' Soon after that, those children in Oakland formed a Just Say No club, and now there are over 10,000 such clubs all over the country. Well, their participation and their courage in saying no needs our encouragement. We can help by using every opportunity to force the issue of not using drugs to the point of making others uncomfortable, even if it means making ourselves unpopular.

Our job is never easy because drug criminals are ingenious. They work everyday to plot a new and better way to steal our children's lives, just as they've done by developing this new drug, crack. For every door that we close, they open a new door to death. They prosper on our unwillingness to act. So, we must be smarter and stronger and tougher than they are. It's up to us to change attitudes and just simply dry up their markets.

And finally, to young people watching or listening, I have a very personal message for you: There's a big, wonderful world out there for you. It belongs to you. It's exciting and stimulating and rewarding. Don't cheat yourselves out of this promise. Our country needs you, but it needs you to be clear-eyed and clear-minded. I recently read one teenager's story. She's now determined to stay clean but was once strung out on several drugs. What she remembered most clearly about her recovery was that during the time she was on drugs everything appeared to her in shades of black and gray and after her treatment she was able to see colors again.

So, to my young friends out there: Life can be great, but not when you can't see it . So, open your eyes to life: to see it in the vivid colors that God gave us as a precious gift to His children, to enjoy life to the fullest, and to make it count. Say yes to your life. And when it comes to drugs and alcohol just say no.

The President. I think you can see why Nancy has been such a positive influence on all that we're trying to do. The job ahead of us is very clear. Nancy 's personal crusade, like that of so many other wonderful individuals, should become our national crusade. It must include a combination of government and private efforts which complement one another. Last month I announced six initiatives which we believe will do just that.

First, we seek a drug-free workplace at all levels of government and in the private sector. Second, we'll work toward drug-free schools. Third, we want to ensure that the public is protected and that treatment is available to substance abusers and the chemically dependent. Our fourth goal is to expand international cooperation while treating drug trafficking as a threat to our national security. In October I will be meeting with key U.S. Ambassadors to discuss what can be done to support our friends abroad. Fifth, we must move to strengthen law enforcement activities such as those initiated by Vice President Bush and Attorney General Meese . And finally, we seek to expand public awareness and prevention.

In order to further implement these six goals, I will announce tomorrow a series of new proposals for a drug-free America . Taken as a whole, these proposals will toughen our laws against drug criminals, encourage more research and treatment, and ensure that illegal drugs will not be tolerated in our schools or in our workplaces. Together with our ongoing efforts, these proposals will bring the Federal commitment to fighting drugs to $3 billion. As much financing as we commit, however, we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that massive new amounts of money alone will provide the solution. Let us not forget that in America people solve problems and no national crusade has ever succeeded without human investment. Winning the crusade against drugs will not be achieved by just throwing money at the problem.

Your government will continue to act aggressively, but nothing would be more effective than for Americans simply to quit using illegal drugs. We seek to create a massive change in national attitudes which ultimately will separate the drugs from the customer, to take the user away from the supply. I believe, quite simply, that we can help them quit, and that's where you come in.

My generation will remember how America swung into action when we were attacked in World War II. The war was not just fought by the fellows flying the planes or driving the tanks. It was fought at home by a mobilized nation -- men and women alike -- building planes and ships, clothing sailors and soldiers, feeding marines and airmen; and it was fought by children planting victory gardens and collecting cans. Well, now we're in another war for our freedom, and it's time for all of us to pull together again. So, for example, if your friend or neighbor or a family member has a drug or alcohol problem, don't turn the other way. Go to his help or to hers. Get others involved with you -- clubs, service groups, and community organizations -- and provide support and strength. And, of course, many of you've been cured through treatment and self-help. Well, you're the combat veterans, and you have a critical role to play. You can help others by telling your story and providing a willing hand to those in need. Being friends to others is the best way of being friends to ourselves. It's time, as Nancy said, for America to ``just say no'' to drugs.

Those of you in union halls and workplaces everywhere: Please make this challenge a part of your job every day. Help us preserve the health and dignity of all workers. To businesses large and small: We need the creativity of your enterprise applied directly to this national problem. Help us. And those of you who are educators: Your wisdom and leadership are indispensable to this cause. From the pulpits of this spirit-filled land: We would welcome your reassuring message of redemption and forgiveness and of helping one another. On the athletic fields: You men and women are among the most beloved citizens of our country. A child's eyes fill with your heroic achievements. Few of us can give youngsters something as special and strong to look up to as you. Please don't let them down.

And this camera in front of us: It's a reminder that in Nancy's and my former profession and in the newsrooms and production rooms of our media centers -- you have a special opportunity with your enormous influence to send alarm signals across the Nation. To our friends in foreign countries: We know many of you are involved in this battle with us. We need your success as well as ours. When we all come together, united, striving for this cause, then those who are killing America and terrorizing it with slow but sure chemical destruction will see that they are up against the mightiest force for good that we know. Then they will have no dark alleyways to hide in.

In this crusade, let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is. The destructiveness and human wreckage mock our heritage. Think for a moment how special it is to be an American. Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people on the world who yearn to breathe free?

The revolution out of which our liberty was conceived signaled an historical call to an entire world seeking hope. Each new arrival of immigrants rode the crest of that hope. They came, millions seeking a safe harbor from the oppression of cruel regimes. They came, to escape starvation and disease. They came, those surviving the Holocaust and the Soviet gulags. They came, the boat people, chancing death for even a glimmer of hope that they could have a new life. They all came to taste the air redolent and rich with the freedom that is ours. What an insult it will be to what we are and whence we came if we do not rise up together in defiance against this cancer of drugs.

And there's one more thing. The freedom that so many seek in our land has not been preserved without a price. Nancy and I shared that remembrance 2 years ago at the Normandy American Cemetery in France . In the still of that June afternoon, we walked together among the soldiers of freedom, past the hundreds of white markers which are monuments to courage and memorials to sacrifice. Too many of these and other such graves are the final resting places of teenagers who became men in the roar of battle.

Look what they gave to us who live. Never would they see another sunlit day glistening off a lake or river back home or miles of corn pushing up against the open sky of our plains. The pristine air of our mountains and the driving energy of our cities are theirs no more. Nor would they ever again be a son to their parents or a father to their own children. They did this for you, for me, for a new generation to carry our democratic experiment proudly forward. Well, that's something I think we're obliged to honor, because what they did for us means that we owe as a simple act of civic stewardship to use our freedom wisely for the common good.

As we mobilize for this national crusade, I'm mindful that drugs are a constant temptation for millions. Please remember this when your courage is tested: You are Americans. You're the product of the freest society mankind has ever known. No one, ever, has the right to destroy your dreams and shatter your life.

Right down the end of this hall is the Lincoln Bedroom. But in the Civil War that room was the one President Lincoln used as his office. Memory fills that room, and more than anything that memory drives us to see vividly what President Lincoln sought to save. Above all, it is that America must stand for something and that our heritage lets us stand with a strength of character made more steely by each layer of challenge pressed upon the Nation. We Americans have never been morally neutral against any form of tyranny. Tonight we're asking no more than that we honor what we have been and what we are by standing together.

Mrs. Reagan. Now we go on to the next stop: making a final commitment not to tolerate drugs by anyone, anytime, anyplace. So, won't you join us in this great, new national crusade?

The President. God bless you, and good night.

Note: The President spoke at 8 p.m. from the Residence at the White House. The address was broadcast live on nationwide radio and television.

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18 Best TED Talks for Addiction & Recovery

18 of the best TED Talks for addiction and recovery by healthcare professionals, athletes, a Fortune 500 entrepreneur, a former Miss USA, and more.

The best TED Talks for addiction and recovery , along with other powerful YouTube videos to play for clients in a treatment setting – or for yourself or for anyone who desires to learn more about substance use.

The following best TED Talks for addiction are entertaining, insightful, and though-provoking.

1. The 12 Steps According to Russell Brand (2018)

A 10-minute clip of Russell Brand’s interpretation of the 12 Steps . Humorous and honest.

2. Addiction: A Story of Stigma, A Story of Hope | Scott McFadden (2020)

This 18-minute talk delivered by Scott McFadden is one of the best TED Talks for addiction as it addresses stigma and sends a message of hope.

Excerpt: Scott McFadden is a Licensed Addictions Counselor, who also identifies as a person in long term recovery from heroin and other drugs. He shares a harrowing story of incarceration and a long journey to recovery while explaining the dynamics of addiction and the labels, shame, and stigma which have become the greatest obstacles to turning around the opioid epidemic.

He shows us the need to talk to one another to overcome the secret places where shame resides. This is a story of vulnerability and hope!

5. Addiction Neuroscience 101 (2018)

Approximately 25 minutes, an overview of the neurobiology of addiction.

4. Chris Herren Speaking on His Addiction Recovery Story | PeaceLove (2015)

A 17-minute motivational speech delivered by Chris Herren.

Excerpt: Hear former professional basketball player and motivational speaker Chris Herren speaking about his recovery from drug addiction. Since August of 2008, Herren has been drug-free and alcohol-free, and has refocused his life to put his sobriety and family above all other things.

5. Disconnected Brains: How Isolation Fuels Opioid Addiction | Rachel Wurzman (2018)

This fascinating 19-minute video clip from Rachel Wurzman is one of the best TED Talks for addiction as a biopsychosocial disorder.

Excerpt: Addiction to opioids is now officially a national emergency. But why are addiction rates spiking and what can we do about it? Neuroscientist Rachel Wurzman shares new research about how the brain reacts to opioids, replacing the sense of community and belonging human beings are losing. We are beginning to understand that solving the opioid epidemic will require us to focus on social factors surrounding those addicted.

6. Do You Have More Heart Than Scars? | Zackary Paben (2017)

A 17-minute inspirational talk by Zackary Paben.

Excerpt: How can resilience and interdependence impact the arch of our personal narrative to transcend from victim to hero? Since 1991, Zack has been empowering adolescents and adults as a mental health/recovery professional in a variety of modalities, including wilderness and residential.

As he continues to face his own visible and invisible scars, he innately has to acknowledge the wounds of others and encourage them in their own healing process.

7. Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong | Johann Hari (2015)

A 15-minute video from Johann Hari. This piece is somewhat controversial because it suggests that addiction is a social/environmental issue while failing to address the impact of trauma, genetics, brain chemistry, etc. This clip is an excellent tool for generating discussions and is one of the best TED Talks for addiction.

Excerpt: What really causes addiction — to everything from cocaine to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthand, as he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions. He started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do — and if there might be a better way.

As he shares in this deeply personal talk, his questions took him around the world, and unearthed some surprising and hopeful ways of thinking about an age-old problem.

8. Great Leaders Do What Drug Addicts Do | Michael Brody-Waite (2018)

An 19-minute talk from Michael Brody-Waite, entrepreneur and addict in recovery.

Excerpt: This is my story from drug addiction and homelessness to founding and leading a company on the Inc 500 list. There are 3 principles that saved me from death and set me apart as a leader. They are small enough to fit in your pocket, yet big enough to change your life. The best part is that anyone can take these principles and immediately implement them after watching this talk.

9. The Harm Reduction Model of Drug Addiction Treatment | Mark Tyndall (2017)

This 17-minute video from Mark Tyndall about harm reduction and recovery is one of the best TED Talks for addiction treatment.

Excerpt: Why do we still think that drug use is a law-enforcement issue? Making drugs illegal does nothing to stop people from using them, says public health expert Mark Tyndall. So, what might work?

Tyndall shares community-based research that shows how harm-reduction strategies, like safe-injection sites, are working to address the drug overdose crisis.

10. How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime | Nadine Burke Harris (2015)

16-minute talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris on the impact of trauma.

Excerpt: Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain.

This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer.

11. Let’s Quit Abusing Drug Users (2015)

19-minute video clip about addiction and recovery reform from Dr. Carl Hart. He discusses drug use in the context of poverty, social injustice, and ignorance. An excellent video for generating discussion and one of the best TED Talks for addiction and policy reform.

Excerpt: Carl Hart, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Columbia University, offers a provocative, evidence-based view of addiction and discusses how it should impact drug policy.

12. The Merits of Harm Reduction | Melissa Byers (2019)

14-minute video clip from Melissa Byers about addiction, harm reduction, and recovery.

Excerpt: Melissa shares her family’s personal story of addiction and how harm reduction plays a much more significant role to recovery than people realize.

13. Nuggets (2015)

A 5-minute cartoon clip of a kiwi bird who tastes a golden “nugget.” This simple animation doesn’t require words to send a powerful message about addiction. Hauntingly accurate.

14. The Power of Addiction and The Addiction of Power | Gabor Maté (2012)

This 19-minute speech delivered by Gabor Maté is one of the best TED Talks for addiction.

Excerpt: Canadian physician Gabor Maté is a specialist in terminal illnesses, chemical dependents, and HIV positive patients. Dr. Maté is a renowned author of books and columnist known for his knowledge about attention deficit disorder, stress, chronic illness and parental relations.

15. Recover Out Loud | Tara Conner (2017)

One of the best TED Talks for addiction, this 10-minute video clip from former Miss USA, Tara Conner, is all about her personal experience with substance use.

Excerpt: Tara Conner, Miss USA 2006, shares her life-long struggle with addiction and what she has learned from 10 years of sobriety. Addicts are not bad people that need to get good, but sick people that need to get well.

In this challenging and at times humorous talk, she calls for a different response to the addiction crisis.

16. Revitalize | Living With Addiction | Amber Valletta (2015)

16-minute inspirational talk delivered by Amber Valletta.

Excerpt: Supermodel, actress, and fashion icon Amber Valletta opens up for the first time about her daily struggle of living with addiction.

17. Rewriting the Story of My Addiction | Jo Harvey Weatherford (2015)

10-minute video clip from Jo Harvey Weatherford about her personal recovery journey.

Excerpt: Jo Harvey Weatherford develops and implements drug and alcohol prevention programs on the campus of The University of Nevada. In this candid talk she discusses the importance of the stories we tell ourselves about our behavior, and how she rewrote her own story of addiction to alcohol.

18. The Stigma of Addiction | Tony Hoffman (2018)

This 15-minute video from Tony Hoffman is one of the best TED Talks for addiction. He shares about his substance use and stigma.

Excerpt: There is a stigma which many assign to drug addicts, even long after they have overcome their addiction. Tony discusses how his first time smoking marijuana led to his eventual drug addiction, homelessness, prison, and finally redemption.

For Families – The Island of Insanity: Navigating Through Loved Ones’ Addictions | Karen Perlmutter (2022)

A powerful 13-minute video for anyone who is traumatized by the addiction of a loved one.

Excerpt: With a master’s degree in clinical social work, Karen has seen first-hand that addiction is a tragedy with a profound effect on the family. She has ideas on how we can support families in combatting the devastating effects of this disease After earning her undergraduate degree through the University of South Carolina in 2003, Karen began working with teens and families through a therapeutic foster care agency. She pursued higher education in the field, earning her Master’s in Clinical Social Work at the University of North Carolina (Wilmington) in 2007, and continuing on to becoming a Licensed Independent Social Worker.

Karen has over a decade of experience working as a therapist with individuals, couples, and families. She specializes in the treatment of substance abuse and mental illness, and has developed a particular interest in supporting the holistic needs of families who are affected by these struggles.

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Speech on Drugs

Drugs are substances that can change how your body and mind work. They can be helpful or harmful, depending on their use.

You might know some drugs from your doctor’s prescriptions. Others, like alcohol or tobacco, are used for pleasure but can harm your health.

1-minute Speech on Drugs

Ladies and gentlemen, today we talk about a topic that affects many lives – drugs. Drugs can be like fire. Used correctly, they can help us, but if misused, they can harm us.

First, let’s talk about the good side. Some drugs, like medicines, are our friends. When we are sick, these drugs help us feel better. They fight off germs, reduce pain, and help our bodies heal. Doctors give us these drugs to make us healthy again.

But not all drugs are good. There are drugs that can hurt us. These are often called illegal drugs. They can make a person feel different, even happy for a short time, but they can also make them sick. These drugs can harm the brain and the body. They can make a person do things they wouldn’t usually do, like hurt others or themselves.

People who use these harmful drugs can become addicted. Addiction is like a trap. Once you’re caught, it’s hard to escape. It can make a person’s life very hard. They may lose their friends, family, and even their dreams.

So, what can we do? We need to say no to harmful drugs. We need to learn about the dangers and teach others too. We need to help those who are trapped in the trap of addiction.

Remember, our bodies are like our homes. We need to take care of them. We need to keep them clean and safe. Say yes to health, yes to life, and no to harmful drugs. Thank you.

Also check:

  • Essay on Drugs

2-minute Speech on Drugs

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, I am here to talk to you about a topic that affects us all – drugs. Drugs are substances that can change how your body and mind work. They can give you a good feeling for a short time, but in the long run, they can harm you.

First, let’s talk about the types of drugs. Some drugs are legal, like medicine prescribed by a doctor or sold in a store. These drugs can help us when we’re sick. But if we take too much, or take them when we’re not sick, they can harm us. Other drugs are illegal. They are not allowed by law because they can hurt us badly.

Second, let’s talk about why people use drugs. Some people use drugs because they’re curious or because their friends are doing it. Some use drugs to escape from problems or to feel good. But drugs are not a real solution. They don’t solve problems or make you happy for long. Instead, they create more problems.

Third, let’s talk about the dangers of drugs. Drugs can harm your body and mind. They can make you sick, damage your brain, and cause you to make bad decisions. Drugs can also lead to addiction. Addiction is when you can’t stop using a drug, even when it’s hurting you. It’s like being trapped in a cage that’s hard to escape from.

Fourth, let’s talk about what we can do to prevent drug use. The best way is to educate ourselves and others about the dangers of drugs. We should also support people who are struggling with drug addiction. They need our help to break free from their cage of addiction. Remember, saying no to drugs is a powerful choice that can save your life and the lives of others.

In conclusion, drugs are a serious issue that we all need to understand. They can harm us, trap us in addiction, and create problems in our lives. But we have the power to say no to drugs and to help others do the same.

Remember, your life is precious. Don’t let drugs steal it away from you. Say no to drugs, and yes to a healthy, happy life. Thank you.

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks at the 30th DARE Training Conference

Dallas , TX United States

Remarks as prepared for delivery

Thank you for that introduction, and more importantly, thank you for the important work that you do to help prevent the spread of drug addiction in this country. Your DARE team is ready to meet this next challenge. Just like you did in the 1980s and 90s. I saw it then.

As the data makes clear, the danger is greater than ever.

Drug abuse has become an epidemic in this country today, taking an unprecedented number of American lives. For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death.

In 2015, more than 52,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses – 1,000 every week. More died of drug overdoses in 2015 than died from car crashes or died at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

And the numbers we have for 2016 show another increase—a big increase. Based on preliminary data, nearly 60,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses last year. That will be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in the death toll in American history. And every day, more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time.

This epidemic is only growing. It’s only getting worse.

It’s being driven primarily by opioids—prescription drugs, heroin, and synthetic drugs like fentanyl. Last year, there were 1.3 million hospital visits in the United States because of these drugs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin use has doubled in the last decade among young people 18 to 25.

Meanwhile, drug dealers are lacing heroin and cocaine with fentanyl—a drug 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin. As a result, the drugs on the street are now more powerful, more addictive, and more dangerous than ever. And they’re not just dangerous for users: even being accidently exposed to just a few grains of fentanyl can kill a police officer or paramedic.

Now, this is not this country’s first drug abuse crisis. In the 1980s, when I was a federal prosecutor, we confronted skyrocketing drug abuse rates across the country and we were successful. In 1980, half of our high school seniors admitted they had used an illegal drug sometime in that year. But through enforcing our laws and by developing effective prevention strategies, we steadily brought those rates down.

We were in the beginning of this fight, in 1983, when DARE was founded in Los Angeles. I believe that DARE was instrumental to our success by educating children on the dangers of drug use. I firmly believe that you have saved lives. And I want to say thank you for that. Whenever I ask adults around age 30 about prevention, they always mention the DARE program. Your efforts work. Lives and futures are saved.

Now, some people today say that the solution to the problem of drug abuse is to be more accepting of the problem of drug abuse. They say marijuana use can prevent addiction. They say the answer is only treatment. They say don’t talk about enforcement. To me, that just doesn’t make any sense. In fact, I would argue that one reason that we are in such a crisis right now is that we have subscribed to this mistaken idea that drug abuse is no big deal.

Ignoring the problem—or the seriousness of the problem—won’t make it go away. Prevention—through educating people about the danger of drugs—is ultimately how we’re going to end the drug epidemic for the long term.

Treatment is important, but treatment often comes too late. By then, people have already suffered from the effects of drugs. Then their struggle to overcome addiction can be a long process – and it can fail. I have seen families spend all their savings and retirement money on treatment programs for their children – just to see these programs fail.

Now, law enforcement is prevention. And at the Department of Justice, we are working keep drugs out of our country to reduce availability, to drive up its price, and to reduce its purity and addictiveness.

We know drug trafficking is an inherently violent business. If you want to collect a drug debt, you can’t, and don’t, file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun. There is no doubt that violence tends to rise with increased drug dealing.

Under the previous administration, the Department of Justice told federal prosecutors not to include in charging documents the full amount of drugs being dealt when the actual amount would trigger a mandatory minimum sentence. Prosecutors were required to leave out true facts in order to achieve sentences lighter than required by law. This was billed as an effort to curb “mass incarceration” of “low-level offenders”, but in reality it covered offenders apprehended with large quantities of dangerous drugs.

What was the result? It was exactly what you would think: sentences went down and crime went up. Sentences for federal drug crimes dropped by 18 percent from 2009 to 2016. Violent crime—which had been decreasing for two decades—suddenly went up again. Two years after this policy change, the United States suffered the largest single-year increase in the overall violent crime rate since 1991.

In May, after study and discussion with criminal justice experts, I issued a memorandum to all federal prosecutors regarding charging and sentencing policy that said we were going to trust our prosecutors again and allow them to honestly charge offenses as Congress intended. This simple two-page guidance instructs prosecutors to apply the laws on the books to the facts of the case, and allows them to exercise discretion where a strict application of the law would result in an injustice. Instead of barring prosecutors from faithfully enforcing the law, this policy empowers trusted professionals to apply the law fairly and exercise discretion when appropriate. That is the way good law enforcement has always worked.

But you know it’s not our privileged communities that suffer the most from crime and violence. Minority communities are disproportionately impacted by violent drug trafficking and addiction. Poor neighborhoods are too often ignored in these conversations.

Regardless of their level of wealth or their race, every American has the right to live in a safe neighborhood. Those of us who are responsible for promoting public safety cannot sit back while any American community is ravaged by crime and violence at the hands of drug traffickers. We can never yield sovereignty over a single neighborhood, city block, or street corner to drug traffickers.

Also, under President Trump’s strong leadership, this country is finally getting serious about securing our Southern border. Most of the heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl in this country got here across border brought here by powerful Mexican drug cartels.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Mexican heroin production alone increased six-fold in just four years: from eight metric tons in 2005 to 50 metric tons in 2009. That number is now 70 metric tons. And it has just kept rising. According to the Office for National Drug Control Policy, Mexican opium poppy, the heroin source, planting increased by 64 percent just from 2014 to 2015.

As a result, over the last decade, we have seen sharp increases in the purity and accessibility of heroin. We have also seen steep decreases in drug prices on the street.

But this country has paid an increasingly high price for drug abuse. We have paid for it in broken relationships and broken lives and death rates the likes of which we have never seen before.

This is why it is important to protect our country from drugs and crime by securing the border and having a lawful system of immigration in this country. It’s why I’ve urged cities and other jurisdictions to cooperate with federal authorities and turn over criminal aliens for deportation—which is what 80 percent of the American people want them to do.

Violent, transnational gangs like MS-13 take advantage of cities and states that shelter them in order to smuggle in drugs, recruit school children to join, and pillage and plunder our communities.

But the Department of Justice is working with our powerful state and local law enforcement partners to fight back against the cartels, drug traffickers, and gangs like MS-13 that sell drugs. I firmly believe that our law enforcement efforts are an essential part of the nation’s work to prevent drug abuse and save lives.

The Department is also holding drug manufacturers accountable for their actions. I am announcing today that the Department has reached a $35 million settlement with Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals for failing to notify the DEA of suspicious drug orders. These failures resulted in millions of oxycodone pills being sold on the streets.

As a result of the hard work of DOJ attorneys and law enforcement, the company has agreed to do everything they can to help us identify suspicious orders in the future. And we have sent a clear message to the drug companies: this Department of Justice will hold them accountable for their legal obligations. I believe that will prevent drug abuse, prevent new addictions from starting, and save lives.

At the Department of Justice, we will increase our work with our local and state allies to stop drug traffickers. We will track them down and allow them no quarter.

But we need you. We need DARE to prevent them from finding new victims. We need your strong leadership to deny them new customers, to help more and more Americans, especially young people with bright futures, to reject drug use as an option.

Experience has shown, sadly, that it is not enough that dangerous drugs are illegal. We also have to make them unacceptable. We have to create a cultural climate that is hostile to drug abuse. In recent years, government officials were sending mixed messages about drugs. We need to send a clear message. We must have Drug Abuse Resistance Education. DARE is the best remembered anti-drug program. I am proud of your work. It has played a key role in saving thousands of lives and futures.

So please—continue to let your voices be heard. I promise you that I will let my voice be heard. Our young people must understand that drugs are dangerous; that drugs will destroy their lives, or worse yet, end them. Let’s get the truth out there and prevent new addictions and new tragedies—and make all of our communities safer. Thank you.

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  • Remarks by Dr. Hahn to the 2020 Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit - 04/15/2020

Speech | Virtual

Event Title Remarks by Dr. Hahn to the 2020 Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit April 15, 2020

(Remarks as prepared for delivery)

I want to extend my warmest greetings to all of you who are participating in this year’s virtual Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit.

I was looking forward to being with you in Nashville this year, but, unfortunately, as you are well aware, the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic has altered those plans – and impacted everyone’s lives in unprecedented ways. 

The FDA is helping lead the government response to the pandemic, working closely with the health care professionals and institutions on the front lines to support an all hands approach across government and the private sector.

We’re focused on several different areas, including developing and supporting medical countermeasures to diagnose, treat and prevent the disease. 

We’re engaged with partners across the U.S. government, academia, and regulated industry to explore, expedite, and facilitate the development and ensure the availability of promising and critical medical products to prevent and treat this novel virus. 

We want to make sure in this sea of new treatments, we get the right drug to the right patient at the right dosage at the right time. 

We want to bring hope, but not false hope. 

We’re also working to make sure the public gets the products they’re promised.  We’re keeping an eye on, and warning consumers to be cautious of, websites and stores selling products that claim to prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19 or unauthorized fraudulent test kits. 

Fraudulent products that haven’t been evaluated by the FDA for safety and effectiveness could be dangerous to patients.

Food availability and food safety are also vital to Americans’ well-being, and the FDA is working hard to help ensure the foods you, your family, and your pets eat are safe and available.

So as you can tell, we’re facing some big – indeed unprecedented -- health and logistical challenges. 

In light of these challenges, I want to specially commend the organizers of the conference for their efforts to ensure that this important meeting is taking place. 

This conference is a vitally important gathering – helping to forge critical connections and provide essential information, education and support to efforts to combat the opioid and stimulant crisis, which continues to affect our communities, schools, friends, families, and children. I am pleased that this work was not deterred.

At the FDA, we’re following a similar dual path.  Even as our staff works tirelessly to find answers and respond to the corona virus outbreak, we remain focused on our other important day-to-day, mission critical work. 

And among FDA’s many important responsibilities, none are more important than our continued efforts to battle and overcome the opioid crisis that has devastated the lives of so many in this country. 

In my work as a cancer doctor, I’ve seen the pain that can come from chronic illness, as well as the destruction and turmoil that can upend families and communities as a result of addiction to prescription pain killers.

That’s why our work on this crisis remains an urgent priority for me and a top public health issue for the FDA. 

It’s why we’re continuing full speed ahead to implement the SUPPORT Act, which stands for Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities, a law that provided our agency new authorities to build upon our efforts to confront the changing nature of the opioid crisis.

We continue to advocate and approve new and innovative ways to support treatment for addiction and overdoses. 

Some of these approaches have particular relevance during this time of “social distancing,” when individuals are more isolated. 

This situation can pose a special challenge to those who rely on the support and assistance of others for treatments they receive, in visits to clinics, or through actions from first responders who may otherwise be overwhelmed with coronavirus emergencies.

I want to urge all of you to maintain social distancing so that we can bring this pandemic under control.  But it’s also critical, especially if you are suffering from opioid use disorder, that you take necessary medicines and seek appropriate help, using all available tools, including newer options such as telemedicine.

For the FDA, coronavirus is a critical public health emergency and we are doing everything in our power to help people who need it.  We are not forgetting the work that needs to continue to address the opioids crisis. I do not have time today to discuss all of our many activities, therefore I will focus on one area I am particularly interested in; our work to provide treatments for opioid overdoses.

The FDA’s efforts to increase access to the life-saving drug Naloxone, which can reverse the powerful effects of an opioid overdose, whether from a prescribed medicine or an illicit drug, can play an important role in some of these situations.  Overdoses can happen at any time, and Naloxone can be administered by anyone.

To make it as easy as possible for people to use, FDA has approved three different forms of naloxone – injectable, auto-injector and nasal spray.  Extending this work, just last month we approved a generic single-dose pre-filled syringe version of naloxone, which provides another new and easier treatment option to stop or reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. 

We are also working hard to support manufacturers who are interested in developing over the counter naloxone products. Overall, these efforts are aimed at making  naloxone broadly available in ways that help assure it is used to save lives. It is our public health duty.  In short, we continue to be focused on finding and providing solutions.  

The FDA remains committed to addressing this national crisis on all fronts, from decreasing exposure to opioids and preventing new addiction, to supporting the treatment of those with opioid use disorder, to fostering the development of new and effective pain treatment therapies, and taking action against those who contribute to the illegal importation and sale of opioid products.

We are also collecting input from key stakeholders, including patients, harm reduction groups, clinicians, researchers and industry about methods to support the development of methamphetamine and cocaine use disorder treatment.

It’s worth noting that our response to the Corona virus mirrors our efforts to overcome the opioid epidemic in at least one important way – the understanding that it requires all of us working together.

Indeed, it’s due in large part to your work and voices – patients, family members, caregivers, doctors, first responders, or others involved in addressing this crisis – that we have been so successful in focusing attention on this critical and complex public health problem. 

As we move forward, I assure you that this continues to be an issue of the highest priority for the FDA, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with you to bring an end to this epidemic, and to joining together in person for your next meeting.

Thank you again for your concern, your advocacy, your passion, and your leadership.

Let’s end the silence around abuse

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108 Drug Abuse Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best drug abuse topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on drug abuse, 💡 most interesting drug abuse topics to write about, ❓ drug abuse research questions.

Drug abuse essays are an excellent way to learn about the issue and its influence on various groups and populations while demonstrating your understanding.

Various substances, including alcohol, narcotics, and other mind-altering products, are a popular method for recreation in some communities.

However, they are prone to result in addiction, psychological as well as mental, and lead the person to pursue another dose before anything else.

In doing so, he or she can eventually ruin his or her life, which is why most drugs are currently banned around the world. This article will offer you some tips that will help you write an excellent essay and receive the top grade.

Youth is a major demographic that is affected by addiction issues due to drug consumption. Young people are impressionable and prone to search for new sensations. Drugs can offer a sense of novelty and provide an experience they have not had before, leading to considerable appeal.

Considering that young people are generally not wealthy and have to focus on work to succeed in life, essays on drug among youth can use a variety of excellent topics. You can offer your ideas on the reason for the phenomenon’s existence and ways in which it can be prevented.

However, remember that the purpose of the programs should be to help the people who are at risk.

There are many other drug abuse essay topics that you can explore, with poverty being a prominent example. Despite their conditions, many people turn to substance abuse to try and escape the unpleasant aspects of their life.

These population segments are more likely to suffer after acquiring a drug habit than young people because they generally receive less attention.

Furthermore, poor neighborhoods with relatively low amounts of surveillance by law enforcement are likely to house drug dealers who prey on vulnerable people.

You can discuss this topic or discuss a variety of other ones, as the relationship between poverty and poor outcomes has been researched deeply.

Here are some additional tips for your essay:

  • Try to use examples to illustrate your points about various aspects of the issue. Drug addiction essay quotations from people who are affected by the condition or have overcome it can offer valuable insights. They also legitimize your findings by providing parallels with the real world.
  • Alcohol essays are an excellent choice, as the substance is legal and available to everyone without much difficulty. Nevertheless, its effects can be devastating, especially if a person’s consumption is chronic.
  • Try to write a drug abuse essay outline before starting work, as it will help you to organize the essay. Select some prominent ideas that you want to discuss and organize them in a manner that represents a logical progression. You do not have to discard all of the other concepts, as you can make them sub-headings under your main titles.
  • Be sure to include a drug abuse essay introduction and conclusion in your work. They will help you provide a structure to the essay and make it easier for the reader to understand your ideas. The introduction should describe the topic and provide the thesis, and the conclusion should restate your main points.

Visit IvyPanda for drug abuse essay titles, and other useful samples on various subjects to help you with your writing work!

  • Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse Drug trafficking contributes to drug abuse in the society. Drug trafficking also contributes to increased criminal activities that affect the security of citizens.
  • Drug Abuse and Current Generation Drug abuse also breeds an array of behavioral problems among young people, which may affect their suitability to fit in the society.
  • Drug and Alcohol Abuse For along time now, drug and alcohol abuse in the society has been a problem that affects the youth and the society at large. This paper highlights the problems of drug abuse and alcohol drinking […]
  • Consequences of Drug Abuse The endless stream of drugs, obtainable to the individuals with little or no restrictions, poses a serious inquiry. When assessing the advantages of using pharmaceutical drugs, it is essential to consider the severity of health […]
  • Drug Abuse & Its Effects on Families Focusing on the family seems to be by far, the most known and effective way of finding a solution with regards to the “war on drugs” since it more promising to end the vicious cycle […]
  • Merton’s Argument of Deviance: The Case of Drug Abuse The most prominent example in support of Merton’s argument in relation to drug abuse is that cultural and social circumstances play a crucial role in defining people’s desire to engage in drug use.
  • Social Media Impact on Drug Abuse Thus, social media platforms definitely contribute to the misuse of various drugs by romanticizing their consumption and making “social drug use” acceptable among users.
  • A New Alcohol and Drug-Abuse Rehabilitation Center in Liverpool Hospital, Sydney The hospital, in response to this distress, has decided to bring help closer to the people of Liverpool by the construction of the annex facility.
  • Drug Abuse: Age, Gender and Addictive Susceptibility This incorporates the aspects of gender where males and females possess varying biological constitutions that might affect the prescribed treatments in the realms of addiction. It is important to consider the rapidity and susceptibility of […]
  • Teenage Drug Abuse in the United States The problem of teenage drug abuse inflicts a threat to the future society and health state of the overall population in the United States.
  • Drug Abuse as an Ethical Issue On the side of duties and obligations, the societal norms stipulate that individuals should be caring to other members of the society especially the children and the old.
  • Reasons Behind Youth’s Engagement to Drug Abuse in the 21st Century Although youths in the 21st century engage in drug abuse due to several factors, it suffices to declare factors such as the rising unemployment status, peer pressure, and their hiked tendency to copy their parents’ […]
  • Drug Abuse. “Nine Years Under” Book by Sheri Booker The book is thought provoking and important because it allows representing the difficult social situation and the problems of gang violence and drugs in the United States from the personal point of view.
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  • Drug Abuse – A Public Health Menace in Adolescents Between 15-19 Years In addition, the objectives of the paper are as follows: the first aim is to analyze the collected data and produce a review of the information.
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  • Intervention Techniques Focusing Drug Abuse and Alcoholism A technique of Family Intervention needs the concern, care and supremacy of love to penetrate the denial and start the treatment.
  • Critical Issues in Education: Drug Abuse and Alcoholism For this case, the ministry concerned has a very hard task of ensuring there are no critical issues that are left unsolved that relate to education, failure to which will affect the performance of students […]
  • Drug Abuse Resistance Education and Its Outcomes While evaluating the effectiveness of the DARE program analysis in accordance with the methodologies and evaluation criteria used, the given assessments refer to various methods of the analysis of participants, as well as various data […]
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  • Social Behaviour as a Science: Drug Abuse in Youth Thus, the application of social psychology to the phenomenon of youth drug abuse helps to explain how social factors impact the prevalence of and risk for drug abuse.
  • ACTIQ Prescription Drug Abuse The fast-acting characteristic of ACTIQ is a result of being absorbed in the mucosal lining of the mouth. ACTIQ is a synthetic drug that is available as lozenges/lollipops, which are designed to be sucked in […]
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  • Addressing the Drug Abuse in Parolees and Probationers The aim of the program is to address the drug abuse in parolees and probationers during their probations and decrease the use of drugs in them.
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  • Youth Drug Abuse Among, Education, and Policies Although drug abuse encompasses improper use of drugs disregarding the prescriptions of medical practitioners, the principal challenges of drug abuse occasion from abuse of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
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  • Drug Abuse Among the Youth Essentially, this case study will allow the evaluation of the prevailing cases of drug abuse among the youth. In this regard, the pain and peer pleasure cannot be persevered to allow an explicit cure of […]
  • Impact of Drug Abuse on Adolescent Development Therefore, it is important for counselors to consider these stages to help them address the issue of substance abuse among adolescents. In the habitual stage, most adolescents take drugs to help them modify their moods.
  • Prevention Research: The Fight Against Drug Abuse It is agreeable that US’s ‘War on Drugs’ has been an effective substance abuse prevention plan despite the hiccups that the program faces and its inability to attain some of its designated mandates within the […]
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  • Use of Psychotropic Medications in the Treatment of Drug Abuse This is because the mental illness is, literally, the one that sustains the abuse of drugs and thus after it is healed; the patient will have no reason to continue abusing the drugs.
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  • “Cocaine: Abuse and Addiction” by National Institute on Drug Abuse The literature provides us with a report of a research that has been conducted in the US regarding the topic of cocaine and drug abuse.
  • Drug Abuse and Society Regardless of the many intervention measures that can be adopted to solve this problem of drug abuse, the most effective intervention measure is to create awareness to youths to enable them change their behaviors and […]
  • Prescription Painkillers, the New Drug Abuse of Choice Studies attribute the recent increase in the misuse of prescription drugs to an increase in the use of the Internet, which facilitates the growth of illegitimate online drug stores and uncontrolled online prescription drug sales.
  • Music Analysis: Drug Abuse in Music So in this song the artist is also lamenting the dangers of drugs and the theme of the music is one that advocates against tackling the problem with issues of drug abuse by arguing the […]
  • Drug Abuse: Comprehensive Review The effects associated with drug abuse tend to vary depending on an individual’s age and the phase of drug abuse that the person is in.
  • Drug Abuse as a Social Problem This poses as problem to the society because many of the people who are unemployed will resort to different ways of seeking money and pleasure.
  • Adolescent’s Drug Abuse and Therapy Success When one accepts to put up with negative peer pressure, they end up giving up the personal trusts and values thus the pressure becomes a form of a negative force.”Does peer pressure affect the decision […]
  • What Are Influences That Cause Drug Abuse on Youth?
  • What Are Some Solutions to Drug Abuse?
  • What Are the Primary Causes and Effects of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Among Young People?
  • What Causes Teenage Drug Abuse?
  • What Does Drug Abuse Truly?
  • Why Do Children Need to Be Educated About Drug Abuse?
  • Why Has the American Government Not Managed to Stop Drug Abuse All These Years?
  • How Does Drug Abuse Affect Personal Development of Hong Kong Teenagers?
  • How Does Pericarditis Form Due to Drug Abuse?
  • How Drug Abuse Ruins Families and Destroys Relationships?
  • How Does Prescription Drug Abuse Affect Teens?
  • Does the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program Work?
  • What Is the Drug of Abuse?
  • What Are the Four Types of Drugs Abused?
  • Which Is an Example of Drug Abuse?
  • What Is the Leading Cause of Drug Abuse?
  • What Are the Causes and Effects of Drug Abuse?
  • What Are the Main Consequences of Drug Abuse?
  • How Does Drug Abuse Affect Our Society?
  • How Can We Prevent Drug Abuse?
  • Why Is It Essential to Prevent Drugs?
  • What Are the Ten Most Abused Drugs?
  • How Do Drugs Affect Mental Health?
  • What Are the Effects of Drug Abuse on Youths?
  • What Is the Connection Between Adolescents From Divorced Families and Drug Abuse?
  • Are Alcohol and Drug Abuse the Most Common Issues of Today?
  • What Is Athletes’ Motivation for Performance-Enhancement Drug Abuse?
  • What Is the Correlation Between Parietal and Adolescent Drug Abuse?
  • How Is Dealing With Teenage Drug Abuse?
  • What Is the Difference Between Drug Use and Drug Abuse?
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Study Today

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Speech on Drug Abuse and its Prevention

March 8, 2018 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

Good morning to all the dignitaries present for the talk. Today we are going to talk about a very important and burning issue of our country- drug abuse.

I extend my warm welcome to our honorable chief guest, our beloved principal, teaching staff and my dear friends. Let us first try to know what drug abuse is all about.

The over dependence/ illegal dependence on a particular type of drug causing overdose in the individual, often leading to complicated health conditions is termed as drug abuse.

Generally a person becomes so used to a particular type of drug that he shows absolutely no signs of living without the drug intake.

It becomes a mandatory practise in him to consume the drug at regular time intervals and becomes habitual with the passage of time.

If we go ahead and explore the possible reasons for drug abuse, we would be surprised to know the causes. If parents resort to quarreling or fighting in front of their kids, children may not be in a position to understand the bigger picture or underlying reasons of their parents quarrel.

If this quarreling is done too frequently at home, then the child upon observation develops a certain pattern in his mind. As he grows up, he might show signs of strange behaviors which may not be accepted by the society.

This translates into a serious nervous breakdown or complications with the nervous system for the child, who has now become an adult. So, he may want to escape from the society.

This is one of the main reasons why children with personal issues develop a liking for illegal drug consumption. The next reason why drug abuse occurs at all is quite obvious.

If children have friends’ circles in college or groups that support the intake of drugs, then he too may want to join them and try out new things. As this becomes a regular process, the child becomes a habitual drug offender.

Dependency or addiction on drugs to lead one’s life is a sign of serious complications, both in one’s private life and professional life.

The person life of an individual may be a tumultuous one, he may not be happy with his parents’ behavior, he may be an outsider among his friends’ circles, and he may shy away from social gatherings.

In professional life, he may not have achieved success according to his expectations.

He may be lagging behind compared to his peers, leading to jealousy and improper behavior. Specific behavioral patterns are observed in people linked with drug addictions.   

Drug abuse often causes a person to be fully dependent on a particular type of chemical substance to keep him alive and active. He may be addicted to drugs of different compositions, banned drugs, cigarettes, harmful inhalants and even alcohol.

So what happens is, whenever a person starts feeling lonely or isolated, he resorts to these drugs to help him move away from the situation for some time.

It creates such a situation for him that his mind gets diverted from his problems or loneliness for sometime due to the intake of the illegal drug.

Instead he reaches a stage of trans, wherein his mind does not let him see the reality, instead allows him to enjoy in the company of drugs.   

Drug abuse over long periods of time can lead to serious complications in the nervous system of a person. A person may develop seizures, can get into depression, can throw tantrums unnecessarily, and show complicated behavioral issues and so on.

Inability to accept the truth leads one to great heights of depression and if the overdose of the drug is too high, then he may be affected severely for a lifetime.   

After knowing the repercussions, let us now talk about preventive measures to be taken for drug abuse. Here are some points we can throw light on.   

  • Parent guidance   
  • Staying away from groups that support drug abuse and drug addiction.  
  • Spreading awareness about the ill effects of drug abuse.  
  • Counseling.  
  • Scientific treatments at rehabilitation centers.   

  Let us talk about each of them in depth. Parents and parental guidance form the basis of prevention of many problems that children face in their teenage years.

Parents must put their focus on children. In current scenarios, we may find both parents working at home and the child left at day care centers or under a nanny to be taken care of.

Career minded parents often forget caring well for their children. Money may not be the requirement for the kid; all it expects is parent’s love and care towards it.

When that does not happen, the child may feel neglected. So, the first point of approach should be a good communication set up with the parents, wherein parents and children exchange talks about their daily activities, their likes, dislikes, etc.   

Parents should also make sure that at colleges, their children should form groups with friends that enable them in their learning, both as a person as well as in their studies.

Taking to other desires like drug addiction, alcohol, etc should be checked upon. Parents must keep a watchful eye on their wards and hold regular talks with their teachers in case of any suspicion.   

It is always good to spread the word through social media, newspapers and magazines about the ill effects of drug abuse. People will easily get attracted to pleasant advertisements and promotional ads.   

Scientific treatments are available to reverse the effects of drug abuse in an individual; but before that a person who is a drug addict could be sent to counseling, followed by a good rehabilitation centre to help him leave his world of drugs and put his best efforts to lead a life normally like the others.   

There are many centers that are opened to cater to the reversal of effects caused by drug addiction and abuse. Any person who is affected should be first counseled to try to collect points to know the cause of his behavior.

Measures can then be sought to help him overcome his problem and stop him from getting into further acts of drug abuse.   

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18/07/2023 - Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules on the occasion of Nelson Mandela International Day 2023 12/07/2023 - Opening of the Fourth GlobE Plenary Meeting 07/07/2023 - Virtual ministerial to launch the Global Coalition to address synthetic drug threats 07/07/2023 - Virtual launch of the Global Coalition to address synthetic drug challenges - Panel 2: Detecting emerging drug threats and use patterns 07/07/2023 - ASEAN-G7 Justice Ministers' Interface: Strengthening mutual cooperation between ASEAN and the G7 in the field of law and justice 06/07/2023 -   Opening Ceremony of the Justice Affairs Diplomacy Ministerial Forum

26/06/2023 - People First: CND Special Event to commemorate the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking and to launch the 2023 UNODC World Drug Report 21/06/2023 - High-level side-event: Six years after UNSCR2349: Examining the implementation of screening, prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration strategies for persons associated with Boko Haram/JAS, ISWAP and other terrorist groups 20/06/2023 - Exhibition: A conflict-related sexual violence survivor's journey 20/06/2023 - High-level side-event: Enhancing capacities of African Member States to prevent terrorism and violent extremism 20/06/2023 - High-level conference session IV: Strengthening capacity building programmes - Making them better fit for purpose to meet resilience gaps 19/06/2023 - Counter-terrorism side-event on good practices for managing violent extremism prisoners: Preventing radicalization to violence while promoting disengagement and rehabilitation 19/06/2023 - High-level opening session: Addressing terrorism through reinvigorated multilateralism and institutional cooperation 15/06/2023 - High-level side-event: Achieving people-centered justice: Policy developments and emerging evidence to reach Goal 16 15/06/2023 - High-level debate of the UN General Assembly on "Equal Access to Justice for All: Advancing Reforms for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies" 12/06/2023 - Welcoming remarks at UNRWA Executive Briefing to Member States 01/06/2023 - Briefing to GRULAC Permanent Representatives

31/05/2023 - 25th Anniversary of the Group of 77 Vienna Chapter 30/05/2023 - Africa Day Celebration 26/05/2023 - Closing of the 32nd Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 24/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Sharing best experiences and practices of developing countries in the provision of integrated protection systems for victims of human trafficking and smuggled migrants 24/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Launch of the co-action against trafficking in cultural heritage (CATCH) project 24/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: The national emergency response mechanism: A protection mechanism preventing children from falling victim to human trafficking  24/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Expanding the promise of the Bangkok Rules: Towards gender responsive and inclusive justice for all 24/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Survivor-Centered Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response in Criminal Justice Systems 23/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Twenty years of implementation of the Palermo Convention 23/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Equal access to justice for all - Achieving inclusive, accountable and people-centred criminal justice 23/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Addressing challenges in the treatment of offenders: The practical application of existing United Nations Standards and Norms 22/05/2023 - CCPCJ32 Side Event: Achieving SDG 16: The contribution by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 22/05/2023 - Opening of the 32nd Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 15/05/2023 - 137th Session of the International Narcotics Control Board 08/05/2023 -  Financial Action Task Force Private Sector Consultative Forum 02/05/2023 - Special Meeting of the Economic and Social Council - Unleashing the transformative power of SDG 16: Improving governance and reducing corruption 02/05/2023 -  UN Chinese Language Day Event 2023

27/04/2023 - International conference related to the fight against organized crime 26/04/2023   -   UN Security Council Briefing on Haiti 20/04/2023   -   Commemoration of the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

20/03/2023 - Presentation of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2022 New York 17/03/2023 - Closing of the 66th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 15/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs 14/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Global Synthetic Drug Problem: International, regional and national solutions  14/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Towards more inclusive Alternative Development 14/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Celebrating 30 years of fundraising by the Drug Abuse Prevention Centre of Japan 14/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: NAUSS Interregional Centre of Excellence for Evidence-Based Drug Control, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Policies and Strategies, in partnership with UNODC, countering illicit cross border threats (in Arabic)  13/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Hats on Hills: The inclusive pathway on alternative development for sustainability 13/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: The UN and SCO Against Drugs: Strengthening Practical Cooperation 13/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Mekong MOU 30 years of drug control cooperation in the Mekong: Experiences, lessons learned and the future 13/03/2023 - CND66 Side Event: Gender and Drug Overdose: Trends and Evidence for Improved Responses and Drug Policies 13/03/2023 - Opening Ceremony of the UNODC Youth Forum 2023 13/03/2023 - Opening of the 66th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 09/03/2023 - Women in Justice/for Justice

February 2023

28/02/2023 - UNOCT Ambassadorial-level Quarterly Briefing to Member States 22/02/2023 - Zero Project Conference 2023 Youth Panel 22/02/2023 - Zero Project Conference 2023 Opening Remarks

January 2023

31/01/2023 - 10th Anniversary of UN Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid 27/01/2023 - Diplomatic Academy Conference: Reinvigorating the United Nations 26/01/2023 - Handover Ceremony for the Chairmanship of the Group of 77 25/01/2023 -  9 th Meeting of the Coordination Committee of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact 24/01/2023 - Launch of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2022 20/01/2023 - Photographic Exhibition "Elle-Cyprus in the feminine"

December 2022

06/12/2022 - 20th IACC Conference: Uprooting Corruption, Defending Democratic Values 05/12/2022 - CCPCJ Thematic Discussion: Advancing Criminal Justice Systems

November 2022

30/11/2022 - Special Event: Women in Power - Women for Justice 22/11/2022 - UN Security Council Briefing on Peace and Security in Africa (Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea) 18/11/2022 -  19th CITES Conference of the Parties Side Event: Launch of the ICCWC Vision 2030 04/11/2022 - Conference on the 10th Anniversary of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists

October 2022

25/10/2022 - Launch of the UNODC Toolkit on the Investigation and Prosecution of Trafficking in Persons for Organ Removal 25/10/2022 - High-Level Briefing: 'Anti-Corruption at the Crossroads of Peace and Development' 24/10/2022 - Launch of UNODC Global Programme on Preventing and Countering Terrorism 2022-2027 19/10/2022 - UNTOC COP11 High-Level Event: Strengthening the Response to Cyber Violence against Women and Girls in the SADC Region 18/10/2022 - UNTOC COP11 High-Level Side Event: Trafficking in Persons in Conflict and Crises Situations 17/10/2022 - Opening of the 11th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 13/10/2022 - The Vienna Conference on Combatting Human Trafficking: 'No Future for Trafficking' 10/10/2022 - Side-Event: The climate crisis as a threat multiplier for violence against children 06/10/2022 - UN Security Council Briefing on Peace and Security in Africa: strengthening the fight against the financing of terrorist and armed groups through the illicit trafficking of natural resources

September 2022

27/09/2022 - UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in Afghanistan 26/09/2022 - UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in Haiti 21/09/2022 - CND Thematic Discussion 20/09/2022 - Women's Leadership Forum 06/09/2022 - CND Special Event on Scaling up the Implementation of Drug Policy Commitments on Improving Availability of and Access to Controlled Substances for Medical and Scientific Purposes

18/07/2022 - Meeting of the Group of Friends of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners on International Nelson Mandela Day 2022 13/07/2022 - 1st BRICS Ministerial Meeting on Anti-Corruption

28/06/2022 - CND special event to commemorate the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking and to launch the 2022 UNODC World Drug Report 21/06/2022 -   Aswan Forum III: Opening Session: Africa in an Era of Cascading Risks: Challenges and Responses 15/06/2022 -  Launch of the UNOV/UNODC Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women 2022-2026 08/06/2022 -  8th Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Committee Meeting: Strengthening international and regional cooperation to address the increasing terrorist threat in Africa 07/06/2022 - UNHQ High-level Presentation of the UNODC Strategic Vision for Latin America and the Caribbean 06/06/2022 - UN General Assembly High-Level Debate on Enhancing Youth Mainstreaming in Crime Prevention Policies

20/05/2022 - Closing of the 31st Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 18/05/2022 - CCPCJ Side Event: Promoting the Role and Voice of Women in Countering Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling in Asia and the Middle East 18/05/2022 - CCPCJ Side Event: Addressing and Responding to Racial Discrimniation in the Criminal Justice System 17/05/2022 - CCPCJ Side Event: Preview of UNODC's Global Programme on Preventing and Countering Terrorism 2022-2027 16/05/2022 - CCPCJ Special Event to launch "Animals in Danger" book 16/05/2022 - CCPCJ Special Event "A multifaceted approach to turning the Kyoto Declaration into action on the ground" 16/05/2022 - Opening of the 31st session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 06/05/2022 -  First virtual meeting of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Policing

22/04/2022 -  3rd Global Conference on SDG 16 session 3: A new vision for the rule of law to address global challenges 22/04/2022 -  Commemoration of the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

18/03/2022-  Closing of the 65th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs   16/03/2022-   Side Event: Addressing the Global Synthetic Drug Problem: UNODC Synthetic Drug Strategy 15/03/2022- CND High-Level Side Event " Strengthening anti-drug cooperation in the SCO space, supporting global drug control"   15/03/2022- The Humanitarian approach to drug policy: opportunities and challenges for an effective cooperation between public authorities and health based organizations 14/03/2022- Joint Call on Scaling up Implementation of International Drug Policy Commitments on Ensuring Availability of and Access to Controlled Substances for Medical and Scientific Purposes 14/03/2022- Opening of the 65th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs   10/03/2022- Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, 16th Plenary Session 10/03/2022 -  Opening of the Women in Justice/for Justice event on International Day of Women Judges

February 2022

28/02/2022- Opening Ceremony of the UNODC Youth Forum 2022 23/02/2022-  Zero Project Conference 2022 Opening Ceremony 14/02/2022 - Opening of the CCPCJ Expert Discussions on Crimes that Affect the Environment 08/02/2022 - Visit to the Corpogansa project, Antioquia 07/02/2022  -  Launch of the Strategic Vision for Latin America and the Caribbean 2022-2025 04/02/2022 - Event to launch Model Legislative Provisions for Victims of Terrorism

January 2022

26/01/2022  -   Handover Ceremony of the G-77 Vienna Chapter 10/01/2022 - Security Council briefing on UNOWAS  

December 2021 

17/12/2021 -   Closing of the Ninth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption 15/12/2021 -   CoSP9 side event: Role of Financial intelligence Units in Combating Illicit Financial Flows (in Arabic) 14/12/2021- CoSP9 High-level event: "Best Practices and main barriers in recovering proceeds of corruption" (in Arabic) 14/12/2021- CoSp9 Stepping up Global Action for Business Integrity 14/12/2021- CoSP9 Special Event "Corruption in Check: Supreme Audit Institutions on the Move" 14/12/2021- CoSP9 Special Event "Joint anti-corruption efforts in Africa: a continental reflection" 13/12/2021 - CoSP9 side event: Women Leaders in Integrity: Considerations for an inclusive recovery   13/12/2021 - CoSP9 side event: Cross-border cooperation to end corruption: GlobE Network   13/12/2021 - The fight against international corruption from Palermo to Merida: Challenges deriving from cryptocurrencies and new pathways to asset recovery 13/12/2021 - Opening of the Ninth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption 9/12/2021-  The future of anti-corruption: innovating integrity through technology and partnerships 7/12/2021  -   FATF High-level virtual Conference: Partnering for Greater Impact: Environmental Crime

November 2021

26/11/2021 - High-level panel on "Effective identification of victims and investigation of crimes of trafficking in persons through development of international partnerships" 25/11/2021 - Launch Ceremony of the "Regional Network of Youth Organizations and Youth Champions of Change in Central Asia for Drug-Free, Healthy, Safe and Secure Societies" 24/11/2021 - Signing and Launch Ceremony of the UNODC Programme for Central Asia 2022-2025 22/11/2021 - High-Level Dialogue on Prosecution, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration of Returnees from Conflict Zones: Kazakhstan Experience 22/11/2021 - High-level Event on 'Accelerating the level of commitment to fight Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery during COVID-19 and beyond'   19/11/2021 -  UNODC Synthetic Drug Strategy Launch (CND Special Event) 16/11/2021 - Anticorruption Solutions Through Emerging Technologies Roundtable 16/11/2021 - Meeting with the International Narcotics Control Board 132 nd session 15/11/2021 -  First Red Sea Security and Development Training Course 15/11/2021 - First GlobE Network meeting   10/11/2021 -  Opening of the CCPCJ Thematic Discussions   04/11/2021  -  Opening of the Vienna Discussion Forum          

October 2021

29/10/2021 - INL Webinar: The Drug Trade and Illicit Finance 22/10/2021 - Women, Peace and Security: Human Rights-Based Responses to Human Trafficking in the Context of Terrorism and Conflict 19/10/2021 - Thematic Discussions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 13/10/2021 - Conference on Financial Aspects in the Fight against Human Trafficking 01/10/2021 - Special Event on the Launch of the UNODC Strategy Toolkit to Prevent and Combat Organized Crime - 76th Session of the UN General Assembly

September 2021

28/09/2021 - Special Event on Addressing the Linkages between Terrorism and Organized Crime in Africa - 76th Session of the UN General Assembly 27/09/2021 - High-level Event on Trafficking in Persons and Sustainable Procurement- 76th Session of the UN General Assembly 22/09/2021 - G20 Foreign Affairs Ministerial Meeting devoted to Afghanistan 22/09/2021 -  Special Event on Violence against Children in Times of Crisis - 76th Session of the UN General Assembly 20/09/2021 - Extraordinary Sessions of the CND Subsidiary Bodies 16/09/2021 - Virtual Donor Roundtable on Sexual Violence in Conflict 09/09/2021 - 1st Global Parliamentary Summit on Counterterrorism 08/09/2021 -  Closing of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament 06/09/2021 -  Keynote address to the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament

August 2021

20/08/2021 - Event for the International of Remembrance of and Tribute to Victims of Terrorism 09/08/2021 -  UN Security Council High Level Virtual Open Debate “Enhancing Maritime Security: A case for international cooperation”

30/07/2021 - G20 Culture Ministers' Meeting: Working Session on Protection of Cultural Heritage 13/07/2021 - Global Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons 08/07/2021 - Thailand's Alternative Development Showcase 08/07/2021 - 8th OIC Ministerial Conference on Women

30/06/2021 - Second UN High-Level Conference on Countering Terrorism 30/06/2021 - Peacebuilding Commission: Virtual meeting on Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea 29/06/2021 - Launch of the United Nations Consolidated Counter-Terrorism Multi-Year Appeal for 2021-2022 25/06/2021 - High-level Side Event on Countering the Financing of Terrorism in the Post-COVID Landscape 25/06/2021 - The Importance of Model Legal Provisions to Strengthen Comprehensive National Action Plans for Victims of Terrorism 25/06/2021 -   CND Launch of the World Drug Report 2021 22/06/2021 - United Nations Security Council briefing on the situation in Afghanistan   18/06/2021 - Event of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict  18/06/2021 - Global AML/CFT Conference Session 1: an international overview 16/06/2021 - Opening of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism Programme Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism 16/06/2021 - High-Level Panel Discussion "Will the Green Deal Save Wildlife from Trafficking?", at the European Development Days 15/06/2021 - Global Compact Leaders summit 14/06/2021 - 5th International Conference on Governance, Crime and Justice Statistics 11/06/2021 - Strategic Vision for Africa 2030: Investing in a transformative approach to promote peace, security, and development. 09/06/2021 -  Port of Antwerp press conference and Container Control Programme demonstration 03/06/2021 -   The GlobE Network Launch 02/06/2021 - High-level Forum for the Private Sector, in the margins of UNGASS 02/06/2021 - Opening of the General Assembly Special Session Against Corruption 02/06/2021 - UNGASS special event: "Safeguarding Sport from Corruption" 01/06/2021 - OSCE-Wide Conference on Combating the Threat of Illicit Drugs and the Diversion of Chemical Precursors

26/05/2021 - 131st session INCB 24/05/2021 - Opening of the UNGASS Youth Forum 20/05/2021 - CCPCJ side event on the launch of the Observatory on Smuggling of Migrants 19/05/2021 - CCPCJ Side-Event: the importance of strong Public-Private-Partnerships in countering cybercrime 19/05/2021 - CCPCJ Side-Event - Adressing Gender in Preventing Violent Extremism and Terrorism in Africa 18/05/2021 - CCPCJ side event: "Effective international cooperation against cybercrime: success stories of joint investigation teams" 18/05/2021  -  CCPCJ side event: "Follow up to the Kyoto Declaration: Reducing reoffending by new UN standards and norms" 18/05/2021 -  CCPCJ special event on UNODC Roadmap on the Treatment of Children Associated with Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups 17/05/2021 -  CCPCJ side event: "Digital is the New Normal! Acting Together to Better Handle Cross-Border Electronic Evidence" 17/05/2021 -  CCPCJ high-level event "Developing and implementing comprehensive strategies to prevent and combat organized crime" 17/05/2021 -  High-level Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules: Presentation of the United Nations Common Position on Incarceration 17/05/2021 -  CCPCJ high-level event "Building upon the Kyoto Declaration: towards strengthened normative responses to environmental crime" 17/05/2021 - CCPCJ Special event - "Cases of domestic violence - challenges faced by female victims" 17/05/2021 - Opening of the 30th session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 10/05/2021 - 2nd meeting of the OSCE Mediterranean Partners for Cooperation Group

29/04/2021 -   Global Conference on SDG 16 Session 2.2: Strengthening transparency, accountability and engagement during and beyond the pandemic 27/04/2021 - High-level Thematic Debate on Digital Cooperation and Connectivity 22/04/2021 - General Assembly High-level Debate on Urban Safety, Security and Good Governance: Making Crime Prevention a Priority for All 16/04/2021 - Closing of 64th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 15/04/2021 -   64th CND side event on Access to controlled medicines during COVID-19: Meeting the needs of patients around the world 15/04/2021 -  International Conference "Global Challenges and Threats in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Terrorism and Violent Extremism" 12/04/2021  - CND side event on the COVID-19 pandemic and its influence on the world drug problem: new challenges and prospects 12/04/2021  - CND High-Level Side Event "International Frameworks and Regional Responses. 60th Anniversary of 1961 Convention and 10th Anniversary of MoU between SCO and UNODC" 12/04/2021  -  Opening of 64th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 07/04/2021  -  International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

29/03/2021 - Opening of the UNODC Youth Forum 2021 28/03/2021 - Monthly Meeting and Virtual Event of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt 24/03/2021 - Webinaire dans le cadre de la Journée internationale de la Francophonie, "Langue française, femmes francophones et numérique" 19/03/2021 - Commission on the Status of Women Side Event: Child, early and forced marriage - preventing forced marriages and empowering girls in an international context 12/03/2021 - Closing of the 14th UN Crime Congress 10/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event on the Impact of COVID-19 in Prison Settings 10/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Safeguarding Sport from Corruption and Crime 09/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Equal Access to Justice for All 09/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Judicial Cooperation Networks - Launch of the Southeast Asia Justice Network (SEAJust) 09/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: An Urban Safety Governance Approach for Safe, Inclusive and Resilient Cities 08/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Gender Dimensions of Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism 08/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: The Nature of Corruption 08/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: The UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, 10 Years Since Inception 08/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Celebrating International Women's Day - Women's empowerment and the advancement of justice 07/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Ancillary meeting: World Congress for Community Volunteers Supporting Offender Reintegration 07/03/2021 - 14th UN Crime Congress Special event: Promoting the Rule of Law and Justice 07/03/2021 - Opening of the 14th UN Crime Congress 03/03/2021 - Remarks to Civil Society ahead of 14th UN Crime Congress 01/03/2021 - Aswan Forum II Session - 'Terrorism in the Shadow of the Pandemic'

February 2021

24/02/2021 -   Launch of the Strategic Vision for Africa 2030 17/02/2021 -   IPU-UN Annual Parliamentary Hearing session: “The Convention against Corruption: building blocks and implementation challenges” 10/02/2021 - Opening of the Zero Project Conference 2021 05/02/2021 - 130th session of the International Narcotics Control Board 04/02/2021 - Briefing on the 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 02/02/2021 - CCPCJ Special event on the launch of the 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 02/02/2021  -  Media launch of the 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

January 2021

28/01/2021 - UN Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact briefing 27/01/2021 - International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust  21/01/2021  - Strategic Partnership between UNODC and Honduras 15/01/2021 - Handover Ceremony of the G-77 Vienna Chapter

December 2020

10/12/2020 - General Assembly of the Parliamentary Association for Making the Kyoto Congress Successful (Japan) 09/12/2020 - Third High-Level Strategic Dialogue between the State of Qatar and UNOCT 08/12/2020 - UNCCT/UNOCT Virtual Roundtable on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Entities: Building Strategic Partnerships across Regions 08/12/2020 - Conference on Integrity in COVID-19 Response and Economic Recovery by Belt and Road Cooperation Partners 07/12/2020 - Soft Launch of International Hub on Behavioural insights to Counter Terrorism, Doha, Qatar 07/12/2020 - High-level Online Event on the 10th Anniversary of the UN Bangkok Rules: Global Perspectives and the Way Forward 03/12/2020 -  Remarks of the UNODC Executive Director to the 29th Regular Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice 02/12/2020 - Remarks of the UNODC Executive Director to the 3rd UN-EU Leader's Dialogue on Counter-Terrorism

November 2020

30/11/2020 - Locked Down and Locked-in: Standing Against Gender-Based Violence and Human Trafficking during the COVID-19 Pandemic 27/11/2020 - Statement to the Vienna Discussion Forum 2020: "The future is gender-inclusive: Global responses in crisis management and recovery" 24/11/2020 - Statement by the UNODC Executive Director to the Plenary of the 2020 Afghanistan Conference 13/11/2020 - "A Universal Vision for a Global Threat": Ministerial Event Commemorating 20 Years of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols 13/11/2020 - Remarks to the 20th Informal Meeting of FINGOV 10/11/2020 - Statement to the 74th Meeting of the Governing Board of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions

October 2020

23/10/2020 - Op-ed: The UN at 75: we are always stronger together 22/10/2020 - Message for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's launch of the Women Development Organization 22/10/2020 - Remarks to the G20 Anti-Corruption Ministerial Meeting 19/10/2020 - Message for the Opening of the Enabling Environment Week 16/10/2020 - Closing of the Tenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 15/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "The Impact of COVID-19 on Organized Crime" 14/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Entry Into Force of the Firearms Protocol: Time for Universalization and Effective Implementation" 13/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "Combatting Illicit Financial Flows in the Sub-Saharan African Region: A Look at Regional Networks and Other Initiatives 13/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "Enhancing International Cooperation to Prevent and Combat Environmental Crime" 13/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "The UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons (UNVTF) 10 Years Since Inception: Achievements and Best Practices" 12/10/2020 - COP10 Side event: "The Palermo Convention 20 years after: celebrating its anniversary and unleashing its full potential through the implementation of the review mechanism"  12/10/2020 - Opening of the Tenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime 09/10/2020 - Panel Discussion Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of the United Nations 08/10/2020 - Remarks to the Third Committee of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

September 2020

28/09/2020 - High-level meeting on Preventing Violent Extremism in Prisons: Strategic Planning and Effective Implementation 23/09/2020 - Launch of the World Bank Global Report on "Enhancing Governmen Effectiveness and Transparency: The Fight Against Corruption"   14/09/2020 - High-level Event: Tackling Crime in and through Sport 07/09/2020 - Reception for the Saudi Arabian Presidency of the G20 04/09/2020  - 128th session of the International Narcotics Control Board

August 2020

28/08/2020 - Fifth Meeting of the Global CT Coordination Compact Committee: Thematic Priorities and Operational Adjustments to Ensure Continued Support to Member States during the Pandemic 20/08/2020 - Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament - Special Event: Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism: The Perspective of Victims 10/08/2020 - UN Security Council briefing on the situation in Guinea-Bissau 06/08/2020 - UN Security Council high-level open debate on addressing the issue of linkages between terrorism and organized crime

22/07/2020 - Regional Cooperation in Combating Organized Crime in Africa in the Context of COVID-19 20/07/2020 - 20th Alliance against Trafficking in Persons, OSCE 17/07/2020 - Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules 15/07/2020 - Launch of the Global Study on Firearms Trafficking 10/07/2020 -   Launch of the 2020 World Wildlife Crime Report 06/07/2020 - Counter-Terrorism Week: Webinar I - Post COVID-19 World: Contours, Pivot Points and Benefits of Multilateral Collaboration   06/07/2020   - OSCE High-level Conference: Good Governance and the Fight against Corruption in the Digital Era: Strengthening the Principles of Transparency, Integrity and Accountability

29/06/2020 - Gender Champions against Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling in Asia and the Middle East 26/06/2020 - CND Special Discussion: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the World Drug Situation, a Regional Perspective 26/06/2020 - CND Launch of the 2020 World Drug Report 26/06/2020 - CND Special Event: Commemoration of the Signing of the Charter of the United Nations 25/06/2020 - United Nations Security Council briefing on the situation in Afghanistan 12/06/2020 - Joint CND and CCPCJ High-Level Event: Beijing + 25: realizing Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Light of COVID-19

25/05/2020 - Africa Day Celebrations

06/03/2020 - Closing of the 63rd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 04/03/2020 - 63rd CND - Side event "Building Safer Communities - Pakistan's Response to UNGASS 2016 Recommendations" 04/03/2020 - 63rd CND - Side event "Implementation of the International Standards for the Treatment of Drug Use Disorders - progress and challenges at national level" 03/03/2020 - 63rd CND - High-level side event "Addressing the deteriorating synthetic drug situation in the Mekong: a new level of strategic cooperation" 03/03/2020 - 63rd CND - High-level side event "Comprehensive and evidence-based approach in tackling the world drug problem" 02/03/2020 - 63rd CND - High-level exhibition opening "Thailand's 50-year journey on Alternative development towards sustainable development" 02/03/2020 - 63rd CND - High-level side event "UN and SCO in the fight against the illicit drug threat: countering drug trafficking via the darknet" 02/03/2020 - Opening of the 63rd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs 02/03/2020 - 63rd CND - Youth Forum

February 2020

27/02/2020 - Meeting with the Group of African States 11/02/2020 - Foreign Terrorist Fighters - Addressing Current Challenges 10/02/2020 - Staff Town Hall Meeting

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Speech on Drug Abuse

Long and short speech on drug abuse in english in simple and easy words.

speech on the topic drug abuse

It’s very important to sensitize our youth on the subject of drug abuse. Drugs are destroying the lives of our youth and putting their future in a great darkness. The use of drugs is making their lives vulnerable and prone to destruction. Therefore, it becomes very important to raise awareness about it amongst our youth and prevent them from succumbing to it. You can even prepare a speech on drug abuse and deliver it on various occasions and platforms.

Long and Short Drug Abuse Speech in English

For your help, we have posted below some short speech on drug abuse as well as long speech on drug abuse, which will give you a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter and help you create an impressive brief to impress upon your audience and bring a change in society.

Speech on Drug Abuse 1

Dear Students – Warm Greetings to all of you! I welcome everyone to the school seminar hall.

Today, we are here to discuss about the fatal consumption of drugs and how it is destroying the lives of our youth. But before the discussion begins, I would like to deliver a short speech on drug abuse and would like to enlighten our students on this sensitive subject matter.

Drugs, as we all know, are an illegal matter which some people drink, smoke, inject or eat for the mental as well as physical effects that it leaves. There are several students who consume drugs out of fun or for various other reasons. People who deal in the selling of drugs create a network and mainly target students in order to make them addicted to drugs. Initially, the drugs are sold to the students for free and gradually when they get addicted to it, they start buying and consuming it. In fact, the students also eventually become a part of their network and start dealing in it.

It is observed that students start consuming drugs out of stress or unfair expectations of their teachers as well as parents. Lack of emotional support and disorder in their families make them vulnerable and increase their dependency on drugs. They use it in order to calm down their state of mental agitation. Other than this, it is poverty that compels some students to become a part of the selling and dealing network of drugs and derive their pocket money. Therefore, it becomes like a vicious circle of the drug addicted students from which they seem to find no escape unless the society comes for their rescue.

Sadly, the students fail to realize that the consumption of drugs has a severe impact on their physical and mental health, such as they start experiencing mental disorder, their intelligence level decreases, experience deadly diseases and untimely death. When one completely succumbs to the temptation of drugs, it gets very difficult for him/her to recover from its impact except in the centers for drug rehabilitation where they gain a new life, but which involves a high cost. In fact, there are many cases too where even rehabilitation centers fail because of the worst condition of the patients.

I, therefore, request all the students to refrain themselves completely from the consumption of drugs before it destroys their health, future and takes away their lives. Don’t even try to touch or come close to them. Drugs can even destroy a complete generation. So think wise and act smart. Shape your future which seems bright and full of achievements. The drugs that doctor prescribes to his/her patients must only be taken in order to combat a specific disease otherwise the government must take strict measures to ban its illegal trade in the market and save our youth from destruction.

I want to conclude by saying that drug abuse should be an absolute ‘No’ for all and I sincerely hope that our students will never ever try to consume drugs and will completely stay away from its use. Remember that our country needs you as you are its future and harbinger of progress.

Speech on Drug Abuse 2

Good Morning Friends – Welcome to the 77 th  campaign for drug addiction ban.

It feels extremely great to see how the members of our organization are working hard in order to make every day count and reach out to the masses for spreading awareness about the drug addiction or drug abuse. Since day one and today it’s the 77 th  campaign of our organization – we haven’t really ever thought that we will grow this big, i.e. currently we have more than 200 people working for us and have gained a mass appeal. The response so far has been really good and we have been able to transform the life of the people for good, who earlier have been living under the influence of drugs.

So today I would further like to appeal to the masses to refrain themselves from using drugs and live a healthy life. Drug addiction or drug abuse is described as an excessive dependency on a substance, which inevitably becomes the compulsive need of the person using it. This need becomes so compulsive that without that substance the person cannot live his life like a normal person does. And, when such a substance is stopped being available in the market then that person is believed to be suffering from substance withdrawal.

The addiction of drugs has become one of the serious social problems in many developing as well as developed countries and it undeniably proves to be the principal obstruction in the all-round development of the people, society, country and the world at a large. Our country is a progressing country and it is already afflicted with so many other grave problems, such as unemployment, poverty and illiteracy that the problem of drug abuse makes the situation even worse here as it further makes our economy regressive by destroying the lives of its youth.

Even sadder is the fact that several drug addicts cannot afford to make a purchase of expensive drugs so much so that in the end they have to resort to such activities as theft in their homes. These people are not born thieves, but their addiction to drugs makes them heinous and propels them to commit crimes in order to feed their body with drugs.

People can become addicted to drugs because of various reasons, some of which are mentioned below:

  • In order to de-stress themselves

When a person is under the influence of drugs, he/she forgets everything and enters into a trance-like state. However, it is only later that people realize that the use of drugs is only aggravating the problem and not really helping them in getting rid of the stress.

  • Out of peer pressure

Many times, people start taking drugs because their friends are addicted to them. However, once they start taking it, it becomes really difficult for them to get rid of this habit.

  • Style Statement

Many teenagers these days think that the habit of drinking, smoking and even drug addiction is what helps them look cool and create a style statement in the front of others. However, it’s only when these people get trapped in its vicious circle that they realize the irreparable they have caused to their lives.

Teenagers and every person for that matter must understand that the habit of drug abuse not only greatly affects their body and mind, but also finishes their bright future. So we should strictly say ‘No’ to drugs and save our lives as well the lives of our loved ones by spreading awareness in our surroundings.

Speech on Drug Abuse 3

Respected Principal, Vice Principal, Teachers and My Dear Fellow Students – Warm Welcome to all of you! Today, standing in the prayer hall I would like to take this opportunity to deliver a brief speech on Drug Abuse.

I request our principal and teachers to kindly allow me to speak on this subject as it is a high time to enlighten our youth about the dangerous habit of drug abuse. In the present times, there are many factors that push a man to resort to drug addiction and make his/her life miserable. The most glaring factors are rapid industrialization and urbanization, which have given birth to a new kind of behavior among the youth of today, i.e. individualism and permissiveness. People these days prefer nuclear families and in many cases both parents are working, as a consequence of which they become less forbearing in comparison to their previous generations. People are living their lives in isolation and avoid getting social because the stress in the modern times has become way too much to make them withdrawn figures in their personal lives.

In the end, such people become involved in the habit of drinking, smoking, drug addiction, etc. Besides, when a child doesn’t feel satisfied at home or when he/she is deprived of love, affection and care of his/her parents, a feeling of discontentment comes in and such children become prone to drug addiction and ruin their lives completely. What is more painful to see that if the drug addicted people are not allowed the use of drugs, then he/she suffers from bouts of depression, painful and uncontrollable convulsions as well as vomiting!

It is an obvious fact that the addiction of drugs is ruining the path of progress of many individuals and our nation as a whole so much so that proactive measures need to be taken in order to keep a check on this destructive habit of our youth. The most significant step in this direction would be about spreading awareness amongst the people on a national scale.

Our Indian government has in fact formulated various campaigns and even has been able to gain success in this direction. The individuals whose family and friends suffer from the addiction of drugs are requested to approach the rehabilitation institutions and camps in order to provide treatment to the addicts.

Drug abuse should not be tolerated and be completely banned as a taboo. However, it is not advised to torture the addict or treat him/her inhumanely for this habit because if you try and convince the person about its treatment then he/she may willingly choose to opt for it and get rid of this addiction by admitting himself/herself at the rehabilitation centers.

A person who has become the victim of drug abuse is forced by his/her bodily conditions to carry on with the addiction, but sooner they realize the bad impact of this habit. All that these people need is a helping hand and therefore we should provide encouragement as well as support to these people in making these addicts come back to their normal lives and lead a healthy life.

Speech on Drug Abuse 4

Hon’ble Principal, Vice Principal, Fellow Colleagues and My Dear Students – Warm Greetings to one and all!

Firstly, I would like to extend a note of thank you to our respected Principal and Vice Principal for gracing this speech ceremony with their presence and giving their approval too. And, to all the fellow teachers – as without your support this event wouldn’t have been possible. I would also like to congratulate our dear students for making the desired arrangement on a short notice.

The topic for today’s speech is Drug Abuse! I have chosen to speak on this topic because these days I observe many campaigns being run on Drug Abuse in order to teach the people about its ill effects. As a teacher, it also becomes my responsibility to help them spread the message wherever we can and most importantly beginning from our very own school.

Drug abuse is considered one of the banes of our so called civilized society. It has affected all the sections and regions of our society. People with the illicit use of drug are found everywhere, i.e. in urban and rural regions, among men and women, among rich and poor. But it is exceedingly practiced by our young girls and boys living in hostels in nearly all technical and educational institutions.

The grave situation of drug abuse is prevalent across the world and unfortunately our very country India is more strongly affected by it. Our country is a transit country because it is placed between the Golden Triangle consisting of Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, including Golden Crescent consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran – the places where most of the drugs, chiefly heroin and opium are produced. Pakistan is undeniably the nucleus of the world when it comes to any unlawful activity and as far as the drug production is concerned – it is the hub. In fact, a big proportion of drugs go by India in order that it can be exported to other countries.

This happens through the network of drug mafia who further has connections with formidable smugglers as well as terrorists. In the process, unfortunately several young men as well as women become victims to this diabolic activity. Pakistan with the help of ISI is involving itself in a proxy war in the region of Kashmir against India through money earned with the help of drug mafia. Thus, terrorism and drugs share very strong connections.

This addiction to drug is so deadly that people fall prey to its use and become almost a slave. If a person doesn’t get its regular dose, then that person starts feeling a lack of it and becomes depressed with severe pain which even leads to a lack of sensation in arms and legs. Drugs are of various kinds, such as heroin, opium, charas, ganja, etc.

There are some injections too which lead to a state of severe drowsiness. In case, a drug-addict is not able to receive the required dose of drug when needed, then he/she would be ready to do anything for it even by resorting to unfair means, such as theft or may be hurting someone physically, etc.

I therefore request everyone to strictly say ‘No’ to drugs and get such people admitted to rehabilitation centers where their conditions can be improved before it gets horrible and proves fatal for that person.

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English Summary

1 Minute Speech on Drug Abuse in English

Respected Principal, teachers and my dear friends, a wonderful morning to all of you. Today on this special occasion, I would like to speak some words on the topic- Drug Abuse.

Drug Abuse is a huge problem in the modern world, and it has sadly become very prevalent in India too. Drugs are substances that produce momentary feelings of elation when taken and ultimately lead to addiction. As these drugs become more easily available due to globalisation, more people fall victim to them every day.

The youth are extremely susceptible to such drugs. Deteriorating mental health and peer pressure lead vulnerable teenagers to indulge in drug abuse and become addicts. Drugs destroy lives, since drug addicts can see nothing beyond their need to take drugs. We must urgently deal with the problem of drug abuse!

To conclude, we must do our best to combat drug abuse! Thank you for listening to me so attentively.

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Having said all the above, most of you may skip reading the rest of this article thinking that your teen would never do drugs and that you don’t have to worry about this conversation. We urge you to read the statistics below, followed by techniques and recommendations on how to speak to your preteen or teenager about drugs. Please feel free to refer at-risk families to this article as well. This is a topic that every parent needs to be familiar with and in this section, we will try to help you navigate the first step. Of course, you can always call our office and make an appointment if more help is needed.

Before we proceed on how to start the “dreaded conversation” let’s discuss some facts:

  • According to the Monitoring the Future study (2008), an NIH funded study, 72% of adolescents drink, 55% have gotten drunk, 47% have tried an illicit drug, and 25% have tried an illicit drug, other than marijuana, by the time they reach senior year in high school.
  • One in four Americans, who begin using any addictive substance before age 18, have addiction problems later in life, compared with one in 25 Americans who started using at age 21 or older. Delaying the use of addictive substances for as long as possible should be a high priority for parents.
  • The Partnership for a Drug-Free America’s annual “Partnership Attitude Tracking Study,” the largest survey on drug-related attitudes in the United States, sampled the opinions of approximately nine thousand youngsters aged nine to eighteen. Three-quarters of the fourth-graders said that they wanted more information about drugs from their parents. Hint: 4th grade may be a good age to start the conversation.
  • Research shows that parents are central to preventing teen drug use. In fact, kids themselves say that losing their parents’ trust and respect are the most important reasons not to use drugs. As a parent, your actions matter. When you suspect or know, that your child has been drinking or using drugs, take action to stop it as soon as you can. It may be the most important step you ever take.
  • According to the 1998 survey, the stronger and more frequent the antidrug messages at home, the less likely a child is to become a user. Only 26 percent of adolescents who said their parents had taught them “a lot” about the dangers of drugs had smoked marijuana. But among youngsters who claimed to have learned “a little” or “nothing” from their families, the rates of pot use were progressively higher: 33 percent and 45 percent, respectively. That pattern remained consistent for other drugs, too. Overall, boys and girls whose parents ignored the issue were about two times more likely to use drugs than teens who learned “a lot” at home.
  • Individual negative risk factors include male gender, school failure, ADHD, learning disability, and other mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Too many of our adolescents are self-medicating their anxiety and mood disorders with marijuana!
  • Negative family risk factors include genetic risks, a family member who is abusing alcohol/drugs, parent-child conflict, permissive or authoritarian parenting style, and divorce.
  • Substance using peers is also considered a strong community risk factor for drug use.
  • Individual protective factors include high self-esteem, emotional well-being, resilient temperament, and school achievement.
  • Family protective factors include frequent communication about alcohol and drug use, good parental modeling, eating meals together regularly as a family and involvement in your teenager’s activities.

Sign and symptoms of substance abuse can be very nonspecific, but here are some potential clues:

  • Declining school performance.
  • Change in dress and friends.
  • Sudden mood swings, either depression or euphoria.
  • Diluted or missing alcohol from parent’s home supply.
  • Stealing, lying, or missing money.
  • Increase in borrowing money
  • Use of incense, room deodorant or perfume to hide smoke or chemical odors
  • Increased secrecy about possessions or activities
  • Evidence of drug paraphernalia, such as pipes, rolling papers
  • New use of mouthwash or breath mints to cover up the smell of alcohol

There is one more step before you start the conversation with your child; it is very important that you talk to your spouse first. As parents you need to have a strategy and some “ground rules” that you both agree on. It is crucial for both parents to be on the same page before talking to your teenager. Here are the important topics that need to be addressed:

Leave no doubt as to where you stand: “You are not to use any drug, including tobacco or alcohol, under any circumstances.” Then explain why:

  • Because we love you.
  • Because drugs are dangerous, and we don’t want to see you harm yourself.
  • Because it is against the law.

As when setting any limit, clearly spell out the consequences for defying the rules: What will the punishment be and how it will be implemented? Make sure the new rules and consequences are reasonable and enforceable — such as a new, earlier curfew, no cell phone or computer privileges for a period of time, or less time hanging out with friends. You may want to get them involved in new or other activities that will keep them busy and help them meet new people.

Don’t hesitate to aim for the emotional jugular : Remind your teen that you would be deeply disappointed in his behavior if he were to disobey you on this matter. Research shows that when a child is deciding whether or not to indulge, a key consideration is, “What will my parents think?”

When discussing the dangers of drugs, emphasize the immediate consequences: Keep in mind the developmental status of your child. Younger teens tend to think mainly in terms of today, tomorrow and the next day. It’s not until much later in adolescence that teens begin to contemplate how their actions could impact their lives down the line. Teenagers are also still at a stage of thinking that they are invincible. Therefore, warnings that cigarette smokers are more than ten times as likely to die of lung cancer than nonsmokers are probably going to elicit little more than a shrug from a thirteen-year-old, or a twenty-year-old, for that matter.Instead, stress how smoking tobacco causes bad breath, hoarseness and a hacking cough, stains teeth yellow, impairs athletic performance, and in general makes other people not want to be around the smoker. In an American Cancer Society survey, eight in ten boys and seven in ten girls aged twelve to seventeen said they wouldn’t date someone who smoked.

Remind your teenager that smoking, drinking and drugging aren’t just harmful, they’re expensive: A youngster with a pack-a-day cigarette habit sees close to a thousand dollars a year go up in smoke. Surely your son or daughter could find better ways to spend all that money, whether it’s buying CDs and clothing or saving up for a car and college.

Appeal to an adolescent’s natural independent streak by praising his determination to avoid using drugs: “I admire the way you’ve stuck to your principles and refused to use drugs. It takes courage to not always go along with the crowd, and I’m proud of you.”

Explain to your child that once people start using drugs, they may not be able to stop: Addiction is poorly understood, by both substance abusers themselves and those who care about them. The young person with an addiction tells himself and everyone around him, that he can quit whenever he wants. But with prolonged use, the addictive substance triggers long-lasting changes in the chemical composition of the brain. At that point professional treatment is required to cure him of his compulsive behavior. Even then, many tobacco users, alcoholics and drug abusers will relapse and revert to their old ways.

Give them the words to avoid temptation . The peer pressure to try drugs is no less intense than the sexual pressure that so many adolescents face. As with any situation that could conceivably lead to trouble, we need to prepare our kids to refuse offers of alcohol and other drugs—preferably without alienating their peers, although sometimes that isn’t possible. “Just say no?” It’s a start, but few teens bent on enticing a peer to try drugs will let the matter rest there. In fact, substance abusers tend to view converting the “straight” kid as an irresistible challenge, if not their civic duty, and they can be exasperatingly persistent:

“C’mon, dude, you’ll love the buzz from this stuff! It’s kickin’.”

Role-play this scene with your youngster. The repertoire of possible replies includes:

  • A firm but friendly “No thanks!” There’s no need for self-righteousness, along the lines of “Getting drunk? That’s for losers.” Let’s encourage teens not to label other people as good or bad, only their behavior. Using drugs is wrong, but that doesn’t necessarily make the drug abuser a bad person.
  • Change the subject. “No thanks. Hey, what did you think of that test yesterday in social studies?”
  • Suggest a change of plans. “I was hoping to get you guys to shoot some hoops down at the school. How about it?”
  • Say no repeatedly: “ Wanna party with us? This weed rocks!” “No thanks.” “Aw, c’mon, man! It’s killer stuff!” “Sorry, not interested.” “Not even one toke?” “Not even one.”
  • Teach your child respect for her body. “No thanks, I don’t drink. Besides, the girls’ swim team has a meet tomorrow, and I need to be in top shape.”
  • Then there’s always this standby: “My parents would kill me if they found out that I got high, and they always manage to find out!”

Now that you have educated yourself about how to talk to your teen, all you need to do is sit him/her down and just start talking. You can go directly to the topic at hand or during a random conversation about friends or while watching a show on TV, just steer the subject to drugs and there you go! Do not fear that introducing the topic of drugs will put ideas into your children’s heads to use drugs. It will not do this any more than talking about traffic safety might make them want to jump in front of a car. You’re letting them know about potential dangers in their environment so that when they’re confronted with them, they’ll know what to do and they will know you care. If you hear something you don’t like (perhaps a friend smokes marijuana or your teen confesses to trying beer at a party), it is important not to react in any way that cuts off further discussion. If he seems defensive or assures you that he doesn’t know anyone who uses drugs, ask the question in a different manner. For example, ask him why he thinks people use drugs and carry on from there.

Tell yourself that you won’t “lose it” with your child . Be sure to have the conversation when all of you are calm and have plenty of time. Your feelings may range from anger to guilt, or you may feel that you have “failed” because your teen is using drugs. This isn’t true. This isn’t an easy task. By staying involved, you can help them stop using drugs and make choices that will make a positive difference in their lives. Anger and hostility won’t get you anywhere in this conversation. Stay as calm as possible. Remember, you are the parent and you are in charge. Be kind, simple, and direct in your statements to your child. Above all, remember to tell your child that you love him or her! The conversation will not be perfect – no conversation ever is. Know that you are doing the right thing for your child. That’s what matters most!

Parents are sometimes afraid that they will push their children away by talking to them about drug use. You may be worried that your child will get in trouble with the law and that it may affect his or her ability to qualify for scholarships or get a job. But teens who make a choice — one or more times — to use drugs or alcohol are at a crossroads and need your help. Overcoming your own fears is an important step in getting help for your child.

Be prepared for your teen to deny using drugs . Don’t expect them to admit they have a problem. Your child will probably get angry and might try to change the subject. Maybe you’ll be confronted with questions about what you did as a teenager. If you are asked, experts agree that it is best to be honest. Answering deceptively can cause you to lose credibility with your teen if they ever find out that you’ve lied to them.

Here are some final tips to keep in mind when you talk to your child:

  • Tell your son or daughter that you LOVE him/her, and you are worried that he/she might be using drugs or alcohol;
  • Let them know that you KNOW that drugs may seem like the thing to do, but doing drugs can have serious consequences;
  • Tell them it makes you FEEL worried and concerned about them when they do drugs;
  • Remember you are there to LISTEN to them;
  • Encourage them to be a part of the solution;
  • Tell your teen what you WILL do to help them.
  • KNOW that you will have this discussion many, many times. Talking to your teens about drugs and alcohol is not a one-time event.

Adapted directly from the American Academy of Pediatrics ( www.healthychildren.org ), and www.antidrug.com created by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

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LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Los Angeles County Probation Department is supposed to protect and rehabilitate vulnerable youth, but the department is in trouble itself.

A months-long ABC News investigation looks at more than 2,500 claims of abuse at the hands of probation officers, in some cases including sexual abuse inside their very own facilities. Dominique Anderson is one plaintiff among thousands who alleges in a lawsuit that L.A. County probation officers abused her. She sat down for an interview with ABC News' Linsey Davis.

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Speech On Drug Abuse

Speech On Drug Abuse | Drug Abuse Speech for Students and Children in English

Speech On Drug Abuse: The drug is a substance that can cause the death of an organism if taken more than the dosage. It causes a change in the physiological and psychological structure of the organism when it is consumed. There are various mediums through which one can intake or consume drugs like smoking, inhalation, injection, etc.

In pharmacy terms, a drug is a chemical substance, that is typical of a known structure, which, when entering into a living organism, produces a biological effect. The other name given to pharmaceutical drugs is medicine or medication. It mainly treats cures or prevents a disease present in a body. Pharmaceutical drugs should be used for a limited time, or it may cause severe disorders if taken regularly.

Students can also find more  English Speech Writing  about Welcome Speeches, Farewell Speeches, etc

Long And Short Speeches On Drug Abuse for Kids And Students in English

In this article, we provide a long speech for students and children on the topic of Drug Abuse with about 500 words and another short speech with 150 words approximately on the same topic.

These speeches can help anyone who is looking forward to presenting a speech on the topic as mentioned above, be it students, teachers, or any other research person.

Furthermore, we have also included ten Lines on the topic and some FAQs to make the content clearer to our readers.

A Long Speech On Drug Abuse is helpful to students of classes 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. A Short Speech On Drug Abuse is helpful to students of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Long Speech On Drug Abuse 500 Words In English

Very good morning and a warm welcome to everybody present here today. Today, I will be talking on the topic of‘ drug abuse’.

The word ‘drug’ when it comes to one’s mind, is taken in a negative sense as it is often misused. If the drugs are used for serving a useful purpose, it could bring a considerable change in the lives of people.

The drug is not a dangerous substance itself. But people misuse it in many ways. It is highly dangerous and can cause serious health problems if one takes it on a regular basis. The drug has become a trend in today’s world. Today’s generation has become obsessed with following whatever is new or trending in the world. Such is the situation in case of drugs.

Pharmaceutical drugs are classified into the following groups that have the same kind of chemical structure, mechanisms of actions, mode of action of the same type of drugs, etc. The Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification is the most popularly used drug classification system. It assigns a unique code or the ATC code to each drug. The ATC code is an alphanumeric code. It assigns that specific drug within the ATC system.

Another essential classification system that is widely used for drug classification is the Biopharmaceutics Classification System. This system classifies the drugs according to their solubility and permeability or absorption properties.

There are also different kinds of drugs. Among them, Psychoactive drugs play an essential role. It consists of chemical substances that are very harmful to the human body. It has a high chance to affect the function of the nervous system of a human being. These drugs can affect one’s stability of mind, inflict mood swings, etc.

These psychoactive drugs have a significant impact on people. These drugs mainly consist of depressants, antidepressants, hallucinogens, etc. and have been proven extremely useful. It has also gained huge success in treating mental disorders around the world. The drugs that are used in a wide variety in the world are caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and many more. These drugs are considered to be recreational drugs. Recreational drugs refer to the drugs that are consumed for pleasure and not for medical purposes.

Abuse of such psychoactive drugs can turn out to be very dangerous to the entire humankind. It can cause psychological or physical addiction. All these drugs have tremendous side effects; these side effects can later give rise to several diseases.

Thus, the government has come up with strict rules and regulations regarding the production of these drugs. This industry is closely supervised, so the smuggling of drugs can be reduced as much as possible.

It is our duty as responsible citizens of our country not to misuse the drugs as it will cost us our lives and follow the rules and regulations of the government appropriately. If we see any such crime, we should immediately report it to the nearest police station.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience and for giving an earful to my speech. I hope everyone has a great day ahead.

Short Speech On Drug Abuse 150 Words In English

Short Speech On Drug Abuse 150 Words In English

Good morning and welcome to everyone present here. I am here today to give a speech on ‘Drug abuse’.

The drug is not the kind of word that has an outstanding reputation of its own. It is mostly associated with spoiled teenagers or rich kids with a lot of money.

In reality, the drug has many positive sides. It is known to serve as medicines or medication of many chronic diseases. There are many kinds of drugs that help in the treatment of mental illness, depression, etc.

It can be proved to be equally harmful if it is consumed without the medical advice of a professional. It will not take long to convert the consumption of drug from an option to an addiction.

Thus, it is essential we maintain the balance and not consume drugs to destroy our own lives.

With this, I mark the end of this speech, thank you.

10 Lines On Drug Abuse Speech In English

  • Drug abuse or addiction is one of the most common chronic and compulsive disorder that often requires formal treatment.
  • Drug abuse changes a person’s brain chemistry, and the longer one uses it, the more damage they pose for themselves.
  • There are ample rehabilitation centres in most countries now to overcome the problem of drug abuse. However, people hardly go there for treatment in most cases.
  • There are some very symptoms like isolating oneself, spending time with new friends, losing job etc.
  • Drug overdose death rate has tripled across the world since 1990.
  • Most Americans between the age of 18 to 25 are likely to be drug addicts.
  • Over 15000 Americans died in 2017 due to heroin overdose.
  • More than 90% of people who have any addiction start from a very young age, before turning 18.
  • Drug and alcohol usage costs around $600 billion to the U.S economy each year.
  • In 2017 around 8,50000 Americans used heroin at least once.

10 Lines On Drug Abuse Speech In English

FAQ’s On Drug Abuse Speech

Question 1. What is the function of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse)?

Answer: NIDA is one of the most famous scientific research institutes under the U.S department of health services. The institute addresses essential issues about drug abuse, drug trends etc.

Question 2. Where can I get data on drug overdose?

Answer: Data on drug overdose, addiction can be availed from various agencies such as NIDA in case of the U.S where they annually maintain reports od drug abusers.

Question 3. Why do drug users keep using the drug?

Answer: Being exposed to drugs for a very long time changes the brain’s power to get control over decisions, thus making it difficult to abstain from drug use.

Question 4. What is drug addiction/abuse?

Answer: Drug abuse is a chronic disease that changes brain circuits and is also responsible for other behavioural changes. Quitting drugs is one of the main problems of drug abuse as even with the strongest of opinions people fail to do so.

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Child abuse reports by medical staff linked to children’s race, Stanford Medicine study finds

Over-reporting of Black children and under-reporting of white children as suspected abuse victims suggests systemic bias from medical providers, Stanford Medicine research shows.

February 6, 2023 - By Erin Digitale

child bandaged

Stanford researchers have found that medical professionals are less likely to report suspected abuse when an injured child is white. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

Black children are over-reported as suspected victims of child abuse when they have traumatic injuries, even after accounting for poverty, according to new research from the Stanford School of Medicine .

The study , which drew on a national database of nearly 800,000 traumatic injuries in children, appears in the February issue of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery . It also found evidence that injuries in white children are under-reported as suspected abuse.

The study highlights the potential for bias in doctors’ and nurses’ decisions about which injuries should be reported to Child Protective Services, according to the researchers. Medical caregivers are mandated reporters, obligated to report to CPS any situations in which they think children may be victims of abuse. Because caregivers rarely admit to injuring their children, such reports rely in part on providers’ gut feelings, making them susceptible to unconscious, systemic bias.

Bias can harm both Black and white children, said senior study author Stephanie Chao , MD, assistant professor of surgery at Stanford Medicine. The study’s lead author is Modupeola Diyaolu, MD, a resident in general surgery at Stanford Medicine.

“If you over-identify cases of suspected child abuse, you’re separating children unnecessarily from their families and creating stress that lasts a lifetime,” Chao said. “But child abuse is extremely deadly, and if you miss one event — maybe a well-to-do Caucasian child where you think ‘No way’ — you may send that child back unprotected to a very dangerous environment. The consequences are really sad and devastating on both sides.”

Distinguishing race and poverty

Racial disparities in reporting child abuse have been documented before, but prior studies have not controlled well for poverty, which is a risk factor for abuse. Some experts argue that disproportionate reporting of injured Black children as possible abuse victims reflects only that their families tend to have lower incomes, not that medical professionals are subject to bias. Chao’s team wanted to clarify the debate.

The new study drew on data from the National Trauma Data Bank, which is maintained by the American College of Surgeons. The researchers studied records of nearly 800,000 traumatic injuries that occurred in children ages 1 to 17 from 2010 to 2014 and from 2016 to 2017. Of these injuries, 1% were suspected to be caused by abuse, based on medical codes used to report different types of abuse. The researchers controlled their findings for whether children had public or private insurance as a marker for family income.

Suspected victims of child abuse were younger (a median age of 2 versus 10 years), more likely to have public insurance (77% versus 43%) and more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (68% versus 48%) than the general population of children with traumatic injuries. Suspected child abuse victims also were 10 times as likely as the general population of children with traumatic injuries to die of their injuries in the hospital, with 8.2% of suspected abuse victims versus 0.84% of all children with traumatic injuries dying during hospitalization.

Stephanie Chao

Stephanie Chao

Similar proportions of children in the suspected child abuse group and in the general population of injured children were of Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, American Indian and “other” races, and similar proportions of both groups were of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.

However, Black patients were over-represented among suspected child abuse victims, comprising 33% of suspected child abuse victims and 18% of the general population of injured children. White children comprised 51% of suspected child abuse victims and 66% of the general population of injured children.

“Even when we control for income — in this case, via insurance type — African American children are still significantly over-represented as suspected victims of child abuse,” said Chao. “In addition, they were reported with lower injury severity scores, meaning there was more suspicion for children with less-severe injuries in one particular racial group.”

In general, the researchers found medical professionals had a higher threshold for suspecting white families of abuse and a lower threshold for suspecting Black families. For example, white children in the suspected abuse group were more likely than Black children to have worse injuries, and they were more likely to have been admitted to the intensive care unit.

Implementing universal screening

Chao and her colleagues are designing more equitable ways to screen injured children for possible abuse. An important element, she said, is to make the screening universal so evaluation for possible abuse is not initiated primarily by medical providers’ gut feelings.

Chao created a universal screening system, in use at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health since 2019, in which every time a child younger than 6 years old is evaluated for an injury sustained in a private home, the electronic medical record automatically sends an alert to the organization’s child abuse team. Composed of pediatricians and social workers with specialized training in abuse detection, the team checks the medical record for other indications of abuse. In most cases, no such signals are found, and the entire process occurs behind the scenes. However, if the medical record shows any red flags, the medical staff who admitted the patient to the emergency department or hospital can be alerted for further consideration of whether further work-up or a CPS report is warranted.

Chao is also now working with Epic, the nation’s largest electronic medical record company, to include an automated child abuse screening tool in its system. The screening tool will be tested at several medical institutions later this year.

Chao hopes the work will improve the accuracy of CPS reports, especially when it comes to reducing the impact of medical providers’ unconscious bias.

“Everyone means well here, but the consequences of getting these reports wrong are pretty dire in either direction,” she said. “If we don’t recognize bias and always chalk it up to something else, we can’t fix the problem in a thoughtful way. Now, I hope we can recognize it and work toward a solution.”

The study was funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (grant KL2TR003143).

Erin Digitale

About Stanford Medicine

Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .

Artificial intelligence

Exploring ways AI is applied to health care

Stanford Medicine Magazine: AI

Close-up of a lab researcher's gloved hands, while they are holding a test tube and pipette inside a fume hood.

  • Ketamine is FDA-approved for use as an anesthetic in humans and animals. A drug made from ketamine, called esketamine, is FDA-approved for treatment-resistant depression. Ketamine has also been illegally manufactured for decades as a recreational drug.
  • Ketamine can cause strong mood and mind effects . People who take ketamine may experience changes in how they perceive reality, including intense feelings of either dissolving into or being entirely disconnected from their environment.
  • NIDA researchers are studying ketamine as a potential clinical treatment for substance use disorders.

What is ketamine?

Ketamine is a chemical compound used as an anesthetic in humans and animals. It was developed decades ago as a less toxic alternative to the drug phencyclidine (PCP), which was also developed as an anesthetic. A ketamine derivative, esketamine (under the brand name Spravato ® ), is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment-resistant depression in adults. There is also illicitly manufactured ketamine, sold as a liquid or off-white powder, and commonly called Special K, K, super K, or Vitamin K.  

What are the effects of ketamine?

Ketamine can distort the way a person perceives sights or sounds. A person using it may feel happy, or like they are dreaming or floating outside of their body. At higher doses, a person may feel confused and be unable to move or speak., which is called being in a k-hole. 1  Ketamine can also have other unpleasant or dangerous side-effects. See: “ What are the health risks of using ketamine? ”

Is ketamine used as a medical treatment?

A ketamine derivative, esketamine (under the brand name Spravato ® ), is FDA-approved for treatment-resistant depression in adults. Although ketamine is not FDA-approved for any mental health disorder, dozens of clinics across the United States offer it off-label for depression, anxiety, and other conditions. Clinics may offer it in oral form, as a nasal spray, or by intravenous or intramuscular injection, sometimes in combination with psychotherapy. It’s also becoming more common to prescribe ketamine as an alternative to opioids for pain. For more information on ketamine as a therapeutic substance, see “ Psychedelic and dissociative drugs as medicines .”

Is ketamine use increasing?

There are many clinics across the United States now offering ketamine, sometimes in combination with psychotherapy. It has been used as recreational drug for decades, particularly at nightclubs and festivals. Research suggests non-clinical ketamine use has increased over the past decade and a half but is still relatively uncommon. 2  

  • For statistics on ketamine use, see the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
  • More information on ketamine use is also available from the NIDA-funded National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) network .
  • For statistics on ketamine use among adolescents and young adults in the U.S., see the NIDA-funded Monitoring the Future survey.

Could ketamine be a treatment for addiction?

Ketamine is not currently approved by FDA for the treatment of any substance use disorder. However, ketamine is being investigated as a potential treatment for alcohol use disorder and other substance use disorders, such as opioid use and cocaine use disorder. 3  NIDA supports research projects on the safety and effectiveness of ketamine as a treatment for addiction. 

What are the health risks of using ketamine?

There are potential short- and long-term negative health effects related to ketamine use. These depend on how much ketamine someone takes, whether it is taken with other drugs, and how often or how long ketamine is used.

  • Short-term side effects of ketamine use may include headache, dizziness, sleepiness, feeling strange or “loopy,” difficulty speaking, numbness, blurred vision, or nausea. Ketamine may also increase blood pressure or raise heart rate.
  • Studies show that unsupervised ketamine use may have serious health risks. These include respiratory depression, which is dangerously slow and shallow breathing. A NIDA-funded study found that problems related to ketamine use reported to poison control centers increased 81% from 2019-2021. The use of other drugs along with ketamine, especially opioids or GHB , another club drug, led to the most health problems, some of them life-threatening. 4
  • Long-term, heavy ketamine use is associated with memory problems, depression, and anxiety. At high doses, ketamine may cause psychosis , a mental illness that causes a person to lose touch with reality. Frequent recreational ketamine use can lead to delusions that can last to up to one month after a person stops using it. 5
  • Long-term use of ketamine may cause gastrointestinal problems, including abdominal pain sometimes called k-cramps. Ketamine use can also cause ketamine-induced uropathy, a treatable but potentially serious condition that causes symptoms like those of a urinary tract infection. 

Is ketamine addictive?

Laboratory studies show that ketamine use can cause brain changes typical of a drug with addictive potential. 6  Studies in humans show that regular ketamine use is associated with symptoms of addiction, including continued use despite knowing that it is causing problems, physically hazardous use, using more than intended, spending too much time obtaining or using ketamine, and tolerance, which is when more of a drug is needed for it to have the same effects. 7  However, more research is needed to determine how addictive ketamine might be.

For more information, see: “ Are psychedelic and dissociative drugs addictive? ”

Latest from NIDA

Woman looking up into the sky above the tree tops of a cypress forest.

Law enforcement seizures of psilocybin mushrooms rose dramatically between 2017-2022

Find more resources on ketamine.

  • See more information on the prevalence of ketamine use on the NIDA-funded National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) network .
  • Read more about ketamine for treatment-resistant depression on the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) website.
  • Read about ketamine on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration web site. 
  • Stirling J, McCoy L. Quantifying the psychological effects of ketamine: from euphoria to the k-Hole . Subst Use Misuse . 2010;45(14):2428-2443. doi:10.3109/10826081003793912
  • Palamar JJ, Rutherford C, Keyes KM. Trends in Ketamine Use, Exposures, and Seizures in the United States up to 2019 . Am J Public Health . 2021;111(11):2046-2049. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2021.306486
  • Ivan Ezquerra-Romano I, Lawn W, Krupitsky E, Morgan CJA. Ketamine for the treatment of addiction: Evidence and potential mechanisms . Neuropharmacology . 2018;142:72-82. doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2018.01.017
  • Palamar JJ, Fitzgerald ND, Grundy DJ, Black JC, Jewell JS, Cottler LB. Characteristics of poisonings involving ketamine in the United States, 2019-2021 . J Psychopharmacol . 2023;37(8):802-808. doi:10.1177/02698811221140006
  • Morgan CJ, Muetzelfeldt L, Curran HV. Ketamine use, cognition and psychological wellbeing: a comparison of frequent, infrequent and ex-users with polydrug and non-using controls. Addiction . 2009;104(1):77-87. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02394.x
  • Vines L, Sotelo D, Johnson A, et al. Ketamine use disorder: preclinical, clinical, and neuroimaging evidence to support proposed mechanisms of actions . Intell Med . 2022;2(2):61-68. doi:10.1016/j.imed.2022.03.001
  • Fitzgerald ND, Striley CW, Palamar JJ, Copeland J, Kurtz S, Cottler LB. Test-retest reliability and cross-cultural applicability of DSM-5 adopted diagnostic criteria for ketamine use disorders . Drug Alcohol Depend . 2021;228:109056. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.109056
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A.I.’s Original Sin

A times investigation found that tech giants altered their own rules to train their newest artificial intelligence systems..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, a “Times” investigation shows how as the country’s biggest technology companies race to build powerful new artificial intelligence systems, they bent and broke the rules from the start.

My colleague Cade Metz on what he uncovered.

It’s Tuesday, April 16th.

Cade, when we think about all the artificial intelligence products released over the past couple of years, including, of course, these chatbots we’ve talked a lot about on the show, we so frequently talk about their future their future capabilities, their influence on society, jobs, our lives. But you recently decided to go back in time to AI’s past, to its origins to understand the decisions that were made, basically, at the birth of this technology. So why did you decide to do that?

Because if you’re thinking about the future of these chatbots, that is defined by their past. The thing you have to realize is that these chatbots learn their skills by analyzing enormous amounts of digital data.

So what my colleagues and I wanted to do with our investigation was really focus on that effort to gather more data. We wanted to look at the type of data these companies were collecting, how they were gathering it, and how they were feeding it into their systems.

And when you all undertake this line of reporting, what do you end up finding?

We found that three major players in this race OpenAI, Google, and Meta as they were locked into this competition to develop better and better artificial intelligence, they were willing to do almost anything to get their hands on this data, including ignoring, and in some cases, violating corporate rules and wading into a legal gray area as they gathered this data.

Basically, cutting corners.

Cutting corners left and right.

OK, let’s start with OpenAI, the flashiest player of all.

The most interesting thing we’ve found, is that in late 2021, as OpenAI, the startup in San Francisco that built ChatGPT, as they were pulling together the fundamental technology that would power that chatbot, they ran out of data, essentially.

They had used just about all the respectable English language text on the internet to build this system. And just let that sink in for a bit.

I mean, I’m trying to let that sink in. They basically, like a Pac-Man on a old game, just consumed almost all the English words on the internet, which is kind of unfathomable.

Wikipedia articles by the thousands, news articles, Reddit threads, digital books by the millions. We’re talking about hundreds of billions, even trillions of words.

So by the end of 2021, OpenAI had no more English language texts that they could feed into these systems, but their ambitions are such that they wanted even more.

So here, we should remember that if you’re gathering up all the English language text on the internet, a large portion of that is going to be copyrighted.

So if you’re one of these companies gathering data at that scale, you are absolutely gathering copyrighted data, as well.

Which suggests that, from the very beginning, these companies, a company like OpenAI with ChatGPT, is starting to break, bend the rules.

Yes, they are determined to build this technology thus they are willing to venture into what is a legal gray area.

So given that, what does OpenAI do once it, as you had said, runs out of English language words to mop up and feed into this system?

So they get together, and they say, all right, so what are other options here? And they say, well, what about all the audio and video on the internet? We could transcribe all the audio and video, turn it into text, and feed that into their systems.

Interesting.

So a small team at OpenAI, which included its president and co-founder Greg Brockman, built a speech-recognition technology called Whisper, which could transcribe audio files into text with high accuracy.

And then they gathered up all sorts of audio files, from across the internet, including audio books, podcasts —

— and most importantly, YouTube videos.

Hmm, of which there’s a seemingly endless supply, right? Fair to say maybe tens of millions of videos.

According to my reporting, we’re talking about at least 1,000,000 hours of YouTube videos were scraped off of that video sharing site, fed into this speech recognition system in order to produce new text for training OpenAI’s chatbot. And YouTube’s terms of service do not allow a company like OpenAI to do this. YouTube, which is owned by Google, explicitly says you are not allowed to, in internet parlance, scrape videos en masse from across YouTube and use those videos to build a new application.

That is exactly what OpenAI did. According to my reporting, employees at the company knew that it broke YouTube terms of service, but they resolved to do it anyway.

So, Cade, this makes me want to understand what’s going on over at Google, which as we have talked about in the past on the show, is itself, thinking about and developing its own artificial intelligence model and product.

Well, as OpenAI scrapes up all these YouTube videos and starts to use them to build their chatbot, according to my reporting, some employees at Google, at the very least, are aware that this is happening.

Yes, now when we went to the company about this, a Google spokesman said it did not know that OpenAI was scraping YouTube content and said the company takes legal action over this kind of thing when there’s a clear reason to do so. But according to my reporting, at least some Google employees turned a blind eye to OpenAI’s activities because Google was also using YouTube content to train its AI.

So if they raise a stink about what OpenAI is doing, they end up shining a spotlight on themselves. And they don’t want to do that.

I guess I want to understand what Google’s relationship is to YouTube. Because of course, Google owns YouTube. So what is it allowed or not allowed to do when it comes to feeding YouTube data into Google’s AI models?

It’s an important distinction. Because Google owns YouTube, it defines what can be done with that data. And Google argues that it has a right to that data, that its terms of service allow it to use that data. However, because of that copyright issue, because the copyright to those videos belong to you and I, lawyers who I’ve spoken to say, people could take Google to court and try to determine whether or not those terms of service really allow Google to do this. There’s another legal gray area here where, although Google argues that it’s OK, others may argue it’s not.

Of course, what makes this all so interesting is, you essentially have one tech company Google, keeping another tech company OpenAI’s dirty little secret about basically stealing from YouTube because it doesn’t want people to know that it too is taking from YouTube. And so these companies are essentially enabling each other as they simultaneously seem to be bending or breaking the rules.

What this shows is that there is this belief, and it has been there for years within these companies, among their researchers, that they have a right to this data because they’re on a larger mission to build a technology that they believe will transform the world.

And if you really want to understand this attitude, you can look at our reporting from inside Meta.

And so what does Meta end up doing, according to your reporting?

Well, like Google and other companies, Meta had to scramble to build artificial intelligence that could compete with OpenAI. Mark Zuckerberg is calling engineers and executives at all hours pushing them to acquire this data that is needed to improve the chatbot.

And at one point, my colleagues and I got hold of recordings of these Meta executives and engineers discussing this problem. How they could get their hands on more data where they should try to find it? And they explored all sorts of options.

They talked about licensing books, one by one, at $10 a pop and feeding those into the model.

They even discussed acquiring the book publisher Simon & Schuster and feeding its entire library into their AI model. But ultimately, they decided all that was just too cumbersome, too time consuming, and on the recordings of these meetings, you can hear executives talk about how they were willing to run roughshod over copyright law and ignore the legal concerns and go ahead and scrape the internet and feed this stuff into their models.

They acknowledged that they might be sued over this. But they talked about how OpenAI had done this before them. That they, Meta were just following what they saw as a market precedent.

Interesting, so they go from having conversations like, should we buy a publisher that has tons of copyrighted material suggesting that they’re very conscious of the kind of legal terrain and what’s right and what’s wrong. And instead say, nah, let’s just follow the OpenAI model, that blueprint and just do what we want to do, do what we think we have a right to do, which is to kind of just gobble up all this material across the internet.

It’s a snapshot of that Silicon Valley attitude that we talked about. Because they believe they are building this transformative technology, because they are in this intensely competitive situation where money and power is at stake, they are willing to go there.

But what that means is that there is, at the birth of this technology, a kind of original sin that can’t really be erased.

It can’t be erased, and people are beginning to notice. And they are beginning to sue these companies over it. These companies have to have this copyrighted data to build their systems. It is fundamental to their creation. If a lawsuit bars them from using that copyrighted data, that could bring down this technology.

We’ll be right back.

So Cade, walk us through these lawsuits that are being filed against these AI companies based on the decisions they made early on to use technology as they did and the chances that it could result in these companies not being able to get the data they so desperately say they need.

These suits are coming from a wide range of places. They’re coming from computer programmers who are concerned that their computer programs have been fed into these systems. They’re coming from book authors who have seen their books being used. They’re coming from publishing companies. They’re coming from news corporations like, “The New York Times,” incidentally, which has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.

News organizations that are concerned over their news articles being used to build these systems.

And here, I think it’s important to say as a matter of transparency, Cade, that your reporting is separate from that lawsuit. That lawsuit was filed by the business side of “The New York Times” by people who are not involved in your reporting or in this “Daily” episode, just to get that out of the way.

I’m assuming that you have spoken to many lawyers about this, and I wonder if there’s some insight that you can shed on the basic legal terrain? I mean, do the companies seem to have a strong case that they have a right to this information, or do companies like the “Times,” who are suing them, seem to have a pretty strong case that, no, that decision violates their copyrighted materials.

Like so many legal questions, this is incredibly complicated. It comes down to what’s called fair use, which is a part of copyright law that determines whether companies can use copyrighted data to build new things. And there are many factors that go into this. There are good arguments on the OpenAI side. There are good arguments on “The New York Times” side.

Copyright law says that can’t take my work and reproduce it and sell it to someone. That’s not allowed. But what’s called fair use does allow companies and individuals to use copyrighted works in part. They can take snippets of it. They can take the copyrighted works and transform it into something new. That is what OpenAI and others are arguing they’re doing.

But there are other things to consider. Does that transformative work compete with the individuals and companies that supplied the data that owned the copyrights?

And here, the suit between “The New York Times” company and OpenAI is illustrative. If “The New York Times” creates articles that are then used to build a chatbot, does that chatbot end up competing with “The New York Times?” Do people end up going to that chatbot for their information, rather than going to the “Times” website and actually reading the article? That is one of the questions that will end up deciding this case and cases like it.

So what would it mean for these AI companies for some, or even all of these lawsuits to succeed?

Well, if these tech companies are required to license the copyrighted data that goes into their systems, if they’re required to pay for it, that becomes a problem for these companies. We’re talking about digital data the size of the entire internet.

Licensing all that copyrighted data is not necessarily feasible. We quote the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in our story where one of their lawyers says that it does not work for these companies to license that data. It’s too expensive. It’s on too large a scale.

Hmm, it would essentially make this technology economically impractical.

Exactly, so a jury or a judge or a law ruling against OpenAI, could fundamentally change the way this technology is built. The extreme case is these companies are no longer allowed to use copyrighted material in building these chatbots. And that means they have to start from scratch. They have to rebuild everything they’ve built. So this is something that, not only imperils what they have today, it imperils what they want to build in the future.

And conversely, what happens if the courts rule in favor of these companies and say, you know what, this is fair use. You were fine to have scraped this material and to keep borrowing this material into the future free of charge?

Well, one significant roadblock drops for these companies. And they can continue to gather up all that extra data, including images and sounds and videos and build increasingly powerful systems. But the thing is, even if they can access as much copyrighted material as they want, these companies may still run into a problem.

Pretty soon they’re going to run out of digital data on the internet.

That human-created data they rely on is going to dry up. They’re using up this data faster than humans create it. One research organization estimates that by 2026, these companies will run out of viable data on the internet.

Wow. Well, in that case, what would these tech companies do? I mean, where are they going to go if they’ve already scraped YouTube, if they’ve already scraped podcasts, if they’ve already gobbled up the internet and that altogether is not sufficient?

What many people inside these companies will tell you, including Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, they’ll tell you that what they will turn to is what’s called synthetic data.

And what is that?

That Is data generated by an AI model that is then used to build a better AI model. It’s AI helping to build better AI. That is the vision, ultimately, they have for the future that they won’t need all this human generated text. They’ll just have the AI build the text that will feed future versions of AI.

So they will feed the AI systems the material that the AI systems themselves create. But is that really a workable solid plan? Is that considered high-quality data? Is that good enough?

If you do this on a large scale, you quickly run into problems. As we all know, as we’ve discussed on this podcast, these systems make mistakes. They hallucinate . They make stuff up. They show biases that they’ve learned from internet data. And if you start using the data generated by the AI to build new AI, those mistakes start to reinforce themselves.

The systems start to get trapped in these cul-de-sacs where they end up not getting better but getting worse.

What you’re really saying is, these AI machines need the unique perfection of the human creative mind.

Well, as it stands today, that is absolutely the case. But these companies have grand visions for where this will go. And they feel, and they’re already starting to experiment with this, that if you have an AI system that is sufficiently powerful, if you make a copy of it, if you have two of these AI models, one can produce new data, and the other one can judge that data.

It can curate that data as a human would. It can provide the human judgment, So. To speak. So as one model produces the data, the other one can judge it, discard the bad data, and keep the good data. And that’s how they ultimately see these systems creating viable synthetic data. But that has not happened yet, and it’s unclear whether it will work.

It feels like the real lesson of your investigation is that if you have to allegedly steal data to feed your AI model and make it economically feasible, then maybe you have a pretty broken model. And that if you need to create fake data, as a result, which as you just said, kind of undermines AI’s goal of mimicking human thinking and language, then maybe you really have a broken model.

And so that makes me wonder if the folks you talk to, the companies that we’re focused on here, ever ask themselves the question, could we do this differently? Could we create an AI model that just needs a lot less data?

They have thought about other models for decades. The thing to realize here, is that is much easier said than done. We’re talking about creating systems that can mimic the human brain. That is an incredibly ambitious task. And after struggling with that for decades, these companies have finally stumbled on something that they feel works that is a path to that incredibly ambitious goal.

And they’re going to continue to push in that direction. Yes, they’re exploring other options, but those other options aren’t working.

What works is more data and more data and more data. And because they see a path there, they’re going to continue down that path. And if there are roadblocks there, and they think they can knock them down, they’re going to knock them down.

But what if the tech companies never get enough or make enough data to get where they think they want to go, even as they’re knocking down walls along the way? That does seem like a real possibility.

If these companies can’t get their hands on more data, then these technologies, as they’re built today, stop improving.

We will see their limitations. We will see how difficult it really is to build a system that can match, let alone surpass the human brain.

These companies will be forced to look for other options, technically. And we will see the limitations of these grandiose visions that they have for the future of artificial intelligence.

OK, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Glad to be here.

Here’s what else you need to know today. Israeli leaders spent Monday debating whether and how to retaliate against Iran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend. Herzi Halevi, Israel’s Military Chief of Staff, declared that the attack will be responded to.

In Washington, a spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller reiterated American calls for restraint —

^MATTHEW MILLER^ Of course, we continue to make clear to everyone that we talked to that we want to see de-escalation that we don’t want to see a wider regional war. That’s something that’s been —

— but emphasized that a final call about retaliation was up to Israel. ^MATTHEW MILLER^ Israel is a sovereign country. They have to make their own decisions about how best to defend themselves. What we always try to do —

And the first criminal trial of a former US President officially got underway on Monday in a Manhattan courtroom. Donald Trump, on trial for allegedly falsifying documents to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star, watched as jury selection began.

The initial pool of 96 jurors quickly dwindled. More than half of them were dismissed after indicating that they did not believe that they could be impartial. The day ended without a single juror being chosen.

Today’s episode was produced by Stella Tan, Michael Simon Johnson, Muge Zaidi, and Rikki Novetsky. It was edited by Marc Georges and Liz O. Baylen, contains original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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  • April 17, 2024   •   24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
  • April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
  • April 15, 2024   •   24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
  • April 14, 2024   •   46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
  • April 12, 2024   •   34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
  • April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
  • April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma
  • April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
  • April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
  • April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
  • April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
  • April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Cade Metz

Produced by Stella Tan ,  Michael Simon Johnson ,  Mooj Zadie and Rikki Novetsky

Edited by Marc Georges and Liz O. Baylen

Original music by Diane Wong ,  Dan Powell and Pat McCusker

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

A Times investigation shows how the country’s biggest technology companies, as they raced to build powerful new artificial intelligence systems, bent and broke the rules from the start.

Cade Metz, a technology reporter for The Times, explains what he uncovered.

On today’s episode

speech on the topic drug abuse

Cade Metz , a technology reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading

How tech giants cut corners to harvest data for A.I.

What to know about tech companies using A.I. to teach their own A.I.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Cade Metz writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology. More about Cade Metz

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    the United Nations International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking 25 June 2021 Madam Chair, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, It is an honour to meet with you to commemorate the 2021 International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, with the timely and appropriate theme "Share Facts on Drugs, Save Lives".

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    1 Minute Speech on Drug Abuse in English. Respected Principal, teachers and my dear friends, a wonderful morning to all of you. Today on this special occasion, I would like to speak some words on the topic- Drug Abuse. Drug Abuse is a huge problem in the modern world, and it has sadly become very prevalent in India too.

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  30. A.I.'s Original Sin

    A Times investigation found that tech giants altered their own rules to train their newest artificial intelligence systems. Hosted by Michael Barbaro. Featuring Cade Metz. Produced by Stella Tan ...