Dirty: A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic
Meredith Maran
Nobody ever claimed that I stick to one genre or topic! This past week I grabbed Dirty from the library shelf, not because I have a drug addict teenager, but because the cover looked interesting. There you have it! I am guilty of judging a book by its cover. Now let’s get onto the book…
Synopsis:
Dirty is about exactly what it claims to be about: the problems teens have with drug addiction. The author herself has a son that struggled with drug addiction as a teenager and she set out to follow three radically different teens with different backgrounds, but they all had one thing in common: drug abuse.
Each teen is from the Bay Area. Mike from Santa Rosa, Zalika from Oakland, and Tristan from San Francisco. Each teen has serious problems with some sort of drug addiction which has lead them into trouble with the law. Each teen has been through all sorts of rehab and treatment centers, but nothing seems to help. Meredith explores the differences and similarities between each troubled teenager and follows them through their journey while addressing the question “Why do some teens develop drug problems, while others can occasionally dabble in drugs and alcohol, but never become addicts?” She also delves into the different types of drug treatment facilities and goes into the nitty gritty of each one.
My Two Cents:
Dirty was a fascinating and troubling look at this country’s teen justice system and drug rehab centers. Basically, as this book will show you, the “War on Drugs” is a big joke, punishing yet again minorities and poverty level teens. Children in wealthy, middle class families are just as likely, if not more so inclined to do drugs and develop problems with them. The difference is how the justice system handles the cases. The children with money are sent to world class rehab facilities and “teen wilderness” camps to “wake them up” but does that really work? Poor teens are sent through our wonderful system or thrown in Juvie where they can “learn” from their peers. Why are we dealing with teens the same way we deal with adults? They are still just kids who need family support in tough times.
The book also delves into the joke ADD and ADHD diagnoses have become and the part pharmaceutical companies play in these diagnoses. Let’s drug up our children and worry about the repercussions later because for now they are calm and submissive. It’s not the parents’ fault, we trust the Doctor’s opinion as fact, but the truth of the matter is more and more learning disabilities are being diagnosed as behavior problems, two very different things. The sad point is the troubling ads in magazines that advise parents to ask about Ritalin for their children; I’m just saying that maybe we should take a step back from these brain altering drugs that we’re feeding our very small children and look into alternative treatments, then if nothing else seems to do the trick look into drugs.
Many teens that abuse drugs have been diagnosed with a behavior problem and put on some sort of Adderall, Ritalin, or heaven forbid Lithium (talk about gate-way drugs). Many of these teens, it turns out, don’t have a behavioral problem, but a learning disability that causes them to act out because they are bored, frustrated, or just don’t get what is going on around them. They start self-medicating as they get older because they’re not given the tools they need to problem solve.
This book is a wonderful insight to the problems of our younger generation, but don’t look for a happy ending.
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