Free Essay on the Documentary: The Drug Culture - How to Counter It

The name of the documentary that I was dealing with is "The Drug Culture-How to Counter it/ Documentary Educational Video." The show was hosted by Mary Elizabeth Elliott of the Community Anti-Drugs Coalitions of America (CADCA) TV and it discussed in great detail the drug culture in our current communities and how to counter it. The major focus of the documentary was the discussion on culture and its impact on substance abuse. The three guests on the show are all experts in various fields of drug culture and they discussed how drugs affect the youth, the culture of various TV shows and the community outlook of the drugs not to mention the negative use of media in pulling the youth into drug use. Each culture has its own assumptions regarding drug use and some actually assume that alcohol is not as bad as drugs despite this being wrong. Additionally, major focus was put in discussing how music and especially hip hop music portrays drug and alcohol use as being a glamorous life when in fact it is not. The community outreach programs have their work cut out for them on how to convince the youth that what they see in these videos is not what is really true regarding the use of drugs and alcohol.

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Parents ought to communicate positively about the use of drugs and lead by example in their homes in that they do not have to entertain their guests with alcohol, as this is a culture that the kids will adopt when they grow old. The pro substance use of alcohol in TV programs and advertisements makes the use of drugs seem glamorous while this is hardly the case in real life. The use of alcohol, drugs and marijuana is especially high music videos and this mat mislead the youth to adopt this culture in a bid to emulate their music idols. Hence, parents have to be willing to watch these videos and television programs with their children so that they can explain to them that what they see on TV is not real. Finally, different counties should stop normalization of selling marijuana as this is one of the most dangerous drugs to the youths as they often see it as not being harmful. Parents ought to tell their children that what actually happens in the TV shows is not what happens in real life when one takes drugs. The media should also be used to counter the popular culture of drugs and ban advertisements that promote the drug culture altogether for the sake of the future generation.

I liked everything that the movie discussed as it was very informative and educational especially to the youth who were the target group. Additionally, I loved that the speakers provided factual evidence to support their claims and therefore, their advice was based on proven theories. My favorite part was when they showed an example of the San Diego area banning the sale of medicinal marijuana since it encouraged more people to think that it was less harmful and teenagers smoked it more than tobacco. The area created an organization known as HARM that worked towards countering the use of marijuana. The only demerit of the documentary was that it was rather short and I felt like majority of the topics were rushed through rather than discussed in length.

In my own life, I would definitely want to adopt seeing the bigger picture of advertisements rather than taking their word, especially when it comes to the use of alcohol and drugs. Additionally, I would also like to join some of the community outreach programs in my community and work hand in hand with them in addressing the drug normalization techniques adopted by media companies as well as educating my peers about the negative consequences of drug use. I would also love to go around speaking to different youth about how advertisements affect their portrayal of drugs and alcohol and know whether they influence them to purchase them or not.