Kia Ora, My name is Izaak and my speech today is about Meth and Addiction.
Why do people take drugs??
People use drugs for many reasons including pleasure and recreation, spiritual discovery, performance enhancement, experimentation, peer pressure or to self-medicate physical problems, emotional pain or trauma.
Using drugs affects all people in all levels of Society and in the past 10years 11,561 people have gone to prison for drug offenses. My mum was one of those people.
Drug addiction is classed as a disease, and there are people working with the government to try and change our laws to treat drug use as a health issue to stop sending sick people to prison.
When people get Diabetes they can have dialysis and kidney transplants when people get Cancer, they can have surgery and Chemotherapy. But when people are sick with an addiction they have nowhere to go except rehabs or jail and there are more than 50,000 people in New Zealand waiting to get help for addiction.
Methamphetamine has many other names including Ice, Crystal, Crack, and P.
In New, Zealand Meth is illegal but is sold on the black market.
It can be taken many ways including swallowed, snorted or injected but most often is smoked in a pipe.
People who use meth are often blamed for everything going wrong in society and are seen as evil.
Most people who use it wish they never tried it in the first place and come from all walks of life.
Professionals, trades people, athletes, executives, teachers, university students, mums, dads, and even doctors.
Using meth does not make you less of a person.
I hope this has helped you understand more about Meth and Addictions and will help us kids to make good decisions and choices when we grow up.
Thank You
