Abuse of Street Drugs

This research examines the subject of abuse of street drugs by young adults. The research will set forth the topic in the context of life-span developmental psychology and then discuss the variety of impacts that young-adult drug abuse may have on optimal development, with a view toward identifying psychosocial issue fronts that the phenomenon may present in the practice of counseling.

Focus on the context in which the human psyche emerges, including the social and personal relationships that it encounters, is the starting point of analysis in developmental psychology. The traditional assumption is that human psychology has universality by reason of "central processing mechanism" and that there is "a fundamental division" between that mechanism and the "context," or external environment in which the psyche is made to function (Shweder, 1990, p. 5). Human development does not discard the individual central processing mechanism but also does not valorize it. Rather, context per se is the point of analytical departure.

According to Erik Erikson, an individual experiences stages of psychosocial development based on successive crises of ego development that are successfully or unsuccessfully navigated, according as individuals appropriately identify with or liberate themselves from external influences (society, family). Erikson (1968, 1980) puts young adulthood between the ages of 18 and 30, a stage of cognitive and ego development at which the personal focus is on forming rela

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of "pseudo patients," or con artists who "are well-dressed, affable, and apparently middle-class" and who "do their homework" on symptoms, then visit doctors to obtain prescriptions for barbiturates, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, and other narcotics that are then sold on the street. Especially popular as a street-drug conversion is OxyContin, an addictive pain-killing opiate properly prescribed to cancer patients, and in some communities arrests for trafficking in that drug have become as routine as those for trafficking in crack cocaine (Roche, 2001). Department of Justice guidelines for dealing with drug offenders who have entered the legal system tend to favor treatment over incarceration. However, even though so-called "drug courts" are a medium of exchange, providing substance-abuse offenders access to treatment while minimizing jail time, "they depend on the quality and quantity of services and resources . . . within their local communities" (Office, 2001). Treatment is not always an option, however. Adult substance offenders who are arrested for drugs and who have other charges outstanding are programmatically excluded from rehabilitation programs and instead are funneled into incarceration. Young-adult d

Category: Medical - A