The main danger of child drug addiction is not so much in causing physiological harm to the body, but in the subsequent degradation of the personality, which occurs 10-20 times faster than with alcoholism. Drug addicts cease to be interested in studies, school, and then leave it altogether. Useful social ties with friends, school staff, and teachers are gradually weakened and terminated, complex relationships arise in the family, selfish character traits, hypocrisy, and deceit develop; attention is focused only on the problem of acquiring drugs.

The issues of the formation of drug addiction in adolescence attract more and more attention of specialists in various fields, as the number of adolescents involved in drug addiction is increasing every year. In addition, it is known that only a small part of juveniles suffering from drug addiction seek help on their own, while 5-7% of all adolescents already have experience of at least one-time drug use.
The effectiveness of preventive measures for adolescent drug addiction is extremely low, and one of the reasons for this is insufficient knowledge of the specifics of adolescence.
Adolescence, as noted above, has its own characteristics, it is difficult in socio-psychological terms. Adolescents have a pronounced cognitive activity and, at the same time, a high level of social conflict. Significant neuropsychic instability, disharmonious personality development, low self-control are noted. At the same time, there is a high activity of the organism against the background of insufficiently formed protective forces. At this age, there is no attention to their health. Adolescents strive for self-affirmation and independence, actively achieving this in various ways.

One of the most important factors influencing the formation of a teenager’s personality are adolescent behavioral reactions:
– grouping with peers;
– emancipation – the desire to get out of the guardianship of adults;
– a sense of protest and opposition – when, in response to excessive “adult pressure”, a teenager defiantly starts smoking, using psychoactive substances, including drugs and alcohol;
– imitation – teenagers copying the behavior of adults without proper criticality to some of its manifestations.

Substance use has become a serious youth problem, and over the past decade it has already been classified as a child and adolescent problem, which is characterized by:
– a massive increase in the abuse of narcotic drugs among children and adolescents, and in adolescents the attraction to the drug remains mental for a very long time;
– “rejuvenation” of the contingent of people who use drugs, up to the age of 13-14 years;
– the transition from “easily available” psychoactive substances, such as tranquilizers, barbiturates, cannabis preparations in the 80s, to such expensive and prestigious drugs as cocaine, heroin, “ecstasy”, causing a more destructive effect on the body of adolescents, causing rapid addiction to drugs that lead to personality degradation, although there is a certain group of teenagers who, due to lack of funds, use cheap, “dirty” drugs. But in both cases, unlike adults who, having become addicted to drugs, as a rule, try to use softer drugs (marijuana, alcohol), young people tend to narcotic substances of strong action, when drug intoxication does not relax, but has a motor active color;
— the spread of more dangerous forms of drug use (eg intravenous injection) in the group; a symptom of drug addiction of a teenager is taking a drug alone;
– satisfaction of the teenager’s curiosity regarding the action of the narcotic substance; the knowledge of a pleasurable, new, exciting and dangerous experience, the achievement of a feeling of complete relaxation, and sometimes “clarity of thought” and “creative inspiration”. Adult drug use is rarely dictated by curiosity. Other motives appear here – the desire to achieve calmness, lightness, peace of mind. The emergence of a feeling of curiosity in relation to drugs speaks of the widest spread in Russia of “drug culture”, which fuels this curiosity (after all, no one has a desire to try water from a street puddle out of curiosity), and insufficient struggle against it by state and public institutions;
— a change in the social status of adolescents who begin to use drugs. If five years ago these were children from dysfunctional families, where such asocial factors as drunkenness or criminality of parents, cruel intra-family relations were the leading ones, today the number of drug addicts is replenished by teenagers from wealthy families with a high income. The financial freedom of a teenager existing in these families, the abundance of money, low moral and ethical standards lead to the formation of a special youth subculture in which free time becomes the leading value, and drugs are an attribute of a certain lifestyle. Prestigious discos, concerts of rock stars, youth “parties” become those “drug-dangerous” places where drugs are freely sold and accepted.

To date, the use of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, ecstasy tablets is of particular danger. The stage of the first trials is replaced by the stage of “polynarcotism”, when a teenager begins to repeatedly and systematically take various narcotic drugs. Having tried different drugs, the teenager makes a choice when those psychoactive substances that facilitate thoughtless communication are preferred. Here we can already talk about the transition of deviant behavior into a disease, where the stage of choice is followed first by mental, and then by physical dependence on any drug;
– following the youth fashion. So, a popular type of youth entertainment is night discos, which assume that young people will dance without a break for 10 hours. In order to withstand such a physical load, young people must be well prepared: have a good dance, physical, strength form. But not all boys and girls are able to withstand this night marathon to deafening music. Therefore, psychoactive substances “for unbridled fun” began to spread very quickly among the youth, for example, the drug “ecstasy”, when under the influence of only one pill you can dance without a break, without feeling tired, for 10-12 hours. Or another direction in fashion – passion for music. To sharpen the perception of fashionable music, sexual disinhibition, young people begin to take psychostimulants and psychedelic substances;
– the spread of myths about drug addiction: the first myth – “I’ll just try, it’s not scary and not dangerous” (children tend to feel immortal and fearless); the second myth – “I can refuse at any time, I’m not a drug addict”; the third myth is “alcohol and tobacco are also drugs, but a person takes them and this is socially approved, so there is nothing wrong with taking soft drugs.” The danger of these myths lies in the underestimation of drugs, after the very first use of which all components of health deteriorate – physical (biological, environmental), genetic, social, mental (mental and spiritual), and this process of rapid decline does not stop.

In the specialized literature, one more name for the reality under consideration has recently become increasingly common – addictive behavior. Translated from English, “addiction” is an addiction to something (usually bad), an addiction.
Studies have shown that the proportion of drug samples falls on adolescence. The motives for using PAS in most cases are: the desire to experience new sensations, “escape” from reality (prolonged conflict with parents, teachers, prolonged nervous tension), protest against “obsessive norms of behavior”.

The special danger of drug addiction for society is as follows. People who use drugs in a short time develop severe medical consequences of chronic poisoning of the body: damage to internal organs, nervous system, brain. Hence – a variety of mental disorders and increasing degradation of personality, gradual complete disability, high mortality. Drug addicts destroy themselves not only physically, but also spiritually. They are characterized by such changes in the psyche as spiritual emptiness, callousness, coldness, loss of the ability to empathize, to emotional contact, deep egoism. All desires and needs fade away, teenagers lose interest in learning, they learn new knowledge with difficulty, and the acquired knowledge is lost. Indifference to relatives develops, inability to critically evaluate one’s behavior.

Significant social danger of drug addiction represent from the point of view of criminogenicity, that is, as a factor that generates crime. The criminal behavior of drug addicts is due to the personality changes described above. In addition, socially dangerous actions are committed in connection with psychosis, for example, for delusional motives or under the influence of frightening hallucinations.
Teenagers are increasingly involved in criminal gangs of adults: the use of minors in criminal activities allows criminal gangs to avoid criminal liability, and this leads to even greater involvement of teenagers in this area.

The most common crime is robbery. There was such kind of “activity” as extortion of schoolchildren from schoolchildren. In recent years, a new trend has emerged. Previously, crimes were committed by children from dysfunctional, asocial families. Now – from the prosperous. The former robbed kiosks, the latter commit serious crimes, robberies, and drug dealers, that is, the external well-being of families can be deceptive.

Thus, drug addiction is a disease that manifests itself in an attraction to the constant intake of drugs called narcotic drugs, an inevitable need for a drug, obtaining it by various means, a desire to constantly increase doses, leading to physical and moral degradation of the individual and social consequences harmful to society. This is a form of deviant behavior, which is expressed in physical or mental dependence on drugs, gradually leading the child’s body to physical and mental exhaustion and social maladaptation of the individual.