1. FACT: Most teens in Oregon and Oregon City do not use marijuana.
Source: Oregon Health Authority
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
- Most kids don’t use marijuana. Happy Halloween!
- Most kids in Oregon City say BOO to drugs!
- Friends who don’t do drugs are FabBOOlous!
- Hocus Pocus. Drugs aren’t our focus.
- Most kids don’t fall for drugs.
2. FACT: Using drugs may affect healthy brain development.
Background info: Human brains do not develop until the mid-20s. The prefrontal cortex/frontal lobe is one of the last parts of the brain to develop. This part of the brain controls reasoning and is what allows us to think about the future, understand consequences and generally make good decisions. Thus, if a teenager uses drugs like alcohol or marijuana before their brain is fully formed, it can keep the good judgment and impulse-control part of the brain from properly developing. Delaying drug use helps this part of the brain develop to its full potential.
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
- Say BOO to drugs for a better brain!
- Drugs can turn your brain to mush. Don’t be a pumpkin head!
- No bones about it, using drugs hinders brain development.
- For the best brain, carve drugs from your life.
3. FACT: Using drugs as a teen increases risk of addiction.
Background info: About 1 in 6 people who start using drugs like marijuana and alcohol as a teen become addicted. Ninety percent of adults seeking help for addiction began using substances, like marijuana and alcohol, during their teens. Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
Teens are more likely than adults to become addicted. Don’t get caught up in addiction’s web.
Most addicts began using in their teens. Using drugs can wrap you up the rest of your life.
- Drugs are a trick not a treat!
- Drugs are SPOOKY and get you addicted.
- Drugs can make your life a nightmare.
- Don’t get caught in the wicked web of drugs.
- Forget the monsters. Beware of drugs that addict you.
4. FACT: Marijuana and other drugs are linked to school failure.
Background Info: Marijuana’s negative effects on attention, memory, and learning can last for days and sometimes weeks—especially if you use it often. Someone who uses marijuana almost daily may have a ‘dimmed-down’ brain most or all of the time. Compared with their peers who don’t use, students who use marijuana tend to get lower grades and are more likely to drop out of high school. Research even shows that it can lower your IQ if you use it regularly in your teen years. Also, longtime marijuana users themselves report being less satisfied with their lives, having memory and relationship problems, poorer mental and and physical health, lower salaries, and less career success. Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
- It’s scary how drugs can make you fail in school.
- Drugs are a poison that kills my ambition.
- Don’t let your dreams fly by – stay drug free.
- D.E.A.D. Drugs can end all dreams.
- Drugs are a dead end.
5. FACT: Drinking can make you look really stupid.
Background info: The nervous system changes that come from drinking alcohol can make people do stupid or embarrassing things, like throwing up or peeing on themselves. Drinking also gives people bad breath.
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
- Say BOO to vomiting and looking stupid at parties. Don’t drink.
- Drinking isn’t cool. It makes you look like a fool.
- Don’t be a ghoul. Drugs aren’t cool.
6. FACT: Drinking increases risk of death and injury.
Background info: The risk of injuring yourself, maybe even fatally, is higher when you’re under the influence, too. Use of alcohol greatly increases the chance that a teen will be involved in a car crash, homicide, suicide or drowning. In 2020, 172 teens in Oregon died from unintentional injuries. This represents more than 9,000 years of lost life. Source: Oregon Health Authority (OHA)
These are just examples, please feel free to use your own!
- Drinking increases risk of injury and death. It can turn you into a ghost. RIP.
7. FACT: Vaping can lead to nicotine addiction.
Source: Truth
This is just an example, please feel free to use your own!
- Don’t let nicotine cause changes to your brain. Say BOO to vaping.
- Don’t let big tobacco companies make a ghost of you.
8. FACT: Fake pills can contain deadly Fentanyl
Source: Song for Charlie
This is just an example, please feel free to use your own!
- Stay safe! Only take pills from your parents or doctor.
- Fake pills are NO TREAT.