Youth and Drug Abuse

Consumption of drugs is said to be abusive if users use them for recreational motives rather than for their medical benefits. Drugs that are consumed for recreational reasons contain psychoactive substances which stimulate feelings and give pleasure or excitement. Statistics show that a large number of youth is involved in this illicit abuse of substances. In 2010 alone, around 210 million people, youth inclusive, were predicted to take illicit substances at least once. Youth are at both ends of the drug trade, they are involved from the manufacturing to the consumption, their main positions being traffickers, dealers, and consumers.

Drug abusing youths are vulnerable to horrible health issues that may spiral to death. Due to consumption of illegal substance, youth face various challenges like school dropout, which then later affects their employment chances since they lack adequate education. These young people, most of them turn to the world of crime so that they can be able to maintain their addiction. Not only abusers face hardships due to drugs, those that are involved in trafficking and dealing with these substances are prone to jail time because the fight against drugs is at large worldwide, with some countries going to the extend of exercising capital punishment for possession of drugs.

Drug abuse among youth is traceable through many possible causes. There are a couple of fundamental influential causes which drag youth deeper into involvement with drugs. They are: poverty, personal factors, great drug-availability, influence from peers and family, school-based influences, economic, social, and community-derived factors. As impacts of drug-abuse are devastating and its causes are commonly encountered daily by youth, many stakeholders are concerned toward this issue. Responses of stakeholders including international, government, NGO, media, and even youth themselves show their intention of raising awareness towards the danger of drug involvement among youth.