PEREIRA, Paulo Estevão    MALFITANO, Ana Paula Serrata. Behind the smokescreen: youths from the periphery and the drugs issue. []. , 5, 1, pp.27-35. ISSN 2178-7085.

The drug phenomenon has acquired global proportions in last decades, reaching all levels of society. The association between youngsters, especially the poorer, and drug use, present in the media and public policies, has raised discussions and interventions that need to be analyzed and discussed. The society has accumulated ineffective public results in terms of policies, without considering the socioeconomic and cultural situation of those youngsters. This finding raises the necessity to reverse the order of the question and, before looking up which is the best form to treat young people that use drugs, we need to start by understanding the contexts and social arrangements that allow these young people to be exposed to drugs and how this exposure in their everyday lives is. This article is based on a survey performed with youngsters living on the periphery of a middle-sized city in São Paulo State. It is discussed, from the youngsters' discourse, the drug role in their lives, which is not the primary vulnerability. It is applied the participant observation, in a public-funded service, and interviews and workshops activities. The youths' speech unveils issues such as violation of rights, restrictions on urban mobility, real or symbolic violence to which they are subject, as well as the precariousness of labor relations, factors that translate into vulnerability greater than that arising from the drugs issue.

: Adolescent; Street Drugs; Social Vulnerability; Social Conditions.

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