Drug Abuse

Impact of Drug Abuse on School Children Aged 10 To 18 in Developed Countries (U.S., Canada, France, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Australia, Japan and China): Narrative Literature Review
Introduction
The problem addressed in this literature review is that in developed countries around the world, drug abuse among school children between the ages of 10 and 18 is on the rise (UN, 2018). School children are particularly vulnerable because their bodies and minds are still developing and when drugs are introduced to their systems, the impact can be devastating to them personally in physical and mental health terms (Stockings et al., 2016). Yet all around the developed world this is happening. Children are being brought into and exposed to drug culture because drug use, particularly marijuana use is on the rise through vaping, which was meant as a tool to wean tobacco smokers off cigarettes. Instead it is allowing young and younger adolescents to experiment with drugs (Audrain-McGovern, Stone, Barrington-Trimis, Unger & Leventhal, 2018). This is a serious problem and the impacts of this problem need to be better understood as they likely extend beyond the development effects and impact society as well. The population involved in this study is the young school age population—specifically children who are between ages 10 to 18—and the setting is in the following developed countries: U.S., Canada, France, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Australia, Japan and China. With the opioid epidemic now raging in many parts of the world, it is also a timely study as it will help to address an issue that many nations in the developed world are struggling to face: youth abusing drugs (Murthy, 2016). The legalization of cannabis in many states in the U.S. and other parts of the world is another issue making drug culture more popular (Chu, 2015). For that reason the aim of this study is to assess the actual impact of drug abuse on young school children throughoug the developed world. The goal is to ultimately find a way to address this problem and reverse the drug culture that has brought it about. But before that can be done, the actual effects and impact need to be known. It is in fact a global problem and even impacts third world countries like Ethiopia, where school children abuse inhalants to get a high (Tsegaye, 2016). Obviously youths are attracted to drugs for the effect they produce. But what is the impact of those drugs on these nations? That is what needs to be explored in more detail. This narrative literature review identifies the methods and search strategies used as well as the selection criteria for the literature searches. It then discusses the findings of the literature review in thematic terms and presents a conclusion summarizing what has been learned.
Methods & Search Strategies
The databases utilized for this literature review were accessed through Google Scholar and included ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Sage. These databases were primarily used because they contained all the scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles published on this subject. Terms used in keyword searches included: “drug abuse teens,” “impact drug abuse school children,” “impact drug use developed countries,” “drug abuse developed world,” and “drug abuse effects youth,” “adolescents,” “school-aged children,” “cannabis,” “marijuana use,” “drug abuse adolescents,” “drug abuse developed world,” “Canada,” “France,” “England,” “Germany,” “Italy,” “Russia,” “Australia,” “Japan,” and “China.” Search timeframe was 1 week.
Inclusion Criteria
Exclusion Criteria
· Written in English
· Published between the year 2004 and 2019
· Focusing on the impact of drug abuse among adolescent school children in the developed world
· Specifically mention at least one of the developed countries of U.S., Canada, France, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Australia, Japan and China
· Studies focusing drug abuse among adults
· Studies exploring drug treatments only with no discussion of the impact of abuse on children
· Studies focusing on drug abuse in the third world
· Non-English
· Studies older than 2004
Table 1: Showing the selection criteria
Inclusion criteria consisted of: publication within the past 15 years; relevance to the topic described in the article’s Abstract; English language article. Exclusion criteria consisted of: publication older than 5 year; non-English; Abstract without reference to the subject of this study. Articles were analyzed using thematic and content analysis. Article Abstracts were read to see that they met inclusion criteria. Content was examined for commonalities. Themes were identified after reading twice; themes were categorized into groups. Some grey literature was used, such as reports from the UN, because of their relevance to the subject.
Results
In total, the search returned 527 articles for review. Of these 510 were discarded because they did not fit the inclusion criteria. The remaining 17 were reviewed for this study. Relevance was determined by reading article titles and abstracts. Two works of grey literature were included in the literature analysis. A summary describing the setting, sample and purpose of these articles is displayed in Table 2. The analysis of these articles was conducted using thematic analysis. Coding was used to identify the themes after reading each article 4 times. Preliminary codes were assigned to the data to assist in categorization. Patterns and themes were searched for across the different articles. Themes were then named and grouped into the following themes. 5 main themes were found through the thematic analysis of these articles: 1) the societal impact of adolescent drug abuse, 2) the personal impact of adolescent drug abuse, 3) the familial impact of adolescent drug abuse, 4) the economic impact of adolescent drug abuse, and 5) the political impact of adolescent drug abuse. Other sub-themes included the type of drugs used among school children, academic impacts, and sexual risk-taking as a corollary to drug abuse among adolescents in the developed world.
Table 2: Showing summary of reviewed articles, the participants/setting and focus of the study
No of Articles
Authors of Articles
Participation /Settings
Purpose Of Study
1
Baggio, S., Spilka, S., Studer, J., Iglesias, K., & Gmel, G. (2016).
France,
23,000 French 17-year olds
This study investigated patterns and trajectories of substance use, with a special focus on illicit drugs other than cannabis to determine effects and possible prevention methods to implement.
2
Bonyani, A., Safaeian, L., Chehrazi, M., Etedali, A., Zaghian, M., & Mashhadian, F.
(2018).
897 girl and boy high school students from the first grade (14–15 years old)
The study tested the effectiveness of educational interventions to stop the declining age at which drug use starts.
3
Chu, Y. W. L. (2015).
Arrest data
To see if a relationship between cannabis and harder drugs exists
4
Downes, D. (2017).
No sample, expert opinion on drug abuse in Britain
Discusses the trend of drug abuse and why it is happening in England and America
5
Goodchild, M., Nargis, N., & d'Espaignet, E. T. (2018).
Low and middle-income settings, people who smoke
The aim of this paper is to measure the economic cost of smoking-attributable diseases in countries throughout the world
6
Grant, C. N., & Bélanger, R. E. (2017).
Canadian youths
Study looks at how cannabis affects the structure of the brain in a negative way
7
Herbert, A., Gonzalez-Izquierdo, A., McGhee, J., Li, L., & Gilbert, R. (2016).
10-18 year olds in England suffering violent injury to self
To examine why self-injury happens among this population and whether drug abuse is a driver.
8
Henkel, D., & Zemlin, U. (2016).
Overview of socioepidemiological research in Germany among adolescents and young adults
To see whether social inequalities are factor or are affected by drug use among this population
9
Jackson, N. J., Isen, J. D., Khoddam, R., Irons, D., Tuvblad, C., Iacono, W. G., ... &
Baker, L. A. (2016).
Adolescent drug users in America, sample size of 3,000
The purpose was to examine the associations of marijuana use with changes in intellectual performance
10
Jiang, R., Lee, I., Lee, T. A., & Pickard, A. S. (2017).
Heroin using population in America
To estimate the annual societal cost of heroin use disorder in the United States in 2015 US dollars.
11
ji Kwon, N., & Han, E. (2018).
Literature review of published literature on drug abusing youths in Japan and China
This paper focuses on the effects of MA on the human body and current MA abuse among youths in South Korea, Japan, and China, to investigate the negative effects of MA on the human body
12
Moffitt, T. E. (2017).
Qualitative review of existing theory on anti-social behavior
To discuss the relationship of drug abuse and anti-social behavior in adolescents
13
Sussman, S., Chou, C. P., Pang, R. D., Kirkpatrick, M., Guillot, C. R., Stone, M., ... &
Leventhal, A. M. (2016).
Sample of 3,356 9th grade youth in southern California high schools.
To see if social self-control is related to drug use and if the latter impacts the former.
14
UN. (2018).
World report on drug users, young and old
To examine the effects of drug use on the population
15
Velasco, V., Griffin, K. W., Botvin, G. J., Celata, C., & Lombardia, G. L. (2017).
3000 students attending 55 middle schools in Italy. 
To evaluate the effectiveness of drug abuse prevention programming on Italian adolescents
16
Waller, G., Finch, T., Giles, E. L., & Newbury-Birch, D. (2017).
Literature review of 15 papers on substance use
To understand the factors affecting the implementation substance use intervention programs in the secondary school setting
17
Wong, G. T., & Manning, M. (2017).
Australian adolescent drug users
To examine risk and mitigation factors of adolescent drug use in Australia
Findings
Among all nations in the developed world, cannabis is the most common drug among adolescent school children and is inhaled primarily by using vaping tools or hookah pipes (Audrain-McGovern et al., 2018). Other drugs include club drugs for older adolescents and inhalants (street drugs). Club drugs among older adolescents include “ecstasy”, methamphetamines, cocaine, ketamine, LSD and GHB, but these are primarily found among wealthier populations and used at what are known as rave parties (UNODC, 2018). Methamphetamines are particularly common among youths in China and Japan (jj Kwon and Han, 2018). Cannabis is primarily used in average youthful gatherings as access to it is much easier and the tools for inhaling it are more readily available thanks to the proliferation of vape pens and THC oils that can be obtained through cannabis dispensaries around the world. Young people who suffer from poverty are also more likely to engage in the illicit sale and transportation of these drugs (UNODC, 2018).
Theme 1: Societal Impact
Drug abuse among adolescents in the developed creates social tension and disruption; leads to conflicting narratives within social groups (Downes, 2017); and contributes to a destabilizing effect overall in communities where drug use is particularly bad (Jiang et al., 2017). It contributes to social inequality, though it may also stem from that as well (Henkel & Zemlin, 2016). The societal impact is strongly seen in all of the developed countries analyzed in this study, though least in Australia, where the government is more engaged in preventing the proliferation of drug abuse among adolescents (Wong et al., 2017). The societal impact is particularly damaging because it undermines the communal bonds, as seen in several nations, including Russia, Japan, U.S., England, Germany, Italy, etc.
Theme 2: Personal Impact (Health Impact)
Drug use among adolescents in school in the developed world negatively impacts the cognitive abilities of students (Jackson et al., 2016). It leads youths into lives of crime and addiction from which it is difficult for them to escape (Ji Kwan & Han, 2018). It also contributes to a loss of self-control (Stockings et al., 2016). It may lead to harder drug use over time (Chu, 2015). It can lead to hospitalization and self-harm (Herbert et al., 2016). It can cause suicide ideation (Juan et al., 2015) and lead to other risky behaviors such as risky sexual behavior (Lo et al., 2019). These personal health impacts can prevent youths from reaching their potential as adults and it can prevent them from becoming contributing members to society as they will have drug addictions that they battle the rest of their lives. They are likely to struggle with maintaining employment and they are likely to end up being a generation of lost children because of the toll that drug abuse takes on them. The more drugs that young people do, the greater damage it can have on their health, as their minds are still in developmental stages and are development can be retarded by the drug usage.
Theme 3: Familial Impact
Abuse of drugs by school children can exacerbate the family and cause breakdowns in communication (Baggio et al., 2016). Families may already be negatively impacted because of drug abusing parents, and so the breakdown of the family may actually be a factor in the children turning to drugs as well. So this is a case of a vicious cycle starting that further erodes the strength of communities. Children who abuse cannabis are more likely to become isolated from family members and report a detachment from parental direction (Grant & Belanger, 2017). The outcome of this type of erosion in the family means that the youths as they grow up are not going to have any family support or foundation as they face obstacles in adulthood, which pushes them more into drug use to escape their problems.
Theme 4: Economic Impact
Economic costs are quite significant as an entire generation is at risk of being non-productive in society and of incurring medical costs that put an undue burden on taxpayers (Goodchild et al., 2018). As more children become hooked on drugs, their studies stop and they drop out of school and typically enter into a life of petty crime, and some can end up on the streets with serious addiction issues, such as alcoholism, and may enter into prostitution and be exploited by human peddlers and traffickers. This puts a further economic strain on society as the community has to grapple with crime, drug use and the spread of disease as is currently the case in cities like San Francisco.
Theme 5: Political Impact
Governments must deal with the new challenge of drug abuse among adolescents in the developed world but they face cultural resistance amid a socially changing landscape (Velasco et al., 2017). Governments are working to develop prevention programs to help find ways to reduce the risk of drug abuse among school-aged children but there is no solid evidence that any of these programs are effective. At best they appear to be somewhat helpful but the societal and cultural pressures to experiment with drugs remains and unless the culture is changed somehow it is unlikely that these programs will have a lasting or efficacious effect.
Discussion
The findings show that the situation is dire and the general impact of drug abuse among school children in the developed world includes: negative cognitive development, increased risky behavior, lack of productivity, decline in living standards and familial relations, decline in social or civic duty, and a decline in mental and physical health. The impacts extend beyond the individual and affect society, the family, the economy and eventually governments, which are tasked with addressing the issues.
The strong relationship between social inequality and drug abuse as well as peer pressure are two issues that have to be discussed more in order to alleviate the situation. The populations of adolescent drug abusers, however, is only likely to worsen, as the research indicates that the age at which drug use is starting is lowering. This means that more and more children are experimenting with drugs, and they are damaging the structure of their brains, as their brains are still in a highly developmental stage and are easily impacted by chemicals introduced and abused in the body. The more that society allows drugs to become socially accepted the greater the risk of abuse is for younger children. This sets up a particularly difficult challenge for governments the world over to address. The young generation is coming into adulthood with serious impairments as a result of drug abuse and it is undermining the health of communities and of economies. The nations of the world may need to work together to focus on what is driving the drug culture and what can be done to thwart it. The acceptance of drug use is so widespread that it should be considered an epidemic and the culture should be considered ground zero.
Conclusion
The findings show that drug abuse among adolescents throughout the developed world is a serious problem in every nation and every nation must attempt to deal with it. As there are cultural issues to deal with as well because of the various factors of nationality that play a part in countries’ characters, there is no one method that can be developed to address this issue. The research does indicate that drug abuse among adolescents from the U.S. to China is a growing problem and that governments are working on solving the issue by testing prevention programs, as is currently being done in Italy and Australia among other nations. The evidence shows that the spread of drug abuse among youths in the developed world is starting with cannabis and vaping and branching out to other drugs, and impacting youths personal development, social circles, families, politics and the economic health of nations.
References
Baggio, S., Spilka, S., Studer, J., Iglesias, K., & Gmel, G. (2016). Trajectories of drug use among French young people: Prototypical stages of involvement in illicit drug use. Journal of Substance Use, 21(5), 485-490.
Bonyani, A., Safaeian, L., Chehrazi, M., Etedali, A., Zaghian, M., & Mashhadian, F. (2018). A high school-based education concerning drug abuse prevention. Journal of education and health promotion, 7.
Chu, Y. W. L. (2015). Do medical marijuana laws increase hard-drug use?. The Journal of Law and Economics, 58(2), 481-517.
Downes, D. (2017). The drug addict as a folk devil. In Drugs and politics (pp. 89-97). Routledge.
Goodchild, M., Nargis, N., & d'Espaignet, E. T. (2018). Global economic cost of smoking-attributable diseases. Tobacco control, 27(1), 58-64.
Grant, C. N., & Bélanger, R. E. (2017). Cannabis and Canada’s children and youth.  Paediatrics & child health, 22(2), 98-102.
Herbert, A., Gonzalez-Izquierdo, A., McGhee, J., Li, L., & Gilbert, R. (2016). Time-trends in rates of hospital admission of adolescents for violent, self-inflicted or drug/alcohol-related injury in England and Scotland, 2005–11: population-based analysis. Journal of Public Health, 39(1), 65-73.
Henkel, D., & Zemlin, U. (2016). Social inequality and substance use and problematic gambling among adolescents and young adults: a review of epidemiological surveys in Germany. Current drug abuse reviews, 9(1), 26-48.
Jackson, N. J., Isen, J. D., Khoddam, R., Irons, D., Tuvblad, C., Iacono, W. G., ... &
Baker, L. A. (2016). Impact of adolescent marijuana use on intelligence: Results from two longitudinal twin studies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(5), E500-E508.
Jiang, R., Lee, I., Lee, T. A., & Pickard, A. S. (2017). The societal cost of heroin use disorder in the United States. PloS one, 12(5), e0177323.
ji Kwon, N., & Han, E. (2018). A commentary on the effects of methamphetamine and the status of methamphetamine abuse among youths in South Korea, Japan, and China. Forensic science international, 286, 81-85.
Juan, W., Jian-Xiong, D., Lan, G., Yuan, H., Xue, G., Jing-Hui, H., ... & Ci-Yong, L. (2015). Non-medical use of psychoactive drugs in relation to suicide tendencies among Chinese adolescents. Addictive behaviors, 51, 31-37.
Lo, T. W., Tse, J. W., Cheng, C. H., & Chan, G. H. (2019). The association between substance abuse and sexual misconduct among Macau youths. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(9), 1643.
Moffitt, T. E. (2017). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. In Biosocial theories of crime (pp. 69-96). Routledge.
Murthy, V. H. (2016). Ending the opioid epidemic—a call to action. New England Journal of Medicine, 375(25), 2413-2415.
Stockings, E., Hall, W. D., Lynskey, M., Morley, K. I., Reavley, N., Strang, J., ... & Degenhardt, L. (2016). Prevention, early intervention, harm reduction, and treatment of substance use in young people. The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(3), 280-296.
Sussman, S., Chou, C. P., Pang, R. D., Kirkpatrick, M., Guillot, C. R., Stone, M., ... & Leventhal, A. M. (2016). Social Self-Control Is a Statistically Nonredundant Correlate of Adolescent Substance Use. Substance use & misuse, 51(6), 788-794.
UN. (2018). Drugs and age. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/wdr2018/prelaunch/WDR18_Booklet_4_YOUTH.pdf
Velasco, V., Griffin, K. W., Botvin, G. J., Celata, C., & Lombardia, G. L. (2017). Preventing adolescent substance use through an evidence-based program: effects of the Italian adaptation of life skills training. Prevention Science, 18(4), 394-405.
Waller, G., Finch, T., Giles, E. L., & Newbury-Birch, D. (2017). Exploring the factors affecting the implementation of tobacco and substance use interventions within a secondary school setting: a systematic review. Implementation Science, 12(1), 130.
Wong, G. T., & Manning, M. (2017). Adolescent illicit drug use and policy options in Australia: A multicriteria decision analysis. Journal of Drug Issues, 47(4), 638-664.