Sociology 2267A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Drug User, Coronary Artery Disease
26 Apr 2018
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Chapter 10- issues of substance abuse and related crime
in adolescence
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
9:12 AM
Substance abuse among Canadian youth
• For every year an adolescent delays drug use, the risk of developing a serious problem with
substance abused is reduced by 5%
• Drug use trends
o More males appear to engage in daily or almost daily cannabis use and males appear to
more often report driving after drinking
• Alcohol use
o Must common
o Alberta, manitoba, quebec =legal age is 18
o Grades 7-12 52.6% reported using alcohol at least once, and between 19-30% reported
consuming 5 or more drinks on a single occasion in the past year
• Tobacco use
o Majority of youth (76%) in grade 6-12 have never tried smoking, while 2% reported being
daily smokers
• Marijuana use
o Most commonly used illicit drug
o 20-36% of students in grade 7-12 have reported using marijuana in their lifetime
o 1 in 20, grade 7 students reported past-year marijuana use while past year use for grade 12
students was 1/2 or 1/3
• Other drug use
o Ecstasy is the second most commonly used drug by adolescents
• 3% of youth reported using in the last year
o Polysubstance abuse -use of combination of 2 or more substances at the same time is also
common
Inherent challenges of measuring adolescent drug use in street-involved youth
• Potential methodological problems such as: social desirability effect, errors in memory,
exaggeration, and deception
• Street-involved youth are at a greater risk than mainstream youth to use both non-injection and
injection drugs and to engage in unsafe sexual behaviour and that they suffer from various health
and mental health problems
Reasons youth use alcohol and other drugs
• For pleasure
o Increasing positive experiences while at parties
o May also have an overly positive expectation of the effects of drugs
• As a result of peer pressure
o Seek to establish their identity
o If drug/alcohol use is perceived as normative, young people may view the social
consequences as of not partaking as more detrimental than the consequences prescribed by
the law or others in authority
• As a means of coping
Potential negative effects of adolescent substance abuse
• Consequences of impairment
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o Accidents and self-induced injuries were among the most common causes of alcohol and
illegal drug related hospitalizations and death in canada in 2002
o While injuries owing to alcohol alone or in combination with drugs represented a small
proportion 0.6% of overall visits to emergency rooms for youth
o May results in unplanned, or unprotected sex, drunk driving, inability to remember events,
an argument with family, and criminal acts
• General health risks
o Both the type of substance used and the method of administration can have serious adverse
effects on the health
o Alcohol related deaths were most likely linked to:
• Cirrhosis of the liver, esophageal cancer, cardia arrhythmias
o Tobacco related deaths were most likely linked to:
• Lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
o More than half od all deaths related to illegal drugs were a result of overdose, HEPC, or HIV
o Cocaine leads to increased respiration, rapid/irregular heartbeats, increased blood pressure
and hyperthermia (increased risk of heart attack)
o Heroin and other opioids (codeine, morphine, oxycodone) can slow respiration to dangerous
levels
o Intravenous injections of drugs not only can be damaging to the veins, but can also put the
user at a greatly increased risk of contracting illnesses such as HEP B/C, HIV
o Intranasal administration or snorting can cause irritation to nasal linking, chronic bleeding
nose, inability to smell and difficulty swallowing
• Effects on the developing brain
o Substance use in adolescents can lead to abnormalities in brain functioning
• Psychological risks
o Some evidence that the use of stimulants-coke, meth, can cause psychosis (substantial
alteration to an individual's personality and a loss of contact with objective reality)
o Marijuana might also trigger the onset of psychosis in those people with an existing
predisposition
• Addiction
o Refers to either psychological or physical dependence on a substance
o When substance abuse stops users may feel symptoms of withdrawal
o Dependency symptoms:
• Tolerance
• Withdrawal
• Taking the drug for longer periods of time or in larger doses than intended
• Increase in the time spent obtaining the drug and recovering form its effects
• Ignoring other activities
• Continuing use despite undesirable consequences
o 21.6% of Canadians met the criteria for a substance abuse disorder in their lifetime
o Youth 15-24 had the highest rate of substance abuse among these groups
Adolescent substance abuse and the link to criminal behaviour
• Adolescents involved in the justice system tend to initiate substance abuse at earlier ages, use a
greater variety of substance, and use more frequently and at higher doses than their peers at the
same age
• Drug use causes crime through three distinct modes:
o Psychopharmacological
• Idea that the intoxicating effects of the substances change a persons behaviour
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