By Cheok Shu Shyan

Shu Shyan is a mom and a long-time educator on our sunny shores, which basically implies she's a superhuman. She's an English Language major who loves whipping up poetry every now and then. In her free time, you can find her diving into a good crime thriller on Netflix, trying to crack the code of a Taylor Swift lyric or refueling with fried chicken and bubble tea.

In my sheltered, simple, Singaporean life while growing up, drugs had never been something that I even would remotely encounter. As a teenager, perhaps thanks to my mother's strict curfew, I was never allowed in contexts or situations where I might possibly be exposed to them. To me, drugs represented an unreal world, calling to mind scenes from some Hong Kong drama in the 90s, where men in black suits convene in secret society triads, and gang fights happen over some million-dollar drug trafficking deal.

But the world we are living in today is a different one.

Today, if you are a teenager, active in the online gaming scene, or simply well-connected and savvy on the social media fronts, you are already exposed to the risks of having a channel of supply to drugs which is difficult to be monitored, which leaves you unprotected from the governing officials.

The statistics ought to make us, parents and trusted adults, sit up and seriously consider the risks that our youths are in, especially teenagers navigating day-to-day pressures of school, friendship, and identity issues.

Discussions on risk factors for youths facing drug addiction often cite reasons like the lack of parental supervision, academic stress, peer influence and exposure to social circles (that use drugs at parties or online groups) and the increasing global normalisation of drug abuse. Teenage issues may be somewhat timeless, similar to what most of us adults also faced during our time, but they are happening in a very different world altogether.

The world today downplays the seriousness of drug addiction

The legalising of cannabis in parts of North America, Europe and parts of Asia including Thailand may lead our youths to think that this once criminalised drug is actually “not dangerous” and “normal”. The Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB)’s 2024 report highlighted that “more than half of the new cannabis abusers arrested were below 30 years old… suggesting a growing trend of permissiveness towards cannabis among our youths.”

The world today offers our young people anonymity
and accessibility to drugs

As one former drug abuser quipped in a Straits Times interview published Feb 2023, buying cannabis was as easy as “buying takeout pizza”. End-to-end encrypted messaging apps are used as contactless methods to order and deliver drugs, which reduces the risk of getting caught to almost zero.

The world today delivers illicit drugs through harmless-looking vaping devices

Kpods are vapes laced with controlled drugs like Etomidate, which can be lethal outside of its medical use as an anaesthesia. Etomidate has no recreational safety margin and the risk of causing unconsciousness, respiratory problems and even death is extremely high.

Vaping may start out simply as having a candy-flavoured cigarette substitute which some youths have wrongly perceived as less harmful than regular cigarettes. This flawed perception risks them moving onto Kpods because they underestimate the dangers and risks.

On 25 July 2025, it was reported that a primary 4 student was approached by vape peddlers near “a primary school”. Understandably, this rattled the nation’s concerned parents including myself. It hits a little too close to home, where I have 3 primary-school aged children.

In 2024, the youngest drug abuser arrested was 13 years old. That is the age of my first-born daughter. I have come to realize that I have not had any extended, open conversations recently with my children on the dangers and risks of drug abuse.

So, where do we start in educating and engaging our young ones? Here are 2 suggestions:

For younger children (Ages 7 to 11)

Have a discussion on “Everything I know about Drug Addiction”. Have the child list down pointers in a free, “no right-or-wrong answers” manner. The parent then can build on each pointer to share facts and correct any misconceptions.

For older children (Ages 12 to 16)

Watch this documentary together: The Cannabis Trap: Why Youths Are Falling For It | Addicted - Ep 3/3 Then have an open discussion on the issues raised in the video, highlighting surprising discoveries or interesting insights from the programme.

Conclusion

Building the foundation of an open communication channel to discuss real issues might just be the little steps we need to take today to safeguard our young ones from the exposure and the beliefs of untruths from the social media and pop culture around them in time to come. If we can do this well as a society, I am confident that our children will then be better informed than I was some 30 years back, watching those men in black trade drugs in suitcases of cold, hard cash on TV.