Percepções de estudantes universitários sobre drogas lícitas e ilícitas e suas práticas de consumo

Abstract

Drug use is recurrent in the history of mankind and has the most diverse reasons and purposes. considering college students are mentioned as a risky public when talking about the consumption of licit or illicit psychoactive, this research sought to elucidate the following problem question: What are the perceptions of college students about licit and illicit drugs and what are their patterns of use? Based on studies by Nóbrega et al. (2012), Coutinho, Araújo and Gonties (2004), Zeferino et al. (2015), Eckschmidt, Andrade and Oliveira (2013), researchers who sought to elucidate similar issues with a similar target audience, an online questionnaire was prepared which was circulated to two different social media groups Facebook. . These groups are formed by students from the following public universities: UTFPR Francisco Beltrão campus and UFFS Realeza campus. In all, 91 answers were obtained, and 90 (98.9%) participants answered that they had already used some licit substance at least once in their lives, only 1 (1.1%) claimed that no, within this group alcohol and tobacco were the two substances with the highest recurrence of use. For illicit substances, it was found that 60 participants (65.9%) used it at least once in their lifetime, while 31 (34.1%) answered no. For this category the most recurrent substances were cannabis and hallucinogens. Considering both psychoactive, licit and illicit, alcohol was the most frequently used substance. It was also obtained as a result of the research several reasons for the use of licit or illicit. But even in the case of two different legal categories (given the release or not for their consumption), the motivations presented were similar. Regarding the possible consequences of using these substances, it was also possible to fit them into similar groups. Regarding the participants' positioning on psychoactive use, 53 (58.2%) participants declared themselves neutral, 17 (18.7%), favorable and the other 21 (23.1%), unfavorable to the use of psychoactive drugs illicit. For licit, 58 declared neutral, 25 (27.5%) favorable and 8 (8.8%) unfavorable. It also highlights the need for reflection on the different patterns of consumption in order to rethink the blame that has been attributed sometimes to users, sometimes to society in a broader sense, considering the different possible causes. The data obtained indicate the need for harm reduction policies and disclosure of the harms linked to the abuse of both licit and illicit substances.