Dear readers of The Lowell,

Welcome to the spring semester!

At the beginning of the year, we finished training our new reporters and officially welcomed them onto the staff of The Lowell. They were immediately fully immersed into the journalism experience, and have already established themselves as valuable members of our community. Our staff has nearly doubled in size thanks to the addition of these writers, and we can’t wait to experience firsthand what brilliant contributions our newest members will make.

This issue, we decided to explore a rarely discussed angle of a frequently covered topic: substance abuse within students’ households. While we, along with other publications, have published several pieces about the effects of substance use culture among teenagers, we felt that the effects that growing up exposure to substance use and addiction can have on students was an issue far too often overlooked. We hope that this issue can help shed light on students in these situations and raise awareness that substance abuse doesn’t just affect individuals, but those close to them as well. We hope you enjoy our first issue of the new year!

Editors-in-Chief,

Maren Brooks, Kai Lyddan, and Yue Yi Peng