Drug Abuse Among Youths

Custom research papers on drug abuse among youths discuss the sociological problem that affects just about every community in the United States. Paper Masters custom writes research on drug abuse and can focus your paper on the topic of drug abuse among youth.

It goes without saying that reducing drug abuse among youths will lead to a reduction in crime. The question has become what is the best method for consistently reducing drug abuse. Punitive measures don't work for long, and government-funded social service agencies often try to address the problem using various "band-aid" approaches such as placement in foster homes and juvenile detention facilities. Perhaps the most consistent solution to reducing the drug abuse/crime problem is an increase in the community and spiritual based programs that seem to account for all of the root causes of drug abuse, instead of continuously relying on the agencies that continue to use narrow and ineffective approaches to the problem.

Since the 1960's, drug use and crime amongst young people has risen dramatically. The effects of drug abuse on teenagers are unmistakable. Drugs rob teens of time, stamina, and health, interrupt critical learning processes, and cause teenagers to withdraw from others when they need to explore the world around them. Grade school children are being exposed to:

• Glue-sniffing
• Pot
• Crack

According to Hunter Hearst, the former director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, "Drug use used to be a decision of adolescence. Now it's a 4th grade decision." Research papers note that society has begun to educate youths about the dangers of drug abuse, and that has begun to stall the rise in drug abuse amongst adults and youth alike. However, is education alone enough to prevent drug abuse and the resulting crimes that go along with it? To answer this question, it is necessary to determine why children abuse drugs in the first place.

Many factors have led to the increase in drug abuse-related crime, including the introduction of new and powerful drugs such as crack cocaine in the early 1980s. From 1985 to 1989, after the arrival of crack on city streets nationwide, aggravated assaults increased by one-third, robberies increased by 15%, and murders in Washington, D.C. more than doubled.