The rising use of addictive drugs has become one of the biggest social problems threatening various countries. To create awareness about the damaging effects of illicit drugs on individuals, families and the community at large, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) celebrates 'The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking' every year on June 26.
Adolescent drug use is an important social issue as its development and consequences impact directly on academic achievement, high school dropout rate, early sexual initiation, and troubled interpersonal relationships among other consequences. The effects are farreaching and make substantial demands on state social services. As a state which has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation. It is the intent of this issue brief to focus on significant risk factors leading to adolescent substance abuse, effects of drug use, prevention strategies, and statistics referring to adolescent substance abuse.
Significant risk factors leading to adolescent substance abuse
There are many risk factors which lead to adolescent substance abuse. The highest risk, however, is being raised in a father-custody family, that is, a father only and father-stepmother family. Boys may be traumatized to a greater degree than girls from their father leaving home, resulting in adjustment problems such as use of illicit substances.
Research has also shown that male adolescents are more susceptible to drug use than female adolescents because females are more strongly monitored by their parents than are males. However, when this monitoring is weak, the probability that they will become involved with deviant peers becomes higher, and, likewise their involvement with drugs.
Additional characteristics that can increase the probability of adolescent drug use are:
- Lack of closeness adolescents feel toward their family
- Poor and inconsistent ways in which parents monitor, train, and discipline their children
- Family conflict
- Family attitude and behavior involving drug and alcohol use
- Associating with peers who use drugs
Research has also identified important risk factors regarding smoking. Regardless of the initial level of cigarette smoking, as long as an adolescent tried cigarettes previously, his or her risk for current alcohol use will increase greatly.
Risk factors for smoking among adolescents are:
- Using alcohol, marijuana and other illicit drugs
- Violence involvement
- Having had sex
- Having friends who smoke
- Learning problems
A recent national survey of American attitudes on substance abuse reveals that high stress, frequent boredom and too much spending money can also be considered significant risk factors for teens, increasing the likelihood that they will smoke, drink and use illegal drugs.
Effects of drug useIllegal acts committed by adolescents under the influence of alcohol and drugs are more often targeted toward persons than toward general theft. Offenses under the influence occurred more often among heavier alcohol and drug users, more serious offenders, more impulsive youth, and youth with more deviant peers. Body modification, like substance abuse, is a risk behavior and may indicate other risk factors such as substance abuse. In a recent study, adolescents with body modification such as body piercing (defined as other than one pair of bilateral earlobe piercing in females), tattoos, scarification and branding had 3.1 times greater odds of problem substance abuse than those without body modification. Adolescents with body modification should not, however, according to the researchers, be automatically labeled as substance abusers even though there appears to be a significant relationship between the two behaviors.
Consequences of commonly abused substances
Many people smoke because they falsely believe that cigarettes calm their nerves. On the contrary, smoking releases epinephrine, a hormone which creates physiological stress in the smoker, rather than relaxation. The use of tobacco is addictive. Most users develop tolerance for nicotine and need greater amounts to produce a desired effect. Cigarettes are highly addictive. One-third of young people who are just "experimenting" end up being addicted by the time they are 20.
Smokers become physically and psychologically dependent and will suffer withdrawal symptoms including: changes in body temperature, heart rate, digestion, muscle tone and appetite. Psychological symptoms include: irritability, anxiety, sleep disturbances, nervousness, headaches, fatigue, nausea and cravings for tobacco that can last days, weeks, months, years or an entire lifetime.
Risks associated with smoking cigarettes:
- Diminished or extinguished sense of smell and taste
- Smoker's cough
- Gastric ulcers
- Chronic bronchitis
- Increase in heart rate and blood pressure
- Premature and more abundant face wrinkles
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Cancer of the mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, lungs, pancreas, cervix and uterus cancer
Cigarette smoking is perhaps the most devastating preventable cause of disease and premature death. Smoking is particularly dangerous for teens because their bodies are still developing and changing and the 4,000 chemicals (including 200 known poisons) in cigarette smoke can adversely affect this process.
Alcohol
Alcohol abuse is a pattern of problem drinking that result in health consequences, social, problems or both. However, alcohol dependence, or alcoholism, refers to a disease that is characterised by abnormal alcohol-seeking behavior that leads to impaired control over drinking. The short-term effects include distorted vision, hearing and coordination, altered perceptions and emotions, impaired judgment, bad breath and hangovers.
The long-term effects include Loss of appetite, vitamin deficiencies, stomach ailments, skin problems, sexual impotence, liver damage, heart and central nervous system and memory loss.
Prevention
During the past 20 years there has been a concerted effort to develop effective drug abuse prevention approaches for implementation in schools. Some of the most widely used school-based prevention approaches are ineffective according to a growing body of prevention literature, especially those which rely on providing information concerning the adverse consequences of drug abuse. A broader prevention approach that includes elements of the social-influence approach along with information and skills designed to promote increased personal and social competence has been shown to be more effective. Although the predominant research has been conducted with cigarette smoking, prevention effects have also been demonstrated for alcohol and marijuana use. Findings indicate that youth at high risk who received a universal drug-abuse prevention program which taught drug refusal skills, antidrug norms, personal self-management skills and general social skills reported less smoking, drinking, inhalant use and polydrug use at a one-year follow-up assessment than a high-risk group in the control situation that did not receive the intervention. Indications are that universal prevention programs can be effective for minority, economically disadvantaged, inner- city youth who are at higher-than-average risk for substance abuse initiation.
Parental awareness plays an important role and is a first step in potential for deterring drug use. Unless parents are aware of the problem, they cannot initiate preventative action. In a sample of 985 adolescents and their parents, only 39% of parents were aware their adolescents used tobacco, only 34% were aware of alcohol use, and only 11% were aware of illicit drug use. An important implication is that in most circumstances there should be greater reliance on the adolescent’s report than on the parent’s report when it comes to assessing drug use. Lastly, studies have shown that higher grade point average and family connectedness may have a positive effect on adolescent smoking and students who had strong religious ties tended not to use drugs or to not have friends who used drugs.