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Social and Community Factors Associated With Drug Use and Abuse Among Adolescents
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Duncan, David Frank Petosa, Rick |
| Copyright Year | 1994 |
| Abstract | SUMMARY Adolescent drug use is heavily influenced by community, family, and peer factors. Three transitions are useful for understanding the development of drug use among young people. The first transition is from nonuse to use, which is made by almost all adolescents. The transition from use to abuse is made by 10% to 20% of young people. Contrary to popular belief, the transition from abuse back to use or nonuse is successfully made by most young drug abusers. This developmental model clearly illustrates the importance of social factors in the acquisition, shaping, and maintenance of drug-use patterns. For adolescents, drug use is a socially learned pattern of behavior. Keys points made in this chapter include: • Experimentation with drugs is normative for adolescents; abuse of drugs is not. • For most healthy adolescents there are many social benefits and minimal negative health consequences of drug use. • Typically a friend, older sibling, or parent introduces the adolescent to drugs. • Rarely are adolescents exposed to coercive peer pressures to use drugs. Peer influence is most often a subtle, indirect process of modeling and social support. • Maturity, independence, attractiveness, fun, and social acceptance are just a few of the social needs adolescents may associate with drug use. • The transition from nonuse to use is facilitated by 1. the local availability and affordability of drugs. 2. the adolescent's learning the functional and social value of drug use. 3. the neutralization of restraints against drug use. 4. drug-using peers who tend to neutralize restraints against drug use. 5. school environments with rigid, authoritarian |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://duncan-associates.com/SocialAndCommunity.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
