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Substance Abuse Research Paper

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Substance abuse has a tremendous effect on society. It affects families, communities and taxpayers. It discriminates against no creed. Anybody can become a victim to drugs, legal or illegal. According to Matthew David O’Deane, he describes substance abuse as the following: “Substance abuse is the overindulgence in and dependence of a drug or other chemical leading to effects that are detrimental to the individual’s physical and mental health”. Having a chemical dependency can cause young people to join a gang or maintain their allegiance to the gang because it’s a means of making money to support their habit.

A large number of motivators play a hand in people experimenting with illegal substances. Curiosity, peer pressure, ignorance and boredom are a few. Physical and emotional problems are probably the most common. Individuals use drugs to self-medicate in order to escape reality and will deny they have a problem. After a person uses for a while, users become chemically dependent and begin to develop a tolerance which then leads to withdrawal. As a gang unit officer, it is crucial that officers are familiar with the signs of addiction because a majority of gang violence stems from drugs. …show more content…

The US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health found the following: “Gang members were significantly more likely than non-gang members to have initiated alcohol early, to have reported a high prevalence of alcohol use, to have engaged in alcohol-related physical fighting, peer drinking, drug use, drug selling, peer drug selling, and having seen drug deals in their neighborhood”. I concur with them because they’re so young and vulnerable; they admire the older members and want to fit

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