Public Health: Addiction to Drug - Essay Example

? Public Health It is a painful experience to have to live with a person who is a drug addict and to helplessly watch themwaste away. Provision of vital information about drug and substance abuse to such a person would be very helpful. This article, will articulate on this issue in a bid to understand this problem that has gripped the United States and other countries globally. It will attempt to discuss some possible solutions to this problem and thus give a comprehensive understanding to the reader of what can be done to deal with the drug menace. Introduction Drug addiction is defined as a chronic relapsing brain disease that conditions the human body to seek and use drugs despite the awareness of the harmful implications that this has on the body/ health of the individual (Abadinsky, 2011). Drug abuse would, therefore, be looked at as the use of a chemical substance to achieve hedonistic pleasure. It is common knowledge that dealing in drugs is an illegal act. There are even laws and special police units that are established solely to deal with this menace. Despite this, the trade flourishes and many people continue to perish due to the harmful effects that drugs have. An interesting issue to look at is the end result of all the legal attack on the drug trade. In reality, when the trade of drugs is limited, there is a sort of monopoly that comes up. Those who are willing to risk the arrest by the law will reap great benefits due to this. Heroin, for example, will cost a trader from $7500 to $9500 in Bangkok, Thailand. On arrival to the United States, and due to the risk in bringing it in, it will cost from $60,000 to $70,000 (Abadinsky, 2011). This means that people are willing to risk a lot to get the goodies that will be garnered in the end of the whole trade. Focus on Harris County, Houston, Texas A study was conducted by The National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2002 among 68,126 respondents representative of 98% of the United States population aged 12 years and above. The purpose of the study was to learn about the drug consumption rates in the country. It established that the most commonly abused drug was alcohol and marijuana, which was consumed by 14.6 million people. Another drug that followed these two was prescription drugs that were obtained illegally. They were consumed by 6.2 million users. The study found that the most affected age group was that of users aged between 18 and 25 years (Coombs, 2005). From the above statistics at the national level, the high risk population has been set out as the people aged between 18 and 25 years. This means that the target audience at the national level is the people who are between these ages. In the case of Harris County, in Houston Texas, the statistics are not very different, and objectives that will be put to use at this level will be similar to what is being implemented at the national level. This is mainly because the county is highly populated thus it has a cosmopolitan population. However, the main difference will be the more intimate relationship that will be shared between the implementing team and the target audience. The communication strategy that will be developed will be dealing with the need to educate the people within Harris County of the dangers of drug use. It will also be focused on behavior change among those that are addicted to allow them to reform and move back into society as useful members of the community. To this end, there are a number of objectives that this whole exercise aims to achieve. These objectives are: a positive change of behavior among the addicts towards their rehabilitation; a more informed population on the dangers of drug and substance abuse; the target audience aged 18 to 25 being reoriented towards better ways of having fun, as opposed to involving the use of drugs; the final objective is to ensure that the prevalence rate comes down by at least 30% from where it currently stands. The above objectives are going to be the mile stones that this project will aim to achieve. There will of course be monitoring and evaluation to assess the progress of the entire process. This will be geared towards the eventual reduction of the intake of drugs within this county. As seen above the high risk population is the people aged between 18 and 25. This thus makes them the target population for the most intense campaigns against the consumption of drugs at the national level. At the state level, in this case looking at the state of Texas, the National Substance Abuse Index places the high risk population as that aged between 12 to 17 years and between 21 to 45 years (Coombs 2005). In Texas, these age groups account for 69.2% of admissions to rehabilitation centers within the state. This thus indicates that a lot of intervention needs to be focused on this group of individuals as this is a problem spot. As the facts show, unlike in the national level, the focus of attention will also look further into those who are above 25 years. This is because on the state of Texas, people aged between 36 and 40 years have a high prevalence to drug abuse than a lot of the other age groups. This is because they scored a high of 15.5 percent of the total admissions (Coombs 2005). This information has a window of inaccuracy as it does not take into consideration those who fail to seek help. These people could easily tilt the balance of scales in favor of the nationally held target age of between 18 and 25 years. Reason for Community Based Approach A popular adage says that charity begins at home. The reason for mention this adage is to emphasize the importance of looking to curb the problem from the county level with the ripple effect going all the way to the national level. The justification for this is that it will be much cheaper to use the Harris County population for a start and then basing on the lessons of this pilot project, the strategy can be implemented at the national level. Being a highly interactive exercise, the process will be a learning opportunity (Palis, Singleton, Casimero & Hardy, 2010). Though it is a pilot project, the strategy will comprehensively look into the issue of drug and substance abuse in the County of Harris. At the same time, this approach is appealing because it allows the whole community to be a source of the solution. The opposite of this is gathering a team of experts and asking them to come up with solutions for the community’s problems. Though they may have solutions, the impact of these answers is not the same as having a process whereby the people themselves are intimately involved in finding solutions to what ails them. This means that the members of that the community will get the opportunity to get to find out the reasons why the target audience abuse drugs. It will also be an eye opener to the risks around them, and it will stimulate them into dealing with these underlying causes of drug abuse (Wilson and Kolander, 2011). It is, therefore, not enough that the treatment for addiction is found in a rehab center. There are equally more important issues at play in this matter. Among them is the perception of the community around the addict. If they victimize him/her, the problem of drug use and abuse will not go away. This individual will keep on going back to the same drugs as a comfort when the society becomes too hard on them (Wilson & Kolander, 2011). The community is also crucial even in terms of disseminating the messages that will be developed by the whole process. This means that churches, mosques, schools, recreational centers as well as other social places will play a critical role. At this point, it is important to include even the community radio as well as alternative media. All these will play a crucial role in the war against drugs within Harris County. It is these mediums that are used a lot by most people within the high risk population. The reason for the application for a lot of these media is that it will allow the community to be fully involved as well as ensuring that the target audience is fully reached (Siegel & Lotenberg, 2007). One thing that stands out is the immense cost that this whole process will need to get it going, as well as, sustain it. It is important to note that this is a long term exercise and as such, the funding must be reliable. From the media that will be utilized to things like needs assessments to even the implementation process, a lot of money will be spent in the whole exercise. As such, this strategy will be looking at two main sources of funding that is the government, on one hand, and individuals or corporate on the other. This means that there will be intense lobbying on the part of the management of this strategy to ensure that the government pledges to contribute. These contributions will be sourced from the national and the state levels. All this will be geared towards the ensuring that the project is able to last the duration necessary to have fully implemented its goals. At the individual and corporate level the strategy will hold luncheons as well as conduct interpersonal communication with a bid to convince any potential donors of the value of investing in such a worthy cause. As part of generating income, the youth who are being assisted can play a role in terms of performing odd jobs in their neighborhoods so that they can make some money, which will be used in the project. Social Marketing Communication Strategy The strategy to be used is the social marketing strategy. This strategy basically involves the use of communication to target attitudinal and behavior change (Bartels & Nelissen, 2002). In the case of this strategy, the attitude that needs changing is the preference of using drugs as an avenue to fun or as a comfort in times of depression. This is an important factor to focus on for this project seen as it is even mentioned in the objectives that this strategy will be seeking to achieve. In the case of attitude, the strategy will promote more productive avenues to have fun or even turn to when one is depressed. In the case of the youth having fun, one secure way of doing this is by involving in activities like sports, clubs and other equally progressive ways of having fun. This will thus ensure that people have fun while at the same time stay safe. In the case of depression, one important means of tackling this is to set up counseling centers that are confidential to give depressed people a place to relieve their burdens. In the case of behavior, the strategy will seek to ensure that people have different activities of passing time so as to limit the chances that one gets to abuse drugs. At the same time, the people in the community need to be sensitized on how to treat those who have drug related problems. This means that people will need to change their attitude from looking at these people as failures in society and more as people who have lost their way and require being helped to get back on track. This will be very helpful because the positive attitude will allow those who are having drug-related problems recover much more quickly. On this basis, the project will be looking to ensure that, once someone recovers, they are able to stay that way because of the support system that is around them. Conclusion The strategy applied in this project will be aiming at ensuring that people are able to recover from their drug problems in a proper environment. The reason for this is to ensure as stated above a person does not relapse after they have been treated. At the same time, this project will ensure that people are well informed of the dangers of drug use and abuse thus allowing them to make informed decisions. This goes even to those people living with addicts. They will be better informed on how to detect and deal with a person who is abusing drugs. If people can be able to make a decision based on proper facts, this project will have performed its purpose. References: Abadinsky, H. (2011). Drug Use and Abuse: A Comprehensive Introduction. California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Bartels, G. & Nelissen, W. (2002). Marketing for Sustainability: Towards Transactional Policy-Making. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Coombs, R. H. (2005). Addiction Counseling Review: Preparing for Comprehensive, Certification and Licensing Examinations. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers. Palis, F. G., Singleton, G.R., Casimero, M. C. & Hardy, B. (2010). Research to Impact: case Studies for Natural Resource Management for Irrigated Rice in Asia. Makati City: International Rice Research Institute. Siegel, M. & Lotenberg, L. D. (2007). Marketing Public Health: Strategies to Promote Social Change. London: Jones and Bartlett Publishers International. Wilson, R. & Kolander, C. A. (2011). Drug Abuse Prevention: A School and Community Partnership. London: Jones and Bartlett Publishers International. Read More