Posted: June 22nd, 2022

Drugs and Behavior

A self evaluation of the college course Drugs and Behavior. The purpose of this end-of-course activity is to be introspective and reflect on what you’ve learned in this course. To help you organize your thinking, describe the outcomes of your study and effort that have been most important to you, and, as appropriate, to your present position or career aspirations.

A. Outcomes. List five important concepts, processes, principles, ideas, people, or facts you learned in this course. For each, describe why learning this or that was important to you personally or professionally. For example, did one or more of these concepts, processes, etc., produce:

A significant shift in your knowledge base and hence a new way or altered way of thinking or behaving?
A shift in your attitude or belief system?
A reorientation of how you look at this or that, or appreciate this or that?
A productive change in your skill-level in your present occupation?
B. Goals. Did you achieve your personal goals for the course? Please elaborate and state why or why not. Did you realize any goals or objectives that you had not listed among your goals in Week 1? If so, please describe them.

C. Importance. Describe the general importance of this to you personally and/or professionally. Like a paper, this should wrap things up and be your concluding paragraph.

Facts for paper: I am a police officer. Course if Drugs and Behavior. Textbook is Drugs and Society, by Glen Hanson, Peter Venturelli and Annette Fleckenstein. 13th edition. Gained knowledge on different types of drugs, their uses, juveniles and drug use, effects on society and our communities. A goal could be learning more about drugs and drug abuse and the effect on our community.
Drugs and Behavior
Name
Institution

Drugs and Behavior
The course expounds on an imperative topic affecting society. Drug and substance abuse is affecting the youth significantly. As a police officer, I can attest that most of the juvenile offenders abuse drugs. To that extent, the course crystallized my understanding on various concepts on drugs and behavior. The categorization of drugs and substances follows the effect that each has on its users. Essentially, there are seven types of drugs with distinct characteristics. The types of drugs are stimulants, hallucinogens, depressants, dissociatives, cannabis, inhalants and opioids. The main catastrophe about substance abuse is the fact that it does not restrict its effects to the users, the family and society around the users equally suffers.
It is not easy to pint out the point at which the recreational use of drugs turns into addiction. However, the psychological and physical manifestations of abuse are clear for all to see (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2011). Therefore, prior to the course, I struggled to understand why people still choose to take drugs despite the obvious challenges. At first, the sensation of taking the drugs is good and it has a relaxation effect. Many use drugs to run away from the stress, anxiety and depression. Eventually, the individuals become addicts because they are afraid to face the said realities of life in their right frame of mind. Drugs also cause physical addiction, after long use, the body cannot function without the drugs.
The effects of drugs to the community are evident. In particular, families with members that are drug users do not function optimally. If one or both of the parents use drugs, the likelihood of them being bad parents is high (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2011). On most occasions, drug addicts do not spend much time at home with their children. Additionally, most of the spending is on drugs therefore, they fail to meet the basic needs of the family. Further, the failure by parents to take the responsibility of parenting well denies the children a good socialization process. Most of the children also end up as juveniles or drug addicts.
Most of the juvenile delinquents are drug users. The individuals involve themselves in crime to sustain the drug dependence. Teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 are the most affected by the drug menace (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2011). As a law enforcement officer, I can attribute the access of drugs to innocent children as a failure of the police and other agencies to make the neighborhoods clean. Teenagers spend most of their time together and they enjoy adrenaline activities. Therefore, they are easy targets for individuals selling illegal substances.
When I embarked on the course, I had a personal goal of learning more about drugs and ways of preventing drug abuse. On the latter, I learnt that creating awareness among the youth is the best tool (Hanson, Venturelli, & Fleckenstein, 2011). A generation empowered with knowledge can overcome the misguidance of individuals who are out to make profits at the expense of the lives of others. The course was important because I can now perform my role better to society. A police officer I can now relate better with the challenge of drugs in society. Secondly, I can offer guidance to juveniles on how they can overcome their addictions to enable them to get away from crime completely. The course expanded my perspective in many ways and I began to see the drug addicts as the victims.

References
Hanson, G., Venturelli, P., & Fleckenstein, A. (2011). Drugs and society. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.