The Prevalence of at Least One-Time Substance Abuse among Kerman Pre-university Male Students

BACKGROUND: Substance abuse is one of the main health problems in Iran andawareness about its spread and procedure of spread in the society,particularly the susceptible society of students, is very important withregard to the population pyramid of Iran. METHODS: This study was performed by cross-sectional method. The sampling sizewas 610 male students in pre-university grade by a probabilistic clustersampling. Our research instrument was the WHO questionnaire. FINDINGS: The experience of smoking cigarettes was seen in 34.6% of thestudents, 51.5% used hookah, 37.7% drank alcohol, 40.7% used nonprescribedtranquilizers, 10.2% used high-dosage painkillers, 6.6% usedecstasy, 6.7% hashish, 4.9% heroin, 8.7% opium and 9.7% used Pam orchewable tobacco. The first age of experiencing smoking cigarette was 14.0, hookah 13.9,alcohol 14.6, tranquilizers 13.1, high-dosage painkillers 15.3, ecstasy17.0, hashish 16.7, heroin 16.7, opium 16.7 and using chewable tobacco15.3 years. The improper use of ecstasy pills, opium, heroin andchewable tobacco was more in governmental schools compared withnon-profit school centers. There was a relationship between the low educational level of the fatherand consuming alcohol, strong intoxicants, heroin, opium, pam andexcessive use of cigarettes. On the other hand, there was a relationship between the low educationallevel of the mother with using cigarettes, hookah, alcohol, tranquilizers,strong painkillers, ecstasy, heroin, opium, pam and excessive usage of cigarettes. CONCLUSION: According to this study, in spite of the fact that drug abuse is at awarning rate, the tendency toward hookah, tranquilizers and alcohol is noticeable.