Students advocate against drugs

Students of Suva Muslim Primary School marked the end of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (IDADAIT) yesterday.

After a week long programme and drug awareness in Nabua, Suva, students performed and advocated on drugs and its harmful effects to our lives.

Assistant head teacher, Sachindran Reddy told the students that their participation and advocacy apart from having an impact on their peers should also have an impact on theirs.

“It is effective because they have put their presentations together, sharing their knowledge with their fellow students,” he said. “The students were reminded that people have ended up at Saint Giles Hospital from smoking marijuana and other using drugs.

“Their messages should stick with them.

“My advice to all is to be smart and don’t start doing drugs because once you start, you cannot stop.

“Harmful drugs create a lot of problems for us such as heart-attack and mental illness.

“He said the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary for most people, but repeated drug use can lead to brain changes that challenge an addicted person’s self-control and interfere with their ability to resist intense urges to take drugs. “As a person continues to use drugs, the brain adjusts to the excess dopamine by making less of it and/or reducing the ability of cells in the reward circuit to respond to it.

“This reduces the high that the person feels compared to the high they felt when they first took the drugs.

“They might take more of the drug, trying to achieve the same dopamine high. It can also cause them to get less pleasure from other things they once enjoyed, like food or social activities,”