Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine societal variables and prevalence of substance abuse in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. In order to achieve this purpose, four objectives, four research questions and four hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The ex-post facto research design was used for the study. This design was considered suitable for the study because the variables under study are assumed to have occurred and could not be experimentally manipulated in the course of the study. The population of this study comprised 371,022 youths of Calabar Municipality and Calabar South Local Government Areas of Cross River State, Nigeria. The sample of this study consisted of 1000 youths. Simple random sampling technique was used for this selection. An instrument titled ‘societal variables and prevalence of substance abuse among youths Questionnaire” was used for data collection’. Simple Percentages and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis were the statistical tools used for data analysis. The result of the analysis revealed that there are significant relationship between tradition, availability of substance agents, peer group as well as government security agents and the prevalence of substance abuse among youths. Based on this result, it was concluded that societal variables contributes to the prevalence of substance abuse among youths. It was recommended that government should arrests and punishes substance abusers.

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