The goal of my 20% project is to raise awareness of opioid addiction and overdoses, ranging from prescription pills to street heroin. This topic does not receive very much attention, although in reality more people die from overdoses than from car crashes and gun homicides combined (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).  Although I have always had an interest in the science behind addictive substances, a close friend of mine who is struggling with prescription pill addiction and overdose recently inspired me to work towards this goal. The use of prescription pills for recreational use is much more common than you would think and doesn't always include druggies that live on the streets but also everyday ordinary people, even those around you.

I plan to view this project as weekly tasks, starting with week 2 (current week) in which I will assess the work that needs to be done, prepare interview questions for recovering addicts, and plan out the next 5 weeks of the project. For the interview questions, I would like to learn more about why individuals might have started taking prescription pills, the personal effects of addiction, how it changes their point of view on life and what has been the most effective way to stay clean, if anything. On week 3 I will visit the methadone clinic in Chico, California to learn more about the effects of addiction and drug overdoses on individuals via real life examples. Here, I expect to see all kinds of different people, from those who once had a thriving life to those who have been not the streets and don't seem to have much of a future.  On weeks 4 and 5, I will continue to study the psychology behind these addictive substances while working on producing a 10 minute educational video summarizing what I have learned.  On the last two weeks of the “20% Project”, I will make final touches on the video and rehearse and finish a presentation covering what I have learned throughout the last 7 weeks. The main goal of the presentation is to summarize the ten minute video while providing bonus information in a more condensed and organized form. My overall hope is that this video will open the eyes of those oblivious to what's going on around them. 

Too often, people assume that "junkies" living on the streets are worthless low-lives who only made bad decisions. In reality, they could have been doctors, businessmen or any other functioning member of society before large pharmaceutical companies took advantage of them by purposely getting them addicted to unnecessary expensive pain killers. When the doctor starts to wean them off of these pain killers and they can no longer afford it, it is inevitable that they move to heroin, which is much cheaper and has an even stronger effect. 

I plan to ask my mother, Cherry McCabe, to be my mentor due to her reliability and willingness to help provide me with the resources necessary to carry out this project in a professional manner. The possible hurdles that I expect to face during this project include not being taken seriously due to my age and individuals not feeling comfortable discussing their past struggles with me. I will attempt to overcome these difficulties by dressing and speaking as maturely as possible whilst treating everyone I meet with respect and kindness.  Many people do not view these prescription pills as a problem, due to the fact that they are often prescribed by doctors, and thus people assume that they are safe. In reality, the amount of deaths via opioid overdoses is rising at a dramatic rate, in fact between 1999 and 2015 560,000 people in the U.S have died from this rising cause. For all of these reasons, I feel that this project will be worth my time and effort. It also might wake some people up.