Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate substance abuse amongst in-school and out-of-school youth in Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria using cross-sectional descriptive survey. In the course of the survey, the commonly use substances, causes, effects, and protection were assessed. The data obtained show that, most of the respondents were males (93%), only few were females (6.7%). All the respondents were Muslims. Most of the out-of-school youth (OSY) were married (80%) and only 6.7% are married among in-school youth (ISY).The respondent’s age was within 18-22 years in most cases. Most (80%) of ISY were at senior secondary classes, 46.7% of OSY left school after primary education, 26.7% never attended school. Most of the respondents have more than 2 kids (93.3%), only 6.7% have about 10 kids. Commonly cited drugs are: cigarette, cannabis, alcohol, inhalants, tranquilizers, opiates, and hallucinogens. Reasons for substance abuse were: social/ peer pressure, rebellion, overwork/learning, shyness, fear, parental influence, fun and lack of role model. It also revealed that ISY started drug use earlier than the OSY. Friends, drug pushers, curiosity introduced youth to drugs. Effects of substance abuse are: bad temper, disturbed sleep, ill-health, depression, anxiety, tiredness, disrespect, failure at workplace/school on individual. At family level the effects include: disgrace, breakdown of relationship, loss of confidence in child, and ill-health. While at friend’s level, the effects include: breakdown of relationship, fear, anxiety. And at community or society levels, the effects listed were: crime, reduced productivity, violence, ill-health, high cost of treatment, accidents. To protect youth from substance abuse diverse efforts by governmentand NGOs and interventions are required.
 Keywords: Substance abuse, drug, out-of-school youth, in-school youth, key informants, public health
Highlights
Drugs are helpful when they are properly used and destructive when they are misused or abused, but the abuse of substances or drugs has traverse the youth in large extent across the globe
Drug substances use can lead to dependence syndrome, a cluster of behavioural, cognitive, and physiological phenomena that develops after repeated substance use and that typically includes a strong desire to take the drug, difficulties in controlling its use, persistence in its use despite harmful consequences (Lawal and Aliyu, 2020)
An estimated quarter of a billion people, or around 5 percent of the global adult population, use drugs at least once, more worrisome is the fact that about 29.5 million of those drug users, or 0.6 per cent of the global adult population, suffer from drug use problems leading to deaths and injuries
Summary
Drugs are helpful when they are properly used and destructive when they are misused or abused, but the abuse of substances or drugs has traverse the youth in large extent across the globe. Substance abuse is a harmful pattern of use of any substance (drug) for mood altering purposes, subsequently leading to frequent and serious problems. These problems can affect performance at school, work or home. Youth are very significant in any society They are one of the greatest warewithal any nation can use to achieve development and economic growth. Prediction of trends rather difficult and to curtail this problem there is need to understand the cause, effect and source of these drugs to individuals, family, and community (Fareo, 2012; Nasiru, 2015; Lawal and Aliyu, 2020). The objective of this study was to investigate substance abuse among in-school and outof-school youth in Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria, the commonly use substances, causes, effects, and protection
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