Euuucchhreeeee
Alaina Antonelli
Per. 1
Club Drugs
Rohypnol
When most teenagers go out to clubs, they don’t go out just to dance and have clean fun with their friends. The club scene is full of drugs and illusions that many people are not ready to deal with when they first get involved. The drugs that circulate through clubs are mostly in pill form, which leads people to think that they are safer because you don’t inject them or smoke this. This is misleading, because swallowing pills can be just as dangerous, if not more, than smoking or injecting. You never can be sure what is in a pill you may be swallowing. Underground chemists put all types of chemicals and drugs into the pills they sell. By swallowing just one of the pills you are given, you could be throwing your life away.
Many people use club drugs to get a high that they think they can only experience through drugs. They use to be happy and to feel free. But other drugs are used by some people with dangerous things on their minds. The drug Rohypnol is known as the “date rape” drug. Rohypnol is a pill that easily dissolves in drinks. If one is slipped into a drink, the drug gets into effect within about 30 minutes and the person drinking it can be knocked out for up to eight hours. The drug prevents the consumer from resisting sexual assault. When they wake up, they can’t recall what happened during the time they were on the drug. By the time that you may realize that you have been raped, it may be too late to prove that you were drugged because Rohypnol leaves your body within a few hours.
Rohypnol is known by many different names. Some of these nicknames include “roofies”, “rophies”, “rope”, “roach” and as it was already mentioned, the “date rape” drug. Whatever it is known by, it is always illegal. People take advantage of Rohypnol and don’t seem to be aware of its full effects. Many times when people slip Rohypnol into drinks, they slip it into alcohol. People don’t seem to realize that the mixture of Rohypnol and alcohol and/or other depressants can be lethal and damage the consumer and their body. Rohypnol causes hypnotic-type effects, which ease and relax the muscles, which is why people can become dependant on it. There are also a number of risks that can come with being raped. The victim can contract an STD or wind up pregnant, not even being able to remember the night that it happened.
Most of the effects of Rohypnol are short-term, rather than long-term. Some effects are decreased blood pressure, impaired memory, drowsiness, distorted vision, dizziness, confusion, gastrointestinal disturbances and urinary retention. But as it was stated before, Rohypnol is a club drug that is easy to become dependant on. If you become dependant of Rohypnol, you feel the long-term effects, which is basically addiction and all of the effects that come from the addiction. Rohypnol is also used as a drug to allay withdrawal symptoms to bring the user to a state of oblivion, but this is usually only done by drug addicts.
The club drug that causes the most deaths and hospital visits is methamphetamines and then ketamine and ecstacy after that. In fact, the deaths due to methamphetamines is around 2601 and 47 for ketamine and 27 for ecstacy. Not many deaths are due to Rohypnol. I think that this is because people don’t abuse Rohypnol as much as they abuse some of the other club drugs. Rohypnol is mostly used for date rape, so there aren’t as many people using it for themselves to get high.
The club drug Rohypnol is abused in a different way than most of the other drugs, because it is used to hurt others. Luckily, statistics show that the use of Rohypnol is not increasing over time. It is instead staying the same or being used less. The drug is still being smuggled over the Mexican line, but hopefully over time, people will realize how dangerous this drug can be and the effects it can have on the user and they will just stop smuggling it and using it all together.
Sources:
http://www.health.org
http://store.health.org/catalog/facts.aspx?topic=13
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/rohypnol/rohypnol.htm
Alaina Antonelli
Per. Float
Independent Reading
Character Description
In the novel, The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, the third novel of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Anne Brasheres, the four girls reunite one more time to spend their last summer together before college. The pants are once again circulated throughout their tight clique, and all have very memorable experiences. This novel offers four amazing characters to choose from when writing a description. There is the shy Lena, the outspoken Carmen, the crazy Tibby and the sporty Bridget. All four of these characters have different experiences over this summer, but the girl who has the least amount of attention in the third novel, Bridget, is the most interesting.
Bridget is a hard character to describe in one word. She is a mixture of smart, sporty and outrageous. She can see what she wants and then go for it, without thinking twice. She knows how beautiful and uses it to her advantage. But at the same time as being completely sure of herself, there is a vulnerable side to Bridget that not many people see. If she falls for a boy, she falls for him hard and she doesn’t know how to handle her emotions. Bridget lets her feelings stay inside of her, rather than sharing with them. She doesn’t want anyone seeing that she isn’t as tough as she makes it seem.
In the first novel, Bridget didn’t show any emotion when her mother died. She made it seem like it wasn’t a very big deal to her and that she would get along just fine. In reality, Bridget was dying inside knowing her mother wouldn’t be around to comfort her or give her advice. No one ever taught Bridget the things that a girl should know. That may be why Bridget ran into some trouble in the first book. Bridget fell in love with a counselor at her soccer camp named Eric. Counselors and campers were not allowed to fraternize, but Bridget still went after him, even though she knew that main rule. After much chasing, Bridget finally got Eric to love her back, but he ended up breaking her heart, leaving another empty feeling in her heart.
In The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, Bridget goes back to that soccer camp, only this time as a counselor. She had a feeling that Eric would be there and was upset to learn that he was. She didn’t know how to act with him after how he had hurt her so badly. Bridget did the only thing she knew how to do; She bottled up all of her feelings and let them stay inside her, acting as though it didn’t bother her that Eric was working with her. It was killing Bridget that Eric didn’t seem to care much that she was there, and it bothered her even more that he had a girlfriend back home. Bridget then gathered up all of the courage that she had and tried to make amends with Eric. They were finally friends again, working on the same activities with him and playing around with him. After a lot of time together, Bridget decided to bring up that first summer they had spent together, so that they could completely start anew. Eric didn’t feel the same way and he shunned her, showing her his lack of enthusiasm on the topic tat they were discussing. When Eric leaves for the weekend to see his girlfriend, Bridget is crushed that their friendship may be over. All she can think about is Eric and she only wants to make things right with him. Bridget ends up getting sick and catching a fever. Eric comes back and sees Bridget in her weakened state. His natural instinct tells him to take care of her. They once again get close and finally things get better between them. Once Bridget is better and camp is coming to a close, Bridget wants to tell Eric how she feels about him. Eric tells Bridget that him and his girlfriend broke up because he couldn’t stop loving Bridget. Eric and Bridget try to start a new relationship and things are finally how they are supposed to be.
This third novel shows a lot of Bridget’s vulnerable side. She would do anything for Eric and that is obvious throughout the book. A major example of the vulnerability Bridget has towards Eric is when she is sick. Bridget would never let anyone take care of her, even if she was running a fever. She lets Eric take care of her and nurse her back to health. Bridget also starts feeling regret about their first summer together and how she took advantage of her beauty to get Eric to fall for her. She realizes her wrongs and only wants to make them right. Eric brings out a different side of Bridget, a side she doesn’t even show around her friends. Bridget is afraid to show Eric her vulnerable, soft side, though, so she covers it up with her self-assurance and her talent of being an amazing soccer star. Everything she does, she does for Eric. She shows off her soccer skills for him, she wears almost nothing around him and she even breaks the rules for him.
Bridget is probably the most interesting character in the novel, The Third Summer of the Sisterhood. She is a mixture of all different personalities and every girl can relate to at least one of her personality traits. What Bridget goes through during her summer brings out new sides of her, sides that she hid from everyone, including herself. Bridget is an amazing character and Anne Brasheres does an amazing job exaggerating her qualities to show that Bridget is more than just the beautiful soccer star that people see her as.