Life with jib: A snapshot of street youth's use of crystal methamphetamine

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“…The methodologies used in the qualitative studies were appropriate to gain authentic in-depth and personal experiences of street youth from their own perspectives [3,18,19,21,22,24,31]. …”

“…Self-medication with crystal methamphetamine (CM) was also reported in a 2006 study of street youth in Canada [3]. In this study, 12 homeless youth were interviewed about CM use using an open ended interviewing technique.…”

“…The major themes that emerged from the studies were the positive effects of and reasons for substance use from homeless youth's perspective [3,22,24,27], psychosocial variables of homeless youth and SU, properties of social networks and effects on SU [5,25,[28][29][30], the heterogeneity of homeless youth [18,20,26,31], and the lack of knowledge and effective interventions for this highly vulnerable subgroup [2,16,20,23]. The disaffiliation of emerging adults from social institutions and mainstream society is also a concern [1,21,31] while there are few effective interventions or policies to address this growing issue [21,32].…”

“…Substance use is a complex behaviour serving multiple purposes for youth, particularly helping to connect with others as part of the street culture [2,22,23]. It provides disaffiliated youth a means of support to cope with adversity and untreated physical and mental health problems [2,3,22,[24][25][26].…”

“…Due largely to the stigma surrounding their situation, homeless young people frequently find themselves on the outside of social institutions. The implications of such stigma and social exclusion include reduced opportunities for health and community services workers to identify effective interventions for this vulnerable group [1,[3][4][5].…”