There is certainly no clear cut measures to deal with all cases of youth involvement in the drug abuse for sexual enhancement, here are some measures to prevent or control drug abuse for sexual enhancement. Youth should be well informed to;
- Effectively deal with peer pressure: The biggest reason youths engage in drug abuse for sexual enhancement is because their friends utilize peer pressure. No one likes to be left out, and youths find themselves doing things they normally wouldn’t do, just to fit in. In these cases, youths need to either find a better group of friends that won’t pressure them into doing harmful things, or need to find a good way to say no. Youths should prepare a good excuse or plan ahead of time, to keep them from giving into tempting situations (Wingood & DiClemente, 2008).
- Seek help for mental health illness: Mental illness and any type of substance abuse often go hand-to-hand. Those with a mental illness may turn to drugs as a way to ease pain or for sexual enhancement quest. Those suffering from some form of mental illness, such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder are known to have serious problem with their sexual life, so the help of a trained professional for treatment is important before it leads to drug abuse (Rhodes, 2016).
- Examine the risk factors: if youths are aware of the biological, environmental and physical risk factors that drug use as sexual enhancement possesses, they are more likely to overcome them (Rhodes, 2016).
- Keep a well-balanced sexual lifestyle: Youths take up drugs as sexual enhancement when they feel something is wrong with their sexual life or when they are unhappy about their sexual performance. But by keeping a well-balanced sexual lifestyle and limiting the expectations, they can escape the danger of drug abuse (Wingood & DiClemente, 2008). A health education program for drug prevention should be designed to include some of the following preventive approach (Mumbor, 2012).
- Primary preventive approach: In this approach the health educator helps individuals to accomplish these tasks by dispensing issues that dealt with value classification process of making decisions, improvement of self-image and the ability to try alternative action in order to achieve desired goal. The health educator will also research a wide audience if the program is presented in mass media like radio, television and newspapers.
- Secondary preventive approach: In this approach a preventive program is introduced to individuals who already have a drug abuse problem. This can be accomplished through a patient educator program which will help the drug abuser to refrain from his drug abuse habits. The drug abuser can through counselling and guidance from the health educator, develop a positive attitude that will enable him/her to stop his habit of abusing drugs.
References
Mumbor, M. I. (2012). Manual on substance abuse education for Schools/Colleges of Health Technology in Nigeria
Rhodes, T. (2016), culture, drugs, and unsafe sex; confusion about causation. Addiction, 91(6),753-758.
Wingood, G. & DiClemente, R. (2008).The influence of psychosocial factors, alcohol and drug use on African American women’s high risk sexual behaviour. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 15(1), 54-59
