Factors and Conditions of the Spread of Narcotics Among Young People

Abstract

In the sociological research on this problem in Russia, a number of stages can be singled out. The first stage, from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s, involved the study of social problems and the factors fostering the spread of alcoholism and narcotics abuse, the sociohygienic and everyday-life aspects of that deviation, and connections with other forms of deviant behavior. Researchers in Russia such as A.N. Buneev, A.A. Gertsenzon, S.G. Zhislin, K.V. Maistrakh, and Iu.P. Lisitsyn worked out methods for studying that category of deviants as well as ways to treat and prevent that kind of social pathology [1]. The year 1923 witnessed the creation of the Institute of Social Hygiene under the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic], which coordinated research on the problems of narcotics abuse and put together projects to "combat" this phenomenon through the implementation of mass measures and the development of health education [2].