drug use and delinquency

Running head: Drug Abuse and Youths 1

Drug Abuse and Youths 2

Tahimy response:

Drug used by young minority group members have been linked to factors such as racial prejudice, low self-esteem, poor socioeconomic status, and the stress of living in a harsh urban environment. Peer pressure is one of the many reason why teenagers start taking drugs. Adolescence drug abuse is highly correlated with the behavior of best friends, especially when parent’s supervision is weak.  Their friendship with other drug-dependent youths give them social support for their habit. Peer network is the most significant influence on long term substance abuse. Shared feelings and a sense of intimacy lead youths to become enmeshed in what has been described as drug-use subcultural.  Another explanation of drug used in teenagers are a poor family life. A lot of these children grow up in an unhappy childhood, including harsh punishment and parental neglect. It is also common to find drug abuser in large families with parents who are divorce, separate or absent.  Other families’ factors associated with teen drugs abuse include parented conflict over childrearing practices. Failure to set rules and unrealistic demands followed by harsh punishment. Youths may choose to get high as a way to relax, improve their creativity and scape reality. Research indicated that adolescence believe getting high will increase their sexual performance and facilitate their social behavior. They care little about negativity consequences. Overall, the main reasons why teenager do drugs is low parenting attachment, rejection, peer pressure and some children just make a rational choice only caring about the supposes benefits that could bring them. Personally, I have not experience with drug abuser. I do agree with the author and the reasons presented in the book. I think those are the most common reason on why teenager turn into drug.

Johana response:

Three reasons why youths take drugs are because of peer pressure, family factors and emotional problems. When a youth associates with a friend who takes drugs, the youth is highly likely to also take drugs. This is even made worse when the parents are not in a place to guide the youth. Peer pressure is one of the main causes of drug abuse among the youths. The relationship that youths have amongst themselves is normally reciprocal and as such to reciprocate the friend, the youth would have to engage in drug abuse as a means of showing loyalty (Siegel & Welsh, 2017). A poor family life where the parents are weak when it comes to supervision or where the parents are absent would lead a youth into drug abuse as a result of family factors. Family factors may also mean that the youth has had a very harsh childhood and at times even the parents’ neglect is a factors that condemns the youths into the life of drug abuse. There are also parents who engage in drug and alcohol abuse in the presence of their children and so when these children grow up and become youths they tend to believe that such is the norm and they end up as drug abusers due to the influence from their family set up thus adding to the family factor as a reason for drug abuse (Siegel & Welsh, 2017). Finally, there are youths who deal with unconscious needs through the use of drugs. These youths are emotionally unstable and the only way to remain stable is through the use of drugs so as to keep high. Some even have to make use of the drugs to allow them express themselves properly as they are emotionally unstable without the drugs. The drugs thus give the false sense of courage and security. Some of the youths that use drugs due to emotional needs many are the times that they exhibit antisocial behaviors without the use of the drugs.

Of course there are other reasons why youths take drugs apart from the above mentioned three and such may include the availability of the drugs especially in porous neighborhoods where it becomes a norm to use drugs. There are also genetic factors where children of alcoholics may likely engage in alcoholism and such like stuff. So yes there are many other factors and as such more research is necessary to come up with more reasons as to why youths take drugs.

One of the personal example that can validate a reason given by the author is a case of a former neighbor friend of mine who had to drop out of school after a peer group influenced him into drug abuse thus making him lose track of his education even getting him arrested at some point. So yes, I have personally seen how peer pressure can make one fall into drug abuse.