Dr. Joanne Magro “The Power of the Stiletto.” News Column (07)

Edition Seven- Week Seven; News Column:

Written by: Dr. Joanne Magro 

Dr. Joanne Magro: Youth Related Addiction

Dr. Joanne Magro and The Tales of Her Experience in The Field: Youth Related Addiction.

“Just as I was writing this article, I received some breaking news from WBAL-TV 11 Baltimore, Maryland. At least two dozen people had to be hospitalized amid an apparent mass overdose in
Baltimore, MD. At around 9:25 a.m. local time on Thursday, July 10th, first responders from
the Baltimore City Fire Department and the Baltimore City Health Department were
dispatched to the Penn-North neighborhood following reports of a “mass casualty incident involving multiple individuals exhibiting overdose symptoms”. “This is a level one mass casualty event,” Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace told the outlet. “So, for us, regardless of the call, the amount of patients’ scripts how we respond to this. And we’ve done just that.” Wallace told CBS News that victims of the overdose were spread across the area, saying, “Along North Avenue, along Pennsylvania Avenue, both subway platforms, and then off the beaten path along some of the alleys.”

Witnesses in the area alleged to CBS News affiliate WJZ that a tester drug called “New Jack City” had been given to victims that may have been laced. “I have never seen anything like that, so maybe it is a bad batch, but at the end of the day, it’s an epidemic” “We deal with this every day, probably not on this high of a scale, but we go through this everyday”. The Baltimore Fire Department said that the city is being “ravaged by opioid use and fentanyl-driven overdoses,” as they called for an investment in paramedic staffing and a long-term solution to halt the crisis. “Today’s mass casualty incident in Penn-North is a distressing reminder that Baltimore’s EMS system is nearing a breaking point,” the fire department wrote. With rescues, sustained high-call volumes and resource skews favoring low-acuity responses, the system can no longer absorb operational erosion.”

More teens than ever are overdosing. Psychologists are leading new approaches to combat youth substance misuse. “Just Say No” didn’t work. But experts are employing new holistic programs to help steer kids away-or at least keep them from dying- from illicit substances.

For years, students in the middle and high schools across the country were urged to “just say no” to drugs and alcohol. But it’s no secret the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, which was typically delivered by police officers who urged total abstinence, didn’t work. An analysis found the program largely ineffective, and one study even showed kids who completed (D.A.R.E. were more likely than their peers to take drugs.

Dr. Joanne Magro explains to us the details regarding this ongoing epidemic. This particular written piece tackles the youth-related addiction crisis, discussing in further depth a new facet of addiction.

Partially because of the lessons learned from D.A.R.E., many communities are taking a different approach to addressing youth substance use. They’re also taking a different approach to addressing youth substance use. They’re also responding to very real changes in the drug landscape. Aside from Vaping, adolescent use of illicit substances has dropped substantially over the past few decades, but more teens are overdosing than ever largely because of contamination of the drug supply with FENTANYL, as well as the availability of stronger substances.

“The goal is to impress upon youth that far and away the healthiest choice is not to put these substances in your body, while at the same time acknowledging that some kids are still going to try them. If that’s the case, we want to help them avoid the worst consequences”.

While that approach, which incorporates principles of “harm reduction”, is not universally accepted, evidence is growing for its ability to protect youth from accidental overdoses and other consequences of substance use, including addiction, overdoses, and other consequences of substance use, including addiction, justice involvement, and problems at school.

Psychologists have been a key part of the effort to create, test, and administer developmentally appropriate evidence-based programs that approach prevention in a holistic, non-stigmatizing way. “Drugs cannot be this taboo thing that young people can’t ask about anymore”. That’s just a recipe for young people dying, and we can’t allow that”.

Substance use during adolescence is particularly dangerous because psychoactive substances, including nicotine, cannabis, and alcohol, can interfere with healthy brain development. Young people who use substances early and frequently also face a higher risk of developing a substance use disorder in adulthood. Kids who regularly avoid substance use are more likely to succeed in school and to avoid problems with the juvenile justice system.

“The longer we can get kids to go without using substances regularly, the better their chances of having an optimal life trajectory.”

The drugs young people are using-and the way they’re using them-have also changed, and psychologists say this needs to inform educational efforts around substance use. Alcohol and cocaine are less popular than they were in the 1990s. The use of cannabis and hallucinogens which are now more salient and easier to obtain, were higher than ever among young adults.

GenZ is drinking less alcohol than previous generations, but they seem to be increasingly interested in psychedelics and cannabis. Those substances have kind of replaced alcohol as ‘The cool thing” to be doing. Young people are also seeing and sharing content about substance use on social media, with a rise in posts and influencers promoting vaping on TikTok and other platforms.

Motivating Young People
Because substances and mental health are so intertwined, some programs can do prevention with very little drug-focused content. In one of the Prevention Programs workshops for teens, there was only a short workbook that explicitly mentions substances.

That’s what’s fascinating about the new holistic approaches as we are not jamming the previous “DARE” down our youths’ throats yet rather seeing dramatic effects on young people’s substance use with barely even talking about it.

PreVenture offers a series of 90-minute workshops that apply cognitive behavioral insights upstream (addressing the root causes of a potential issue rather than waiting for symptoms to emerge) to help young people explore their personality traits and develop healthy coping
strategies to achieve their long-term goals.

“What everyone can agree on is that we want kids to have the best life they can”. “If we can at least start there, we’re already ahead of the curve.

“The Doctor Joanne Magro Foundation for Physician Health and Wellness”/ jmagromd@gmail.com and Peer Support Specialist for Addiction Recovery and Support Community Outreach/ jmagromd@gmail.com.

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What topics would you like to read next by authorship of Dr. Joanne Magro in the upcoming edition of her column? Leave your comments below!