The Research Institute for Social Development of the United Nations explains that drug producers and traffickers, have organized on a world-wide scale and have invested a great part of their earnings in financial centers which offers discretion and attractive interest rates.  Drug traffickers now have the option of laundering dirty money by moving it electronically, with little control or restriction from the nations.

In light of this, one can easily understand the statement made by the United Nations General Secretary, Kofi Annan:  “Drugs are destroying society, encouraging delinquency, spreading diseases such as AIDS and destroying our young people and our future.”

Minors who practice prostitution and take drugs frequently are involved in the traffic of drugs and in serious crime.  Likewise they are victims of such violations and sexually are put completely at risk.

The World Health Organization has set forth five basic reasons why young people get involved in drugs:

1.  On the first point the World Health Organization states that a young person takes drugs to make him feel older, this means that his limitations, repressions and inhibitions are liberated by the effect brought about by the drug in his physical body, that is how a person experiences the feeling of power and the ability to make any decision without hesitation.

2.   The second point, the guilty feelings a minor has stand out because of his obsessive need for approval, for that reason he takes drugs to feel accepted as he is and be part of the group or gang.

3.   In the third point one can explain the attraction to drugs in the following way:  Because of their neutralizing effect, they clear away any physical or emotional need a person might have at the time, giving you a sensation of relief and relaxation.

4.  One of the consequences of taking drugs is the increasing loss of judgment and basic values that guide a minor; this is more frequently found in children who come from broken homes where the parents are the ones who exploit their children.  Drugs are seen as an excuse to escape their reality and a subconscious way of calling for attention and show rebellion thinking they have the world by the tail and that they are self sufficient.

5.  With the last point we reinforce the idea that states that minors have not achieved maturity enough to discern which things are licit and which are not, on the other hand we have the fact that they do not have a set of clearly defined values, add to that the fact that they have scars from their childhood, their lives and experiences in their own homes.