Drug Use

Drug Use

Drug Use and Delinquency Response
Desiree Schnackenberg
CJS 240

A common reason for youths to result to drug use is their delinquent behavior. Many youths are committing delinquent acts before they try any type of illegal drug. According to   Little, Weaver and King (2008), “Prior research affirms that adolescent drug use and externalizing behavior problems have common personality antecedents, often co-occur, and share common functional and genetic variance.” Another reason many youths resort to drug use is because it takes them away from reality. If a youth does not like their live than for a few hours that they are “high” they can escape reality. In the second article a main reason for drug abuse was sexual or physical abuse during childhood. According to Wilson and Wildom (2008), “A widespread belief is that child abuse and neglect increases risk for drug use later in life, but the nature of this relationship and the factors that lead from childhood maltreatment to drug use are not well understood.”
Drug use relates to delinquency because the youth have nothing else to do. Peer pressure and the thought of being cool takes over the mind. “This is problematic because the literature suggests that gender groups vary with respect to predominant levels and patterns of adolescent antisocial behaviors, prevalence of marijuana use and the consistency of prospective associations between antisocial behavior indicators and marijuana use (Little, Weaver and King, 2008).” According to Wilson and Wildom (2008), “Consistent with this conceptualization, the risk factors assessed here may represent a cluster of risky behaviors that mediate the link from child abuse and neglect to illicit drug use in middle adulthood, rather than distinct and independent pathways.”

References:
Little, M., Weaver, S.R., & King, K.M. (2008). Historical Change in the Link between Adolescent Deviance Proneness and Marijuana Use, 1979–2004. Prevention Science: The...