Drugs in YA

      I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday like I had said. The internet service decided to take the day off.

      Welp, anyway, y'all have voted, and drugs it is. But don't worry everyone else, I will cover the other issues in the near future.

      Drugs. It's such a touchy topic in YA, unfortunately, many authors don't seem to realize that. Maybe it's just me, but I get really mad when I read a book that glorifies or doesn't call drugs out for what they are. But I've seen lives torn apart by this, and I hate it when I read a book where the author praises this lifestyle.

     Teens just a few years older than me go to juvie, their futures ruined.

     CPS takes children away from parents, because the parents loved drugs more than their flesh and blood.

     Girls go into prostitution because they got hooked.

     People literally can die from this.

     Lives are ruined by this.

     

     And then I'm reading some books and the writer is just like, “Drugs are fun!” and I'm always here like, okay, near the end of this book she'll show the results of this lifestyle, and the writer doesn't. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY. LIKE HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED A FAMILY MEMEBER, A FRIEND, OR MAYBE YOURSELF GO DOWN THIS PATH? No? THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T CALL IT “FUN”. Just a thought. Go to a juvenile prison, a actual prison, become a foster parent, and then you can come back and call it “fun” if you want. But I doubt you will, because then your ignorant self will realize, hey, this isn't fun for anyone.

      It's like if I never had any family members who died from smoking (my grandmother and my step great grandmother both passed from lung cancer, at least we think so, they were smokers). But let's just pretend that no one I knew was a smoker, that I'd never even really met a smoker or done any research on smoking and I wrote a book with the message, “Smoking is fun! Smoking is cool! There's nothing wrong with smoking!!!”

    Do you see how stupid that is? I know absolutely nothing about smoking, I can't say that it's fun and there's nothing wrong with it. Let's go ask someone who's trying to get rid of their smoking addiction if smoking is fun. Or someone dying from lung cancer because they were smokers. Or someone who watched family members die because they were smokers. Or people only in their thirties looking like their in their sixties because they are or were smokers.

     Now, why don't you writers who blatantly call drugs “fun” in your books go ask some of the sixteen year olds sitting in juvie if drugs are “fun”, or foster children who were torn away from their parents because they couldn't get over their addictions if drugs is “fun”, go ask a hooker if drugs are “fun”. Go ask an eight year old who is being neglected and who is watching their mom throw away both of their lives because she loves drugs more, if drugs are “fun”.

    I don't think these authors realize how stupid and inconsiderate their books are, and someone needs to stop them. This needs to stop. Luckily, no one is immortal (thank goodness, right? Not that they're going to die, but that we have a chance to fix the past mistakes with the present). And we are the next bestsellers, so I'm asking you, don't mis-represent drugs. It's not fun. It's not funny. It's horrid.

Books that I think represent drug abuse the right way:

• Ellen Hopkin's book, Crank. It shows a young woman’s slow descent into a life of drugs and prostitution. It is very heartbreaking, and I would warn people that it has a lot of very explicit scenes, that I decided to skip (I do get it, she's a prostitute, I just don't want or need to read that). And it has a lot of language. Honestly, I wouldn't recommended this book to most people, just because of it's nature and bluntness. But if you want a read that tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the drugs, look no farther.

• Terri Blackstock's Intervention series. Unlike Crank, these books are Christian. There is no language and no scenes. And while still being blunt, it's way more PG.

In this book series it shows a mother trying to save her daughter from slowly killing herself with drugs. Finally at her last resort, Barbra Covington decides to have an intervention, and she hires an interventionist to take her daughter Emily to a drug treatment resort. Emily finally agrees and she and her interventionist leave to go to another state to the resort, but it goes all wrong when Emily's interventionist is found murdered and Emily is nowhere to be found. Barbara and her fourteen year old son set out with a detective in hope's of finding Emily. Barbara is certain that Emily would never kill someone even for drugs, and she fears that something awful happened to Emily…

      Obviously, I liked this book series way more than Crank. I first read it when I was twelve and a lot of it flew right over my head, but I re-read it last week and it was SO GOOD. I LOVED IT SO SO MUCH. Seriously, y'all need to read this, not only is it warning about drug abuse, but it's a Christian mystery/thriller. A must read for any Christian, or just anyone in general, you don't need to be a Christian to fall in love with this story. 

       We have one more rebellious post this week! But let me know if you did one and I somehow missed it!!!

Anne: #RebelliousWriting

Melissa: #RebelliousWriting-Where is the Light?

What do you think about drugs in YA?

What are you doing this weekend?? (I'm going to see Wonder Woman, today).

Will you read Intervention? You should! ;)

Happy Writing,