Substance Abuse in Young People

Abstract

Adolescent substance abuse, with its heterogeneity, its complexity and its association with behavioural, physical and mental health problems is of increasing interest to many; the politician, the economist, clinicians and researchers, families and young people themselves. Data concerning the prevalence and trends in use of a range of substances in different countries, cultures and different groups are reviewed. The influence of associated mental and physical health problems, the multiple definitions applied to use and abuse and the confounding effect of different ideologies and cultural differences are considered. There is now much interest in the understanding of risk and protective influences, including multi focused prevention programmes among vulnerable young people. Some positive effects of universal prevention programmes are reported, although too often they lack thoroughness in programme implementation, data collection and follow up. Indeed compared to the adult addiction literature there is a death of research on adolescent treatment outcomes. Research needs to address treatment and cost effectiveness in different settings with different groups. The evidence tends to support multi faceted interventions for high risk youths. However, the use of evidence based programmes with a scientific basis should be supported and implemented.

Work-ability assessment in young adults with disabilities applying for disability benefits

“…Several authors mentioned that learning problems are regularly occurring in individuals with developmental disabilities and mental retardation [15,30,31]. Adolescents with mental disorders and developmental disabilities are attributed a higher risk of emotional and behavioral problems [32][33][34] and substance abuse [35,36] compared with their healthy peers. Moreover, it was found that individuals with learning impairments, emotional and behavioral problems or substance abuse experience significant higher unemployment rates than the general population [37][38][39].…”

Role of individual, peer and family factors in the use of cannabis and other illicit drugs: A longitudinal analysis among Finnish adolescent twins

“…We considered several individual, peer and family factors. When searching for relevant literature on illicit drugs we focused on cannabis, as in Finland, like in many developed countries, cannabis products (marijuana, hashish) are the most commonly used ones (Programme on Substance Abuse, 1997; Virtanen and Sjöberg, 2006 (Guxens et al, 2007a(Guxens et al, , 2007bKandel and Yamaguchi, 1993), especially age of onset (Gilvarry, 2000;Vega and Gil, 2005), alcohol consumption (Guxens et al, 2007a(Guxens et al, , 2007b, especially drinking to intoxication Wittchen et al, 2007). Own ever smoking was asked prospectively at the age 14 survey.…”

“…Some individual factors related to leisure time patterns have been earlier suggested as risk factors of cannabis use, such as spending time in bars and discos (Guxens et al, 2007a), delinquency (Tarter et al, 2006), and early age of first sexual intercourse (Poikolainen et al, 2001). Although we included several family factors in the current analyses, there are others which were not considered, such as low parental involvement and higher coercive parental discipline (Chen et al, 2005), tolerance and acceptance of drugs use, poor parental monitoring and family functioning (Gilvarry, 2000). However, when testing our individual predictors among the discordant twin pairs, we actually controlled also for those potential family related factors shared by the twins.…”

“…Among individual factors, use of licit substances Gilvarry, 2000;Guxens et al, 2007aGuxens et al, , 2007bKandel and Yamaguchi, 1993;Vega and Gil, 2005;Wittchen et al, 2007) has been reported consistently as a risk factor for subsequent use of illicit drugs. Characteristics related broadly to externalizing behaviors, such as impulsivity (Conway et al, 2003), early behavior problems (Kreek et al, 2005), as well as behavioral and emotional symptoms (Brook et al, 1996;Buckner et al, 2008;Jane-Llopis and Matytsina, 2006;Monshouwer et al, 2006;White et al, 2001;Wittchen et al, 2007) have been identified as risk factors for drug use.…”

Materialist and post-materialist values and cannabis smoking among young adults: A population-based study in southern Sweden

“…Cannabis is the most prevalent illegal substance in most Western countries (Hall et al, 1999;Gilvarry, 2000;Smart and Ogborne, 2000). Cannabis abuse is concentrated in late adolescence and young adulthood (Ellickson et al, 1992;Golub and Johnson, 1994;Chen and Kandel, 1995).…”