Illicit Drug use among Young People in Australia - Literature Review

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
Illicit Drug use among Young People in Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction (50)
According to National Strategic Framework for Chronic Conditions, illicit drug use
falls under the category as one of the principal determinants that influence the overall health
condition of an individual. It falls under the societal factors that promote health (Australian
Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, 2017). The following review of literature that helps in
highlighted a detailed scenario of illicit drug abuse among the young population in Australia.
The aim of the review is to highlight the research gap or the unexplored area in the research
in order to conduct further quantitative research in this field for bridging the research gap.
Review of Literature
The review of literature is conducted based on the electronic database search of the
literary articles that are published online with the last five years. Use of specific keywords
like “illicit drug abuse” and “young Australians” are used for the database search. Boolean
operators are used in order to increase the number of relevant search hits (Parahoo, 2014). A
total of six papers are review and the summative overview of the review is highlighted below.
Bryant et al. (2016) conducted a cross-sectional study over 16 to 29 young adults in
order to understand the patterns of illicit drug among the young Australian indigenous
population. Bryant et al. (2016) used mobile based survey method in order to collect the data.
The analysis of the data highlighted that indigenous people who are residing in the regional
or urban settings are more likely to indulge in drug abuse. The drug abuse is higher among
prison involvement whereas less among in the form of taking intravenous injection. The
cross-sectional study conducted by Wand et al. (2016) stated that illicit drug abuse is higher
among the Aboriginal population of Australia who are aged in between 16 to 29 years. It is
due to illicit drug abuse that the percentage of sexually transmitted disease in increasing
among the indigenous Australians. The however failed to highlight what specific
demographic characteristic helped in promoting drug abuse among the indigenous
Australians. The survey covered 2877 participants. The large sample size can be considered
as one of the strength of the study. The study undertaken by Scholes-Balog et al. (2016),
highlighted that cannabis use is popular among the Australian adolescents and increased rate
of cannabis intoxication hamper their social status and behavioural trajectory leading to poor
academic performance and social isolation. There is direct relationship between the illicit
drug abuse and the school level education of the young adults. Scholes-Balog et al. (2016)

2LITERATURE REVIEW
proposed that poor mental state and socio-economic status could be the reasons behind their
drug intoxication. Apart from cannabis and alcohol use, the crystalline methamphetamine use
is also higher among the young adults of Australia as revealed in the study of Degenhardt et
al. (2017). However, these are costly drugs and are mainly popular among the upper middle
class families.
Australian government is however; taking initiatives in order to reduce the level of
drug abuse among the young adults of Australia for example Australian government is taking
initiative to report the cases of drug abuse (Lancaster, Duke & Ritter, 2015). The findings of
the study conducted by Hughes et al. (2017) highlighted that the street-level policing might
deter some forms of drug offenders who are mainly popular at the music festivals. However,
such policy has minimal impact on the overall young adult population or indigenous
population. Moreover, such policing also encourages the intoxicating person in buying drugs
from within the festival rather than carrying it on their own. Apart from the indigenous
population, the bisexual population residing in Australia also becomes victims of the illicit
drug abuse the lesbian women and gay men are more likely to initiate tobacco and alcohol
much earlier in life in comparison to the heterosexual population. The daily consumption of
alcohol is higher among the young LBG (lesbian-bisexual and gay) population. Apart from
alcohol, this population also becomes victims of other form of drug abuse (Roxburgh et al.,
2017).
Research Gap
The research gap that can be highlighted from the above mentioned review. The
review of literature helped to understand that indigenous young Australians are more likely to
become victims of the illicit drug abuse. The abuse rate is higher in alcohol, tobacco and
cannabis uses. The young adults and people from the LBG community also become victims
of the illicit drug abuse. The initiatives taken by the Australian government is failing to
provide the required results and this is evident from the higher rate of drug abuse among the
young Australians (Degenhardt et al., 2016). Thus there need an in-depth analysis regarding
why the young Australians are forced to indulge in intoxication. However, no research has
been conducted so far in order to address these concerns.