ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the challenges of adolescent alcohol and drug abuse and with the prevention and treatment of such problems. We start with a description of the characteristics of substance use, followed by a brief review of the risk factors for the development of such problems. The emphasis in this chapter is on alcohol and soft drugs such as cannabis and marijuana. While some adolescents unfortunately have advanced to heroin and other hard drugs, they rarely start out using these kinds of substances. Rather, the typical substances used and experimented with by teenagers are alcohol and marihuana. Nevertheless, these “soft drugs” are often considered gateway drugs, a risky doorway into fully fl edged addictions of harmful substances and devastating lifestyles.
