Why Young People Turn To Drugs is discussed in this article and we hope you find it informative, instructive, and able to guide young people.
Why Young People Take Drugs
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The high incidence of armed robbery and other forms of violent crime since the nineteenth centenaries has been traced in great part, to the influence of drugs.
The influx of these drugs brought in its wake, the sort of crimes Nigeria had never witnessed before. Daring acts of armed robbery, assassinations, shameful, and naked body displays, etc., are more often, the result of the use of drugs.
Why Young People Turn To Drugs
Drug usage, especially cannabis and LSD, was responsible for seventeen percent of young people admitted into the Kaduna Psychiatric Unit in 1970.
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A conservative estimate has put the premature death toll resulting from drug usage and drug-related problems at over twenty percent of all the death that is occurring in the country.
This trend is bound to escalate as we become more sophisticated in our drug culture. The strange behavior characteristics that: follow the drug habit can be overlooked. These include homosexuality, other sexual problems, and non-conformist attitudes.
Furthermore, chronic drug usage can lead to habituation or psychological dependence, and abuse. This means that the wrong use, of drugs, can lead to addiction.
Marijuana for example has been one drug that is commonly used by youths. Its sustenance has been linked with acute psychotic reactions, withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, restlessness, loss of appetite, and some heightened appetite, sleeplessness, and sweating hyperactivity.
Why do Young People turn to drugs?
The first thing to remember when considering why youths turn to drugs is that most people develop drug habits through sheer imitation, they may imitate their parents, friends, teachers, and others.
Some people drink and smoke to be in line with what obtains in their sub-group or family. Some turn to it in a bid to challenge authority.
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A person may drink, for instance, in order to get ‘high’ to be able to challenge any opponent including his boss. For instance, during the Second Republic, most political thugs were given certain drugs to keep them in shape to be able to perform all the precarious functions they had to perform for their paymasters.
Also, at a certain period of a person’s development, he may become puzzled by the changes he observes happening to him. His sense of identity may appear threatening. if he has a place or somebody to turn to for assurance, he may turn to drugs in order to resolve his crisis.
Similarly, he may turn to drugs in order to reduce his anxieties, as a means of escape from problems or just to have the experience and satisfy curiosity or merely as a means of relaxation.
Besides these, most youths of today turn to drugs because of the fast decreasing primary social controls like lack of adequate parental guidance and control, fast disintegrating extended family system, broken homes, and decrease in secondary social contrast especially the weakening of the school. community relations. laws, customs, traditions, and more so through the rapid socio-cultural changes.
Moreover, rural-urban migrations mounting unemployment, the aftermath of the Nigerian civil war, and the impact of the mass media especially the TV program which promotes and strongly advocate the use of certain drugs among youth people for instance certain advertisements like ‘Guinness is Good for you, ‘Have another one, ‘Golden Guinea plus new life in you, and so on, having a stigma on the youths to think that these drinks are actually beneficial to their health. This is a false notion.
Another element that has added a new attraction to the youth is the fact that drug pushing has come to be a very lucrative trade.
So lucrative that even the death penalty imposed some time ago and even carried out failed to scare off drug pushers from the trade.
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Some drug traders including women even go the length of putting the stuff in the stomach, anus, etc. in an effort to trick off vigilant security and customs officials.
Conclusively, the above reasons and several others not mentioned here, lure our youth into the drug world.
