Alcohol

Another poison of many young people is alcohol. Remember, alcohol is a drug. It can make you sick, and you can become addicted to it. It's a very common form of drug abuse among teenagers. Don't let anyone at a party pressure you into drinking if you don't want to, especially if you're legally under age.

For years we have been told not to drive after we have drunk alcohol, which weakens our sense and clouds our judgement. And yet people still do. Young people, who are drunk are less likely to wear their seat belts, and are less experienced when a problem occurs. The alcohol makes them think they are brilliant drivers and can take risks without getting hurt. But, more importantly, they become a risk to other drivers and pedestrians - potential killers. If they do have an accident, the alcohol in their body will make treatment of an injury more difficult.

Alcohol drinks are made up chiefly of water and ethanol, which is an alcohol produced by fermenting fruits, vegetables or grain. Beer is about one part ethanol to 20 parts water. Wine is stronger, and spirits are about half ethanol and half water.

Alcohol is a drug. In fact, it is a mild poison. It is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream, within four or 10 minutes of being drunk. Absorption is slowerifthere's food in the stomach. Once inside the body it passes through the bloodstream to the liver, where poisons are digested. But the liver can only process 28 grams of pure alcohol each hour.

This is a small amount - just over half a glass of beer. Anything else you drink is pumped round the body while it waits its turn to enter the liver.

When alcohol reaches yourbrain, you may immediately feel more relaxed and light-hearted. You may feel you can do crazy things. But after two or three drinks, your actions are clumsy and your speech is slurred. If you over-drink, you
might suffer from double vision and loss of balance, even falls unconscious,hangover.

Read the extract and note down the examples, showing the effect of drugs on a human being. What social problems do the drugs cause?

Drugs

In facts, all medicines are drugs. You take drugs for your headache or your asthma. But you need to remember that not all drugs are medicines. Alcohol is a drug, and nicotine is a drug. There are many drugs that do you no good at all.

There's nothing wrong with medicinal drugs if they're used properly. The trouble is, some people use them wrongly and make themselves ill. Most of the drugs are illegal, but some are ordinary medical substances that people use in the wrong way.

People take drugs because they think they make them feel better. Young people are often introduced to drug-taking by their friends.

Many users take drugs to escape from a life that may seem too hard to bear. Drugs may seem the only answer, but they are no answer at all. They simply make the problem worse.

Depending on the type and strength of the drug, all drug-abusers are in danger of developing side effects. Drugs can bring on confusion and frightening hallucinations and cause unbalanced emotions or more serious mental disorders.

First-time heroin users are sometimes violently sick. Cocaine, even in small amounts, can cause sudden death in some young people, due to heartbeat irregularities. Children born to drug-addicted parents can be badly affected.

Regular users may become constipated and girls can miss their periods. Some drugs can slow, even stop the breathing process, and if someone overdoses accidentally they may become unconscious or even die.

People who start taking drugs are unlikely to do so for long without being found out. Symptoms of even light drug use are drowsiness, moodiness, loss of appetite and, almost inevitably, a high level of deceit.

First there'sthe evidence to hide, but second, drugs are expensive and few young people are able to find the money they need from their allowance alone. Almost inevitably, needing money to pay for drugs leads to crime.

AIDS is a sickness that attacks the body's natural system against disease. AIDS itself doesn't kill, but because the body's defence system is damaged, the patient has a reduced ability to fight off many other diseases,includingflu or the common cold.

It has been reported that about 10 million people worldwide may have been infected by the virus that causes AIDS. It is estimated that about 350 thousand people have the disease and that another million (!) may get it within the next five years. Africa and South America are the continents where AIDS is most rampant, although in the States alone about 50,000 people have already died of AIDS.

So far there is no cure for AIDS. We know that AIDS is caused by a virus, which invades healthy cells, including the white blood cells that are part of our defence system. The virus takes control of the healthy cells genetic material and forces the cell to make a copy of the virus. The cell then dies and the multiplied virus moves on to invade and kill other healthy cells. The AIDS virus can be passed on sexually or by sharing needles used to inject drugs. It also can be passed in blood products or from a pregnant woman with AIDS to her baby.

Many stories about the spread of AIDS are false. One cannot get AIDS by working with someone who's got it, or by going to the same school, or by touching objects belonging to or touched by an infected person. Nobody caring for an AIDS patient has developed AIDS and, since there is no cure for it at present, be as helpful and understanding as possible to those suffering from this terrible disease.

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Optional: Alcohol in Moderation (Not for Everyone)

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