Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Drug Abuse and Dependence among Adolescents in Malaysia

The purpose of the study is to examine the problem of young drug abusers of 21 years old and below. It also aims to examine the trend of drug abuse among this group, over the years 1978 through 1987. The socio-demographic characteristics of these young abusers and their general pattern of drug use were examined.

The study concluded that a majority of the young drug abusers in Malaysia, identified over the years 1978 – 1987 were not chronic and heavy users. There are some influences on the pattern of drug use and the socio-demographic background of young abusers by ethnicity, academic status and age. A larger proportion of the Malay young abusers attained higher education. This indicates a need to investigate further on the psychosocial factors that contributed to this phenomenon. Late adolescence (15 – 19 years old) was found to be the most vulnerable time period to drug abuse for student abusers. A larger proportion of student abusers were found using cannabis while a larger proportion of non-student abusers were found using heroin. A majority of the non-student abusers were found to be ‘drop-outs’ of Primary Six or LCE.

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