I am 20 years old now, but through most of my teenage years I felt helpless. My older brother, my hero, was losing himself to addiction.
Throughout his senior year, he began experimenting. What was at first recreational spiraled into full blown dependence by the time he graduated. Xanax, percocet, cocaine, hard drugs seized him by his mind and his body. From roughly the age of 17 or 18 until just two years ago, he was in and out of rehab, trying to reclaim his life.
He has been clean for over two years now, and I am grateful and proud every day. But his fight is lifelong. Every single day, he fights.
I tell his story not just because I am incredibly proud of my brother, but because we must confront a truth: drugs are far too accessible to teenagers. It is time to take this urgent crisis seriously.
How easy is it, really?
You don’t have to meet some dealer down at the end of the alley anymore: for many teens, access is just a text away. Surveys show that older adolescents routinely report drugs are “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain. Among 12th graders, 65 % said some drugs were easily available. That perception speaks volumes.
If a kid believes they can get something, they’re more likely to try.
In Connecticut, the numbers are alarming. Among youth aged 12–17, approximately 8.95 % report using illicit drugs in the past month. Among those users, more than 80 % report marijuana use. In the 18–25 age group, substance use jumps dramatically: 44.8 % report marijuana use in the past year, and over 20 percent meets criteria for a substance use disorder.
Cannabis remains the common drug used by young people in our state. In Connecticut’s youth population, 14.08 % had used cannabis in the past year; 7.46 % in the past month, both rates higher than the national average.
More alarmingly, harder drugs aren’t always far behind. In Connecticut, about 1.99 % of residents over 12 report past-year cocaine use, with the highest prevalence among young adults.
These numbers do not completely capture how easy it can be for teens to get their hands on pills, stimulants, or other addictive substances from people such as peers, social media marketplaces, or family prescriptions. The data reflects a system broken by convenience and, more importantly, normalization.
The stakes are real, and personal
When addiction takes hold, it doesn’t just wreck the addict’s life. It fractures families, depreciates safety, and steals futures. Watching my brother fall to addiction the way he did was like literally watching him become a different person. Angry, frail, lost. The drugs were like a parasite, feeding on his dreams, altering his personality, hollowing him out.
He eventually clawed his way back. His recovery wasn’t about heroism, it was brutal, arduous work. But every person trapped in addiction deserves at least a chance to climb out. That opportunity can’t purely rest on personal willpower; it must rest on a society that acknowledges the problem. It takes a village.
A call to Connecticut
This isn’t just a fight for the next generation of Connecticut, this is now. If we fail to act, we risk thousands more young people emptied out by substances, dreams deferred or destroyed, families torn apart in the name of silence.
Yes, drugs are more accessible than they should ever be. But the access we must fight is not just to pills or powders; it is a fight for access to intervention, treatment, resources, hope. We owe that access to every teenager in this state.
My brother’s journey is a testament both to the cruelty of addiction and to the possibility of redemption. He is no longer lost. But thousands of others may be if we don’t change course, and quickly.
Thomas Daly is a sophomore at Mitchell College, majoring in business management.