Substance use among young people in urban environments

Overview

The use of psychoactive substances is an old practice among people from around the world. Alcohol has been consumed for its pleasurable effects as far back as the early human settlements; cannabis, khat, coca leaves and opium poppy have been consumed in different societies for centuries. In more recent times, however, traditional and often controlled use of these substances has given way to a more problematic pattern of use, a pattern that is associated with many social and health problems. More than that, the numbers of people who consume alcoholic beverages, smoke cigarettes, and use illicit drugs have increased significantly.

In 2000 the World Health Organization (WHO) initiated a project on urbanization, youth and risk factors for substance abuse to help in advancing knowledge in this area. The first meeting of this project was held in the year 2000 at the WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe, Japan with more than 20 participants from 12 countries, including representatives of WHO regional offices and other UN agencies. The project then progressed to support reviews of this area and eventually developed an instrument that was used in a multi-country field study to collect some preliminary data on the relationship between substance abuse among youth and urbanization.

This volume contains the material developed within this WHO collaborative project. It includes revised and updated reviews written by a multidisciplinary group of scholars from seven countries in different parts of the world. It also summarizes the results of the field work conducted in nine countries. What these contributions highlight is that though substance abuse is a problem in many urban and rural populations, there are urbanising influences which increase the risk of psychoactive substance use by young people in urban areas. The results are preliminary, but they provide some basis for interventions to reduce the prevalence of these problems.