Cannabis, juventud y género: nuevos patrones de consumo, nuevos modelos de intervención

Abstract

Incorporate the gender perspective into the world of drug studies generate new concepts and ways of understanding the realities of the drug uses for women and men. Cannabis is the illicit drug most consumed by Spanish students 14 to 18 years. Consumption is more prevalent among boys in all indicators, although this difference is not as strong as for other illegal drugs. Substances such as cannabis are not longer associated with the poor and marginal people, but are embedded in social contexts categorized as “normal”, and so are perceived by most consumers. The normalization process of the comsuption and low perception of risk associated with its use and abuse have had to play a role in the incorporation of women to their consumption. Consideration of the role of gender in alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, for the most part, has been omitted from studies of intervention effectiveness. Consequently, although scientists now can state with confidence that effective prevention approaches exist, it is not clear whether those programs are effective specifically for girls. If drug policies can aspire to a certain level of efficiency they have to tune in some way with the informal norms of their consumers.