Exciting news! This week marks the start of screenings for Screenagers Under The Influence, which will be showing in many locations nationwide. I am personally attending one tonight in the SF Bay Area. (Watch our new trailer here.)
I have only watched a couple of movies recently because things have been so busy with finishing our new film. I was shocked that in two of the last films I watched, the characters take MDMA — also known as Molly and Ecstasy. I remember watching parts of the original White Lotus series last year, and the teen girls in the show take many drugs, including snorting ketamine. And there’s Euphoria…
When I was growing up, we never had this level of exposure in shows to hard drugs like our kids do today. We also did not have fentanyl. This human-made opioid is an extremely dangerous substance because the tiniest amount can be lethal. Because it is so potent, people who make drugs to sell know they can just add a small amount to a binder, and voila, they have a drug to sell — and they don’t say it has fentanyl, often just telling their customers it is Oxycodone or Ativan, etc.
In Screenagers Under The Influence, we examine the scary reality that people use apps, such as Discord and Snapchat, to reach young people in the hopes of selling them drugs. They might advertise they are selling Oxycodone, Ativan, or some other substance. The buyer has no idea that many of these are not what the sellers claim but instead are fake/counterfeit pills and that part of what they have in them is fentanyl.
In our new movie, you see a shocking moment when you see two grains of fentanyl, and the expert explains that it is enough to kill two people.
Many college students I talk with tell me their peers use test kits to test drugs for fentanyl. Some even bring Narcan with them to parties or concerts for extra insurance. Ingestion of opioids carries the risk of suppressing respirations so profoundly that a person can die, and Narcan if given in time, prevents opioids from doing this.
Last week, Narcan became available for over-the-counter purchase. It no longer needs a prescription. It is a very safe medicine; having it more widely available is important.
My son, Chase, who is in college, was devastated when in his sophomore year, a student he knew died from an opioid overdose. He and other students petitioned the college to have Narcan available throughout the campus. Sadly, the college said no. Chase and some other students then found an organization in town that showed them how to use Narcan and gave them some.
We must talk with our kids about opioids, fentanyl, and Narcan, and I suggest these three points to start with:
Questions to get the conversation started:
Exciting news! This week marks the start of screenings for Screenagers Under The Influence, which will be showing in many locations nationwide. I am personally attending one tonight in the SF Bay Area. (Watch our new trailer here.)
I have only watched a couple of movies recently because things have been so busy with finishing our new film. I was shocked that in two of the last films I watched, the characters take MDMA — also known as Molly and Ecstasy. I remember watching parts of the original White Lotus series last year, and the teen girls in the show take many drugs, including snorting ketamine. And there’s Euphoria…
When I was growing up, we never had this level of exposure in shows to hard drugs like our kids do today. We also did not have fentanyl. This human-made opioid is an extremely dangerous substance because the tiniest amount can be lethal. Because it is so potent, people who make drugs to sell know they can just add a small amount to a binder, and voila, they have a drug to sell — and they don’t say it has fentanyl, often just telling their customers it is Oxycodone or Ativan, etc.
In Screenagers Under The Influence, we examine the scary reality that people use apps, such as Discord and Snapchat, to reach young people in the hopes of selling them drugs. They might advertise they are selling Oxycodone, Ativan, or some other substance. The buyer has no idea that many of these are not what the sellers claim but instead are fake/counterfeit pills and that part of what they have in them is fentanyl.
In the news, podcasts, social media, and shows, there is a lot of talk about magic mushrooms, aka “shrooms,” and their potential benefits through their psychoactive component called psilocybin. For example, people talk about how consuming mushrooms can create life-changing experiences in full or microdoses. In addition, there is a lot of buzz about the important research being done to uncover potential medical applications. However, what concerns me is that all these media outlets often fail to address the risks of psychedelics and ways to prevent such risks. I’ve written this blog to offer an effective way to talk to teens about these risks, knowing that such conversations can be tricky.
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The moment we talk about drugs and the brain, it is common for teens to say to themselves, “There goes those adults saying we are frying our brains by just smoking some weed.” For my latest film, I was thrilled to find neuroscientist Dr. Yasmin Hurd and her cutting-edge research to explain in a calm, direct, convincing way without resorting to scare tactics. Watch with your kids a captivating 3-minute clip from the film where Dr. Hurd explains the most current research on brain development and the effects of exposure to the chemical THC, the psychoactive component of weed.
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Today, I’m writing about cannabis — or, as teens mainly refer to it, weed. Weed is by far the most common term. “Pot” is rarely used by younger people. I have worked hard in my clinic to refrain from using that word. I also do not use the term marijuana, although that term often gets used in research papers. In today’s blog, I write about four important topics and questions to discuss with youth in your life.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
