Factors in the Transition from Legal to Illicit Drug Use in Young Adults from Northern Mexico.

Objectives: This research sought to analyze the predictive effect of personal (personality traits), social (social support and social stigma) and community factors (characteristic of the neighborhood and exposure to consumption) on the transition of drug use in young adults.

Methods: Case and control study. The cases were 70 individuals from 18 to 34 years of age who had already transitioned into illicit drug use and the controls were 210 legal drug usuers (tobacco or alcohol) in the same age range who had not had the transition.

Use of Facebook, perceived stress and alcohol consumption among university students.

Analysis of the effect between the use of Facebook, perceived stress and alcohol consumption among young people. A descriptive, correlative and cross-sectional study was carried out. The sample of 1110 young university students from Nuevo León, Mexico, was selected by probability sample.

[Drugs use as a cultural practice within gangs].

Today, the social phenomenon of drugs trafficking and violence related to drugs has tended to minimize the implications of drugs consumption in gangs. This article is based on in-depth interviews in young gangs in the metropolitan area of Nuevo León, Mexico, with a view to reflecting on and analyzing the drug as a cultural practice within gangs. In the search for meaning, the first thing that is shown is the beginning of gang members in drugs consumption, and the form how drugs are presented by family members and friends of the gang is described.

Stressful situations in life, use and abuse of alcohol and drugs by elderly in Monterrey, Mexico.

This is a descriptive, qualitative, and correlation study with 112 elderly aged 60 years or older. This study aimed to identify differences in alcohol consumption according to gender and marital status, and differences in the consumption of medical drugs by gender. It also aims to determine differences in stressful life events by gender, and differences in stressful life events associated to alcohol and medical drugs use and abuse, as well as to know their perceptions on the most stressful life events they have experienced.

Personal and interpersonal risk factors in the consumption of illicit drugs by marginal adolescents and young people from juvenile gangs.

Marginal populations are groups which are known to present higher risks of drug consumption. It is possible to identify adolescents and young people from juvenile gangs that constitute this group. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of personal and interpersonal risk factors of drug consumption in 175 marginal adolescents and young people who belong to juvenile gangs in Mexico.