Drugs and Medicine in Youth Culture

Abstract

The study is interested in a specific social category (youth) in relation to an important factor influencing health and well being (medicine/drugs). As the dimension of health is a key element in the analysis of individual life courses, this research is carried out of two considerations (the health dimension/the importance of the body to young people and the factors that contribute to the medicalization of young people’s lives (such as prescription drugs). Field research (such as the one carried on in the University of Salerno and presented in the present study) reveals that, as shown by the reality under examination, there is a desire to resolve internal problems typical of the younger generation through the application of externally introduced elements (pharmaceutical products). The conclusions of the field research regard the fact that for young people drugs are a means of maintaining constant the rhythms and activities relative to and in parallel with existential frequencies and patterns. Another conclusion is that it is possible to understand how the perception of young people on both health and illness is dependent upon a series of social configurations in which they are involved and which contribute to forming the identity structure of individual young people.