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Kimberly Ponce Gonzalez
Professor West
HLTH 1050
30 April 2020
Reflection Paper
Life, Society, and Drugs. As soon as I read that name for the course I had already wanted
to take it. I read the little description of what the course was going to be about and I was even
more enamored because it was a class about drugs on the international side of things. I decided I
was going to take it and I don’t regret that I did. I learned a lot from this course and a lot of it I
can use throughout my life as well since we do deal with drugs in our reality.
Throughout each module I had noticed that many drugs can have many similarities in
either the effects or what it can look like or etc. And each drug also has many differences. I
hadn’t known much about drugs in general because I haven’t done any and I wasn’t really
surrounded by it other than alcohol and tobacco so learning about each of the different drugs was
interesting. I learned about the many effects different drugs can have on your body. For example,
when I refer back to my research paper, I learned about the different forms of marijuana use
more in depth and more on the reasons why people use it as well. Marijuana is one of the most
common drugs and it doesn’t have much of a negative impact like other drugs do such as cocaine
or methamphetamine but it can most likely go to that extent if someone had tried. It was also
interesting to learn how in different parts of the world they use different drugs and for
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contrasting or similar reasons. It’s also interesting to see if one country uses a drug for either
medicinal purposes or recreationally more often.
The impact of this course has definitely impacted my life and how I want it to be like in a
healthy lifestyle. Learning about the distinct drugs and students experiences with each one of
them can really make you think differently about a drug and it can affect your future choices as
well. I know I will continue to not use any drugs except alcohol on the occasional holiday
because it can be super damaging to your body. It also impacts not only your life but other lives
around you and I don’t want that negative lifestyle of becoming an addict and going to rehab or
doing these drugs and end up being sick and my family having to take care of me because of my
selfish actions. Another impact this has had on my life is when I go travelling. I travel a lot and
so whenever I go to different places I can really see how one state or country has been affected
by a certain drug compared to another state or country that has been affected by a completely
different drug. For example, I had recently gone to Puerto Rico and I didn’t see much drug use
besides smoking. Compare it to Mexico, I have seen people smoke as well as drink a lot of
alcohol. I can definitely take into factor that the climate or the types of people definitely make a
huge impact on that.
For the future, I would definitely take this class and the things I learned in the career I am
pursuing. I want to become a psychologist and I haven’t really decided what part of therapy I
wanted to do because there are multiple forms of therapy out there. One form of therapy I have
been interested in is being with teenagers and young adults. Seeing how drugs can impact
teenagers and young adults has been surprising to me and I know that if I go into that certain part
of the field I may encounter someone struggling for help in drugs. I also know that being a
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psychologist I would have to send someone to be prescribed with certain medication sometimes
like to help them get better sleep or whatever it is. Learning about the opiates section has really
helped me understand prescriptions more and I am glad that this will help me further understand
bit by bit of my career even if it’s a little itty bitty baby step.
