IMPACT OF DRUG ABUSE ON THE YOUTHS: A DESK REVIEW STUDY

Abstract

It appears that drug abused by the youth, seriously impact their lives in many forms, making it hard for them to cope with their expected life routine. The review aims to address these challenges, by identifying the types and degree of drug abuse impact on the youth, and also suggest policy brief areas, which will direct the development of interventions that could reduce it. The review adopts a desktop approach of literature search of published articles. The search was conducted through Google Scholar and other websites with stakes in drug abuse issues, using ‘drug’ and ‘abuse’ search words simultaneously. In all, 26 published records were selected and explored for the narrative. Four categories of drug abuse impact on the youth are identified, thus, health, economic, social, and environmental issues. The issues inhibit the youth’s ability to strengthen and develop the needed skills for an ideal healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, the impact of drug use is difficult to quantified, as such, regional specific impact study should be conducted, for the development of a content specific drug abuse prevention program, grounded on principles of an all-inclusive approach irrespective of age, gender and cultural diversity.