DRUGS

AND THE

2019
TEENAGE
BRAIN  
By: Roan Harvey

Percentage of high
school students
17% drinking or doing drugs
during the school day

Percentage of high
school students who
44% know someone who sells
drugs

Percentage of student
that said seeing images
75% of teens partying make
them more likely to use
drugs

Dopamine:
a chemical released by nerves that send signals to the brain. including
several dopamine pathways, that plays a major role in motivational and
reward based behavior.

But even though dopamine causes pleasure, it also gives a human

the want to survive. Making sleeping eating, and wanting to be
happy something that we all do.

Why drugs are so risky is because of their effects to signals to the brain. drugs
increase dopamine in the teen brains giving them the message, "you don't need food
or sleep or friendships as much as you need alcohol and other drugs."

What was a healthily survival instinct and reward pathway is now

broken damaged by substance used to create addiction.

Bibliography
Organization. “Nearly 1 In 5 High Schoolers Drink, Smoke, Use Drugs During School.”
HuffPost, HuffPost, 23 Aug. 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/annual-survey-finds-17-
pe_n_1824966.

Effects of Drugs on the Teen Brain.” Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation,

https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/fcd/effects-drugs-teen-brain.