The Yucca Valley Elks Lodge honored a sixth grader at a dinner last week for his winning essay on how drugs can affect your life. Jesse Pratt, who attends Yucca Valley Elementary School, was this year’s winner of the Elks-sponsored essay contest on “Why I Choose to Be Drug Free.” Jesse received a $50 Walmart gift card after he read his essay to club members.
Jessie Pratt’s essay:
Drugs? Drugs aren’t right. We have to fight before drugs ruin your life!
I am going to tell you things that happen if you do drugs. Some drugs ruin people’s life so badly, that when they get addicted, they spend all their pay checks on drugs and they don’t want to pay rent, so they might become homeless. They don’t have money to pay off their car and then they won’t have transportation to get to their job. Then, they lose their job! Sometimes you see them in front of stores begging for money, and maybe some of them will become aggressive, which is called aggressive panhandling, which is illegal! Some drugs are illegal so if you get caught with drugs, you will go to prison. If you are a parent, you will lose your children due to child endangerment.
Drugs can also kill you! You could overdose or take them the wrong way. I know this because my brother’s friend, Mark, took bad drugs and overdosed on them. He went missing for 24 hours. His uncle didn’t know where Mark was and after a while, he started to smell a bad smell. He checked his backyard and found him, he was dead.
There are many drugs out there that make you hallucinate and freak out! There are a lot of drugs out there, but the worst drugs are the ones with bath salts in it. I searched the internet about that and found videos of it and it seems to make people feel like they are possessed or act like Zombies. You know how people are these days, they record everything on their phones. If I were you, I wouldn’t do that because those videos can go viral and I don’t think you want the whole world to know that you are addicted to drugs. Just think about your life, you would be better without drugs! You will succeed in life, you will always have money to buy things you want and not become a miserable pan-handler. If you don’t do drugs, you will walk into a store and there will be someone who does do drugs and they will ask you for any spare change. Will you be that person who gives them money? Do you want to give them a way to buy those drugs or alcohol? Yes, alcohol is just as addictive as drugs! It is bad for you because you could get drunk and then drive and possibly, you won’t know what you are doing and crash into something or someone, then you will go to prison because you killed someone. I don’t think you want to do that!
I think drugs are bad and those are the reasons why you should not do drugs. Please, make the right choice for a better future for yourself and do not do drugs!
