However, the evidence is very clear that “scare tactics” do not work with most teenagers. The days of “black lungs” demonstrations for tobacco abuse are fading. As much as we would hope that students understand the basic elements of how their brains function, knowledge alone has not reduced risk-taking behavior in many students (YRBS, 2003).

— This is Your Brain on … Understanding and Curbing Adolescent Substance Abuse

Doing drugs is a quite prevalent phenomenon in middle schools; alcohol and tobacco are largely used as well. One thing that I noticed is that there are multiple reasons why students chose to do drugs, and I think understanding why students use drug could help students get rid of drug abuse, which is, in my opinion, better than the traditional “scare tactics”.

I actually know very well on the “scare tactics”. My grandfather is a heavy smoker. No matter how we convince him and even show him the terrible result of smoking; he still didn’t want to kick his smoking habit. From his opinion, he didn’t feel the bad result yet but he experienced the relaxation and felt pretty good when he smoked. Then we came up with a new strategy— find an alternative for him. My grandpa likes eating peanuts, so we suggested him that each time when he wanted to smoke, he could eat some peanuts. Grandpa agreed and at last we surprisingly found that he smokes less than before. It is why I feel it will be helpful that educators could study on why students made such decision, so they can develop corresponding strategies to help them get rid of it.

I have watched a video interviewing a woman who has drug abuse during her adolescence. She said, as most of her peers, she decided to do drugs under peer pressure. While doing drugs was considered as a “shared activity”, adolescents who seek for group acceptance and being socially inclusive would be easily “surrendered”. Other kids like Todd, (the boy introduced in chapter 10) choose to use drugs to seek for better performance in tests. One tricky thing about drug is that the user usually cannot feel the risk or bad results clearly, but they notice consciously that they benefit from it, for example, they can actually feel that they are more engaging in the task after having the drug.

The key in this strategy to find out reasons why students do drug is communication. Be a trustworthy person and listen to your students is quite essential. However, one normal phenomenon is that, they would want to look for support and agreement from adults, which proves doing drug is nothing bad. I have met the situation once that a middle school student asked me if I did drug when I was in his age.I didn’t know how to reply so I soon switched the topic.

In short, as what the author suggested, knowledge alone is not the best way to help students step away from drugs. Getting to know them and offer helps from the very fundamental level is more useful and permanent.