Unit 6 Discussion Board Reasons for Substance Use

Unit 6 Discussion Board Reasons for Substance Use

A 13-year-old boy living in urban poverty with his mother and six younger siblings is currently getting in trouble at school. He has never been in trouble before. But the teachers say he is becoming belligerent toward authority figures, sloppy in his schoolwork and ignoring friends he has had since kindergarten. He also is beginning to come to school with eyes glassy, bloodshot, half shut, a grin on his face, and loads of snacks. He used to be athletic but now he sits around and does not appear motivated to complete normal tasks he enjoyed last year. His mother has found small amounts of marijuana in the pockets of his jeans.

Assignment Guidelines

In 5–7 paragraphs, address the following:

What do you think might be motivating this 13-year-old boy to use marijuana? Provide two different possible reasons.

Would the reasons influence the type of drug he may be using? Explain.

How do you feel about illegal recreational drug use? Explain.

How do you feel about legal recreational drug use, such as alcohol or tobacco? Explain.

Do you think abuse of legal drugs is as dangerous as abuse of illegal drugs? Why or why not?

Are there any valid reasons for recreational drug use? Why or why not?

Post a new topic to the Discussion Board that contains your responses to the above questions.

Comment on at least two other students’ posts.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument