[Investigation of drug users reported to the juvenile court of Rome].

Abstract

After illustrating the new set of rules in matter of stupefacient and psychotropic drugs, introduced in Italy on December 1975, and the duties assigned by the law to the judicial power, the findings are set forth here of an investigation carried out on 40 youths whose addiction to the use of drugs had been reported to the juvenile court of Rome up to April 30, 1977. Anamnestic, social, judicial and clinical data on such subjects were obtained. Even with the obvious reservations resulting from the extremely small sample, some findings are observed that appear to be significant: a considerable portion of the minors addicted to the use of drugs was the recipient of other interventions by the juvenile court in the civil, administrative and criminal sphere; for the males, the prevailing anamnestetic and social data correspond to the characteristics of the other subjects, with whom the court usually deals at the "re-educational" or criminal level, while, with regard to females, the picture is remarkably different. The use of heroin seems to be wide-spread among the males, where also prevail previous hospitalizations caused by the use of drugs. The Authors advocate a new and more extensive verification, to be carried out after a period of time.