Most of us would be tempted to say that there’s no way a teenager could be thinking of committing suicide. But it’s sad that even for such young people, suicidal thoughts indeed occur. Statistics even show that for 2014, suicide was the second cause of death in the US among those between 15 and 24 years old.
A new article from CNN writes about the misuse of prescription opioids and their peculiar link to high-schoolers who have suicidal tendencies. Therefore, a new study reveals that about one of three high schoolers who were misusing prescription opioids also said that they’d attempted suicide.
13,600 US high schoolers surveyed
The teenagers responded to the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Natalie Wilkins, the lead author of the study and a behavioural scientist at the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, declared:
There are a number of factors that place youth at risk for misusing prescription opioids,
Wilkins also added:
Developmentally, adolescents’ brains have not yet fully matured which makes them more susceptible to engaging in risky and impulsive behaviors, such as substance use.
The conclusion is that about 33% of high school students who reported current prescription opioid misuse also had suicide attempts.
Unfortunately, suicide is a very real aspect of society. Teachers, parents, and company bosses need to think seriously about what could cause a human being to have such horrendous ideas. Nobody should think about committing suicide, as life is a wonderful gift and certainly not something that we should take for granted.
Dialogue is the best way to solve many things in life, and taking advantage of it as much as possible could also be the key to defeat the biggest threats that someone deals with, including the ones generated by his own mind.
