Child's Risk of Drug Abuse Hiked by Father's Incarceration

A new study has suggested that father's incarceration is linked with substantially elevated risks for illegal drug use in adolescence and early adulthood.

Researchers from Bowling Green State University used the data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of adolescents in schools in 1995, who were periodically followed into their early to mid-20s.

Drug Abuse | Drug Addiction | Substance Abuse - Overview
The use of Drugs for reasons other than its prescribed recommendation, is known as Drug abuse or substance abuse. Drug abuse or substance abuse is initiated by various biological and social factors.

The study examined the association between having an incarcerated biological father and marijuana and other illegal drug use.

Over 51 percent of young men, and almost 40 percent of young women, whose biological fathers had a history of incarceration reported using marijuana, compared to 38 percent and 28 percent, respectively, of comparable men and women whose fathers were never incarcerated.

Youth with incarcerated fathers also exhibited elevated trajectories of marijuana usage that extended into their mid-twenties, compared to other youth whose marijuana use peaked at about age 20.

Antisocial Behaviour and Drug Abuse in Boys Linked to Brain Abnormalities
A new study says that malfunctioning brains are to be blamed for antisocial behaviour such as drug abuse, breaking laws, and reckless attitude in boys.

Biological father's incarceration was also found to be associated with elevated use of other illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines.

"Long-term drug use may exacerbate many other problems faced by disadvantaged youth, including mental health issues, delinquency, dropping out of school, domestic violence and poverty," said the study's lead author Michael Roettger of the National Centre for Family and Marriage Research.

Drug Abuse Can Lower Your Libido
Use of 'recreational drugs' reduces sexual performance, a new Canadian study reveals.

Roettger noted "this is of particular concern within poor and minority communities where incarcerations are disproportionately located."

The researchers are careful to note, however, that this is a non-experimental study, and that the relationships observed are associations, and should not be taken to indicate a causal process.

J -K Police Crime Branch Create Awareness About Drug Abuse by Organising a Camp
Jammu and Kashmir Police Crime Branch organise a camp in Srinagar to create awareness about drug Abuse .

"Further research is needed to more fully examine if it is father's incarceration, or other closely related factors such as father's criminality, family histories of drug use, or stresses associated with family instability, that are driving these detrimental relationships" cautioned Raymond Swisher, one of the study's co-authors.

The findings were published in the journal Addiction.

Source-ANI